Building Your Base

Great news today!  I am officially signed up for my C.A.S. School Media classes at Syracuse University (good ol' Cuse!).  Classes start August 29th and I am elated!  Not only will I start learning about a passion that is literally starting to take over my life and networking with other like minded professionals, but I also realized that I will have full access to the library's online databases!  I know I am a complete nerd for thinking this way, and I happily embrace my nerdy qualities and will continue to expound upon them as I see fit.  I also know that our local public library here on Schofield Barracks has access to some online databases that offer peer-reviewed journal articles, but there is nothing having access to a large university's online database. I would almost describe it as being my heaven (I know another nerdy comment).

Picture courtesy of kindercloud.com

With all that said, I want to share this week's recent wanderings into the world of research for elementary school students.  If you recall in my last post I discussed that research strategies should be taught at an earlier age than is previously being done now.  While, I applaud school librarians for beginning to push research strategies to high school freshmen I believe that strategies should be taught earlier.  In order to build a 21st Century Learner and get children thinking more along the lines of research, teachers and librarians need to develop a sense of wonder in young children.  Peter Haiman, in the article "Developing a Sense of Wonder in Young Children," stated that "children in schools and preschools are influenced by educators who often ask, rather than teachers who usually tell" (2014).  The word "ask" is the key word in this sentence.  By teachers and school librarians modeling to younger students inquirey based questioning the younger students will start to emulate the line of questioning and can begin to make connections within in the subject they are learning or with outer lying subjects.

Picture courtesy of  r3.cpapracticeadvisor.com

Last week at Daniel K. Inouye, the head librarian (Michelle Colte) and I began the task of developing a sense of wonder in our students.  At this time our library is out of commission and we have basically became a very paired down library on wheels.  Actually, it is more of a online library on wheels rather than physical books.  We are in a transitional phase at the moment while we wait for our new library to be finished. Shelves are being put in this week so fingers crossed!  Over the summer I had suggested that since a physical space for the library is out of the question, why don't we bring a virtual library to our students and begin to focus on teaching them the in's and out's of our online collection and databases.  Mrs. Colte rolled with the idea and last week we found ourselves working with different grade levels.

 Part of 4th Grade Gallery Walk

In fourth grade the students are concentrating on natural disasters.  We decided to focus our library lessons on using the online databases for research for their projects.  Before we entered the classroom the teachers had prepped them for our research by having the students participate in a gallery walk of informational posters of each natural disaster.  There were photos and text and each students was asked to write how the pictures made them feel, and to write down questions they had after looking at pictures and reading the information. Once each child was done with the gallery walk they brought their questions back to the classroom (questions were wrote on post-it notes so they could be easily moved around).  

After the gallery walk Mrs. Colte and I introduced students to the online database ScienceFlix.  We asked them which sections would be appropriate for their research needs (i.e. Extreme Nature).  Once students had identified the proper online resource we invited them to explore the sections within the Extreme Nature tab, and based on their exploration we invited them to ask supplemental questions to their existing questions.  We also encouraged students to talk with the other students in their table groups and ask questions.  A template was made to help guide students in their exploration or as we dubbed it "pre-search" process.  We had students ask, "How was your question similar to another students question?," "What question did you think of after you heard their question?,"  "What key words did you hear when heard these questions?"  

Student's Feelings Related to Images

Questions Generated by Students During Gallery Walk 

The exercise went very well and students enjoyed asking the questions and making connections between topics.  Some of my favorite questions where connections were made were, "Does an earthquake cause an tsunami?"  "Can a tornado form during a hurricane?,"  "Do robberies happen after a natural disaster?" (I especially liked this one because although looting does not take place after all natural disasters, this student was making a connection between a breakdown in the emergency system and natural disasters.)  "How does a person survive a flood?" (I also liked this one because students began to make connections between the different warning systems).  

4th Graders Using Online Resources to Question their Questions

ReflectionThe classes seemed very excited about being able to do research.  All of the students were very eager to ask questions and to be able to find their answers on their own with a little guidance.  We did find that if the lesson went too long the students lost interest, but we redirected them to get them back on track.  I would say our biggest problem was getting the students to ask more probing questions about the information they saw during the gallery walk.  Hopefully, we can get students to open up more about their questions the next go around.

