My Vision for Learning in the 21st Century Rationale

Developing Research Skills for the 21st Century

My Digital Resource

I have started to create my digital resource that will help students develop research skills required for the 21st century. By providing students with tools they can use to learn information literacy skills and to help them with the research process, my hope is that students will no longer view research papers and inquiry-based projects as a daunting task. While there are some great resources already available for students to use such as the Purdue Online Writing Lab, a resource I refer to all the time, directing a student to a website as comprehensive as this one can be overwhelming. By breaking down information literacy skills into its components, students can learn and practice these skills in smaller chunks and will have the ability to view and review the components at any point throughout the research process. In order to organize these components I have decided to use LiveBinders as a way to curate the resources and tools necessary to teacher the research process.

My Rationale

The following video by Seminole State Library (2014) explains the importance of developing information literacy skills and outlines the five components that students need to learn for their academic course work, but also for real world scenarios. It is important that students understand how the skills we teach them in school can be transferable and applicable to their life outside of school. Information literacy skills are necessary for completing research papers and inquiry-based projects, but they are also essential for when a person is wanting to find more information on a product before they purchase something expensive like a car or a house.

(5 components of information literacy, 2014)

My hope for this digital resource is that students will become so familiar with the research process by the time they leave high school, that these information literacy skills will become embedded in them so that they don't even need to think about the process, they just use it. Like with any skill, the more it is practiced, the easier it becomes.

Although I am not currently a Teacher-Librarian, what I would like to see happen at my school is an agreed upon research process that is shared across the curriculum. Students need some consistency when it comes to learning information literacy skills, at least in the beginning stages. Students aren't always able to see the connections or the similarities between writing a literary essay for an English class, a historical essay for Socials, or a lab report for Science. All of these assignments require the student to formulate a hypothesis/thesis and show support for it by providing evidence. These assignments also require information literacy skills; and it would be much easier to teach these skills, and for students to learn them, if the teachers were to all agree on a particular research process and style. This is where the Teacher-Librarian can act as the facilitator between the subject areas by teaching the students how these information literacy skills can be applied to different subject areas.

My Target Audience

(Prose Media)

Since I haven't had much experience sharing my work with a broad audience, I would like to share my digital resources in stages. I would like to start by sharing my resource with my students. I can see whether my resource is easy to use and effective in teaching the resource project and then work out any kinks before sharing it with my colleagues. Once I have tested my resource, I would like to start by sharing the resource with teachers at my school who teach the research process - especially with teachers who teach different subject so that I can ensure that I have created a cross-curricular resource that all teachers can use. I would like for them to peruse my resource or even try it out with their students. When I receive feedback from them, I would then like to share my resource with other educators online. One of my key takeaways from Richardson's (2012) book Why School? is how important it is to share resources among educators. I haven't decided yet where I will post this resource for other educators to access, but there are plenty of online sites that educators access for lesson plans and ideas.

(Campbell)

Students

Like the students in the cartoon, many students are not engaged in the research process and don't put much effort in finding a topic or conducting research on it. If students had a resource to help improve their research skills that they could access at home and school, students may be willing to put more time and effort into their assignment. By incorporating different digital tools, students will hopefully become more engaged in the research process.

Teachers

(Bacall)

 Many high school teachers, including myself, are guilty of assigning an inquiry project or research paper to students with the assumption that they already have some information literacy skills because they grew up in the digital age and we don't have time in the curriculum to teach it. However, most students have not developed these skills or their skills are quite limited. While we want students to be critical thinkers, the research process can be daunting and overwhelming, which can limit a person's creativity. By providing a resource for teachers that they can use with their students in any subject area in regards to the research process, teachers are able to take the time to help foster the students' creativity and critical thinking skills rather than focusing on the basic skills they assume students should already have.

References

Bacall, A. (n. d.). Critical thinking. Cartoon Stock. Retrieved 18 November 2015, https://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/c/critical_thinking.asp

Campbell, M. (n. d.). Homework project. Cartoon Stock. Retrieved 18 November 2015, from https://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/h/homework_project.asp

Critical thinkers. (n. d.). Retrieved 18 November 2015, from

Prose Media. (n. d.). 5 tips to find your target market. Retrieved 19 November 2015, from http://blog.prosemedia.com/5-tips-to-find-your-target-audience/

Richardson, W. (2012). Why school?: How education must change when learning and information are everywhere. Ted Conferences. 

Seminole State Library. (2014). 5 components of information literacy. Retrieved 19 November 2015, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ronp6Iue9w.