Enabling student research.
Posted by shanetechteach on June 14, 2009
My pet subject of Health Education requires students and teachers to continually read, research and gather information to inform their understanding and application of concepts. This research was recently revealed as a concern for students when I conducted an open, critical reflection in class. Therefore to enable this process, I have endeavoured to establish a routine with specific tools that can assist research.
Firstly, I set my students up with portable FireFox on their USB memory stick or in a folder on their network storage. Portable FireFox allows me to install two essential addons for research; Zotero and FoxIt Toolbar. I have blogged about Zotero previously, and have recorded podcasts on both of these tools also.
I will gather a range of resources for research. Using the FoxIt toolbar in FireFox, I can annotate and highlight PDF files. If I then choose to “Save As”, all markups will be maintained. I use this to add in bookmarks and highlights for important information. When students open the file, they can quickly navigate to what I consider important information within the document.
As an extension to this concept, when students are working on group projects, they can markup their research individually or collaboratively. If it is a web page they wish to markup, they simply print using PDF Creator and save the page as a PDF file. Then they open the file in FireFox and markup.
Zotero allows them to create collections of resources, which can include webpages and PDF files. This ensures wherever they are using Portable FireFox they can access their research.
If I build a collection in Zotero, I can export it as a file with attachments, and then distribute that to my students. They simply import the collection into their Zotero and they have my collection ready to go. This is also useful when they share research with each other. Simply export the collection and share.
Zotero can also publish a bibliography. Users need to ensure the information is recorded in the Zotero reference section, but this function enables accurate bibliographies.
And best of all, these tools are free.
Enable student research, and you can enable student achievement.
If you would rather watch this as a screencast, please refer to my wiki.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:35 am
Research is an important component of many projects. Students ask questions and search for information. They need to think about the quality and usefulness of the information they find. They also need to analyze and interpret the information they find so it can be used to create a product or to solve a problem. Information Literacy skills are vital to student success. Below is a list of subskills connected to research from the Intel Assessing Projects website.
Information Literacy Subskills
• Accessing information efficiently and effectively
• Recognizes the need for information
• Recognizes that accurate and comprehensive information is the basis for intelligent decision making
• Formulates questions based on information needs
• Identifies a variety of potential sources of information
• Develops and uses successful strategies for locating information
Evaluating information critically and competently
• Determines accuracy, relevance, and comprehensiveness
• Distinguishes among fact, point of view, and opinion
• Identifies inaccurate and misleading information
• Selects information appropriate to the problem or question at hand
Using information accurately and creatively for the issue or problem at hand
• Organizes information for practical application
• Integrates new information into one’s own knowledge
• Applies information in critical thinking and problem solving
• Produces and communicates information and ideas in appropriate formats
Some sample assessment: http://www.evernote.com/pub/hoyshane/AssessingProjects/
June 17th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Shane,
This set of subskills is something I have seen before, but have not taken much notice before now. Thanks for bringing them to my attention again.