Settling Into My Niche

Wow, so it has almost been a couple of weeks since I posted and I'm beginning to see a pattern in my blogging behavior; and it's not a good one!  I was thinking I would post at the end of every week, either on a Saturday or Sunday.  However, by the end of the week I am pooped!  Keeping up with working, two kids, married life, friends, a dog, and soon to be starting classes again is wreaking havoc on my blogging schedule. I think from now on I am going to blog whenever I can.  Maybe I should start blogging while I'm snuggled in bed watching The Simpson's on FX!

So maybe you will begin to see more frequent back-to-back posts.  Maybe there will be periods where there is only a week in between posts (I promise I will try not to make the time frame longer), but I have to do what I can, when I can, or I feel like I lose it.  I feel more creative and driven to blog once something happens. Plus, the ideas are fresh, so maybe more frequent blogging is the best bet.  I feel if I wait to long then the ideas just go POOF!  So here it goes, more frequent blogs and hopefully more posts with practical applications.

Speaking of practical applications, I wanted to get into why I chose the name Ever-Changing Librarian.  I swear this will all tie in, just bear with me.  I was a the Hawaii State Library Conference last week and the main theme for the conference was getting your schools and libraries future ready.  Our education system is evolving thus our school libraries have to evolve to get students ready to be 21st century learners.  I was excited to hear the conference pushing this idea and I thought this was a funny coincidence since I had literally just started my blog and named it based on this theme (I swear I did not have any prior knowledge of the conference topic;  I guess great minds just think alike).  Anyways, back to the topic.  The conference theme got me thinking about research and how that fits into the equation of Future Ready Libraries.  In order for our libraries to become future ready, thus making our students future ready; research techniques need to taught earlier and the topic discussed more frequently so that by the time students enter into the area of higher education they are aware of the jargon and techniques used for them to perform quality research for classes.

Picture from www.FutureReady.Org

While I was getting my M.S. in Academic Libraries the topic that was always repeated was that freshmen students are unaware of the proper strategies and resources to perform research.  Students were unaware of the research technology that was available to them.  Perhaps more important students are unaware of how they could use that technology to make their researching easier.  Many students were unaware of online databases or had limited knowledge of what databases they could or needed to access to find the information they were looking for.  Although it has been seven years since I received my M.S. and although many college freshmen exhibit qualities of being a digital native they are do NOT exhibit qualities of a research native. 

In 2010, a series of studies was conducted at Illinois Wesleyan, DePaul University, and Northeastern Illinois University, and the University of Illinois’s Chicago and Springfield campuses known as the Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries or ERIAL for short.  During this study research librarians, in conjunction with anthropologists, studied the research habits of college students to get a better idea of what students, librarians, and professors thought of research habits and strategies utilized by students.  What they found was a little scary.  Basically, when it comes down to it, students are pretty lousy when it comes to finding and evaluating resources in this technological age.  Throughout the interview process for the study students repeatedly (115 times) sited Google as their primary go to for research.  This is appalling, and I say this because although Google is great with presenting you with a quick fact, but Google has trouble with the content of the fact and the information beyond the fact.  

For more information on the ERIAL Project follow the link below  http://www.academiccommons.org/2014/09/09/the-erial-project-ethnographic-research-in-illinois-academic-libraries/

Knowing that Google is still seen as the primary research resource for college freshmen, you may be asking how we can combat this as educators and school librarians?  I've broken the process down into a scaffolding for research model that I hope will help those asking when and how they should break down research, but first things first we have to identify the time or more appropriately the age when research should be introduced.  The first step in this whole conundrum is to recognize that research strategies need to be taught at an earlier age.  I'm not talking about the the freshmen in high school age either, I'm talking about getting down and dirty with kindergartners as they begin to explore, question, and learn about the world around.  So here's a nice numbered outline to follow.

When to Introduce Research 

and What to Do

1. Introducing Research Through Modeling
 Introduce students to research modeling can start as early as toddler/Pre-k years and can be further developed through kindergarten.  Expose students to the world around through playful exploitative activities that engage not only learning objects and vocabulary, but engage their senses as well.  Children learn through doing, and by teachers/adults providing hands-on activities they can make associations between what they learn and the world around them.  This can be done through a school garden, Makerspaces, or just through arts and crafts in the classroom.  In addition to providing, exploitative activities teachers and parents should encourage students to ask questions.  Sometimes getting a student to ask a question can be hard.  If a student sees that a teacher is more open to their question asking they will feel more comfortable asking the questions.  It's a matter of building trust that needs to take place between the teacher, parent, and students.  Another strategy that teachers can use is to give students starter sentences that they can expound upon.  "Why did you like that...", "How did it make you feel when..." The more comfortable students are with asking questions, the better they will be in the future with articulating a question when it arises.

