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I am focusing on research & information fluency. I teach all of my elementary students using the ISTE Standards for Students. I chose to focus on 3rd graders because that is when we heavily focus on research skills at the school that I teach at. Our students start to do more PBL and genius hour type projects when they reach the upper grade levels.

What is the best way to teach research & information fluency to elementary aged kids?
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Research & Information Fluency

Published on Nov 26, 2015

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PRESENTATION OUTLINE

Research & Information Fluency

in Elementary School
I am focusing on research & information fluency. I teach all of my elementary students using the ISTE Standards for Students. I chose to focus on 3rd graders because that is when we heavily focus on research skills at the school that I teach at. Our students start to do more PBL and genius hour type projects when they reach the upper grade levels.

What is the best way to teach research & information fluency to elementary aged kids?

Students will use digital tools to gather, evaluate, & view info

The standard says...

ISTE Standard for Students #3
http://www.iste.org/standards/ISTE-standards/standards-for-students

Strategies to Guide Inquiry

It also says...

How can students drive their own thinking?

Locate, Organize, Analyze, Evaluate, Synthesize

From a variety of sources & media
They need to be able to...

The technologies that I use as far as devices are computers and iPads. My school is 1:1 with iPads and my classroom also has a laptop cart. The internet will be their sandbox. This will be where they do their exploring.

Select sources & tools

based on the appropriateness to the task

Process Data
&
Report Results

This is my big focus because right now I feel like the way I teach research and information fluency is front heavy on locating and evaluating. Processing and delivering everything they found out through their research and sharing their genius is where I am personally lacking instructional skills.

What did I research?

  • New Literacies
  • Online Inquiry
  • Internet Reciprocal Teaching
  • Think Aloud
  • Social Constructivism
  • TPACK
  • Project Based Learning
I found that in order to achieve this learning goal, I needed to explore several areas of research to inform the design of my lessons for my students. I wanted to understand the pedagogies that would help students to learn to conduct online research.

New literacies -- focuses on the ways that students engage in online reading

Online Inquiry-- looking on the internet for things you want to learn about

Internet Reciprocal Teaching -- asks students to teach each other the strategies and processes that they use to investigate a problem, which can be done through a Think Aloud (voicing thinking)

This supports the theory of social constructivism -- students can benefit from collaborative work with their peers
*Collaborating to drive each others inquiry*

I also realized that I needed to consider the complexities of teaching with technologies.
TPACK framework-- the intersection we like the call the "sweet spot" of technology, pedagogy, and content

PBL-- focuses on students coming up with their own idea of what they want to know but it is for a specific project that is guided by the teacher

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-7Q6MjpdGAnFJREFVzsV1BRlI27AmvQ5cYiXnxZ...

Project Based Learning

1. Central to the curriculum
2. Focus on questions that drive students to encounter and struggle with concepts and principles of a discipline
3. Constructive investigation
4. Student driven to some significant degree
5. Projects are realistic, not school-like

Thomas, J. W. (2000). A review of research on project-based learning.

Dream Vacation

My lesson experience that I designed for my 3rd grade students is called Dream Vacation. They will be researching and planning a vacation to somewhere that they actually want to travel to when they grow up. I plan on having them guide their own inquiry. I do not want to tell them what they need to figure out. I want them to come to their own conclusions about what they want to know about that specific place.

I will assess this learning experience in two parts:
1) Evaluate the documentation of their research process and how they gathered notes and data and made sense of it
2) Evaluate the end project

This is how I am going to tell whether or not my teaching and guidance was effective.

Code a robot

As a piece of their final project, students will code a robot. They already know how to do this. I designed this with the intent of spiraling the curriculum. The robots are also very motivating for the kids. It's like the light at the end of the tunnel!

Make a video

The coded robot will be the character for the video that they will make. The film should display information they learned from their research.

Screenshot photo via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1v8L1Jzl24