2. Building Good Research Practices
As students progress in their age, especially the elementary age, they will begin to ask more questions and this is exactly what you want.  You want students to begin asking questions that can supplement their existing questions.  You want them to ask the probing questions.  Encourage students to further explore their questions by asking them "How did his/her question relate to yours."  or "You may have prior information about a subject, but what new things did you learn?"  or  "I saw this question and it made me think of.."  Getting students to ask more open-ended questions will ultimately lead to them making more connections about topics.  Also, by having them ask questions about their questions they will begin to understand that they need to use certain vocabulary (certain words will sound better than others).  This is where you can introduce younger students to the concept of keywords and research vocabularies.  

Once keywords and research vocabularies are introduced you can begin introducing

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students to the world of technology.  Although kids today are surrounded by technology and are technologically savvy, they are not technologically confident.  Students are constantly being bombarded with information through technology, but they lack the skills necessary to be able to decipher good, trustworthy information from junk (yes that is the expert information I give for non-authoritative sources).  Introducing students to what a quality authoritative source is through your school library will give them a good starting base.   Research resources come in a variety of media, included, but not limited to (hard-copy books, online databases, videos, etc.). Students need to know when these resources need to be accessed, how they should be utilized, and what resources will best help to answer their question.  Early and often exposure to research resources will help the information resonate with students, but this requires that teachers utilize their school libraries and hook-up with their school librarians early in the school year and throughout.  Remember your school librarian is more than just about reading and books.

While exploring research resources, have students recount what resources they found and ways they could use the resource.  This will help them identify what resources are to be used when.  Teachers can also encourage students to take notes.  Remember to encourage students to take notes in their own words (paraphrasing) this will help them to avoid plagiarism.  Note taking can be done at any grade level and is an essential part of the research process.  One way that is beneficial, and will set students up for future college research is teaching them to create an annotated bibliography.  Basically, students will look at a resource and its contents, write down the citation, then write down a quick sentence or two, or for middle school kids and above, a paragraph that describes what they found and how they could use it.  Annotated bibliographies do not have to be documents teachers can use other avenues to curate their students' research process.  Curating research through Seesaw or Padlet is very useful for lower-level students who may prefer to do note taking through drawing or quick blurbs. Whatever way your using with your students creating an annotated bibliography is essential to curating your research and having a quick reference to look back on when papers are written or projects are created.  This is basically a way to connect your question to your resource, then to your overall idea.

Third grader using TrueFlix to research

3.  Continuing Good Research Habits
In upper middle, and especially upper level grades, it is important that students begin continuing and building upon their previous research knowledge.  In middle and high school students should be re-introduce to authoritative sources, then introduced to the concept of primary, secondary, and tertiary sources.  Students should also begin to further expound upon their note taking, and should be able to acknowledge the existence of research sources and should be able to convey why one source is better than the other.  Another research tool that can be introduced and be refined upon during these years is the annotated outline.  This is a basic outline of the flow of your paper.  Students divide up their paper into parts they wish to discuss. Students then begin to further divide up their parts by adding topic sentences, comments, explanations, citations, and information about cited sources.  Think of this as your road map to writing a banging research paper.  If this step is done correctly a students paper will basically write itself.

Wrapping it Up

After all that information being thrown at you, you may be asking, "What has this got to do with being a future ready librarian or 21st century learner?"  My answer, everything!  Being a future librarian means changing the way we think about our libraries and moving away from the traditional mode of school libraries to a more future friendly library.  It means, integrating technology into different aspects of the library.  It means, providing more opportunities to students to explore their world either through Makerspaces or Virtual Reality or Augmented Reality.  It means, not only teaching kids about global connectedness through digital citizenship, but showing them through meaningful collaboration with other school libraries.  It also means introducing them to proper research techniques so they can be self-directed learners.

Without proper research techniques our students today will continue to be surface learners and they will not be the future leaders and innovators we want them to be.  If your unable to ask probing questions and find the proper answer to it, how will you be expected to make innovations that could improve the world around you?  How will you be able to think at a problem or situation differently?  How will you be able to take into account another persons point of view? Being able to do quality research is more than just a skill needed to write a research paper or project, it's about critical thinking and being able to question answers.  It's about not being satisfied with what the world tells you is fact, but being able to go out and distinguish what is fact from what is junk.  Being a good researcher means thinking for yourself and making informed opinions.  It means being willing to ask tough questions, and doing the work necessary to get the answer.

PBL Professional Development

New "Eagles Soar" Medallion

It's that time of the year again!  What could she possibly be talking about you ask?  It's back to school time for teachers at Daniel K. Inouye Elementary School; and last week was filled with excitement!  Everyone was busy getting ready for the first day of school on August 1st.  I know what your thinking, "Man, that's early!" It's definitely different from the mainland schedule, but we get some days off during the year that are not celebrated on the mainland so everything ends up evening out.  Plus, I find that kids tend to retain the information they have learned over the school year a little better when there is not a huge gap in between the last day of school and the beginning of a new school year.

My first teacher work day back consisted of trying to re-orient myself back into our library.  Over the past year there has been a lot of construction going on at Daniel K. Inouye and one of the projects is our new library.  We are very close to moving into the new space, but until then Mrs. Colte and I have had to consolidate our library into a much smaller space.  As of right now it looks like a bomb as gone off in our room because we have to pack in library books, Makerspace materials, and computer lab equipment.  However, we have hope and we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Are new space is almost done and should be ready within the next month!

Soon to be our new library!

Our current situation

The morning While teachers were prepping their rooms for Teacher/Parent/Student Meet and Greet.  Mrs. Iwase (Principal at DKIES) Mrs. Colte (Librarian), the instructional coaches, technology teachers, and I were busy putting together a presentation for professional development on Project Based Learning #PBL #GoldstandardPBL. The school has been shifting gears to project based learning for the last year.  This presentation started getting into the real meat and potatoes of what PBL is and we had teachers identify where they thought they were on the PBL scale.  We're hoping that teachers got a better handle on what PBL is and is not, where they fall on the scale, and maybe brainstormed some ideas of PBL projects they can facilitate during the school year with their students.

During the Project Based Learning presentation, teachers were asked to do a couple of hands-on activities to get the juices flowing on what is PBL and maybe come up with some ideas of ways they could implement PBL in the classroom.  Our first activity consisted of having teachers create a tuberic.  The tuberic is a visual tool that educators can use to formulate PBL projects, but more importantly it gives teachers a good demonstration of what PBL is. Mrs. Colte brought this idea to the attention of the PBL coaches having previously been exposed to the activity.  She decided it would be a good one to have our teachers do, and I could not have agreed with her more!  It was great to see the teachers interacting with different grade levels and to see the ideas of individual teachers on what exactly their tuberic should look like.  We even had a few teachers team up to create theirs.   It was really fun to see all the different ways people designed their tuberic and some even ditched the idea of a tube all together to create other forms.  One of the teachers came up with a great slogan by saying that their tuberic was, "When you need learning on the go."

DKIES Teachers Creating their Tuberics

Tuberic Instructions and Device

Once the tuberic activity was over we had teachers watch a quick video about PBL then teachers were asked to create a Frayer Model Diagram on what their definition of PBL would be.  We are really trying to reinforce the idea that PBL is more about the process then the overall project.  We're also trying to show teachers the attributes of PBL.  For example, it is more student-driven, inquiry based, collaborative, may solve real-world problems (however, there are different kinds of PBL), that it requires empathetic learning (really total immersion into a subject) and has an authentic audience.

An example of ditching the tube during tuberic activity.

Overall, I think the PBL professional development presentation was a success!  Mrs. Colte set-up a quick Google form that teachers filled out.  In the form they were able to ask a question that they had about the PBL.  Our next presentation will focus on sifting through those questions and trying to group people according to the type of question they asked.  I suggested we assign those that felt more comfortable with PBL and understood it to each group so they could answer any questions of the group or guide the group to answers.  We're still hashing out the details, but I think have the teachers teach teachers could also reinforce some of the ideas that PBL highlights.