Guided Inquiry 3: Teaching Retrieving

photo by JP Puerta

If you're reading this, there's a good chance you're a teacher-librarian and are an expert on information retrieval. If we look at a short list of what educators need to facilititate for students in the information search phase of guided inquiry, you can see that the job may look intense. Focus on Inquiry tells us that during and in the context of an inquiry-based learning activity, the teacher provides students with opportunities to:

• understand that the Retrieving phase of the inquiry process is a method of problem solving that requires both critical thinking and imaginative thinking
•create a search strategy (e.g., information pathfinder)
• explore a variety of print, nonprint and electronic sources
• access resources within the school and beyond
• communicate with experts, both locally and beyond
• record bibliographic information for print sources, including title, author, date, page numbers, publisher and place of publication
• record bibliographic information for nonprint (multimedia) sources, including title, author, date, running time and/or number of images, producer and/or distributor, location of producer/production company
• record bibliographic information for electronic sources, including title, author, date, URL and date retrieved
• use a variety of grade-appropriate strategies for recording and organizing bibliographic information, such as index cards, recording templates, word processing programs or software tools.

Whew! Quite a big list to begin with, isn't it? I'll discuss some resources for these essential tasks further down in this post. First I want to address the essential question, "How does the role of the teacher-librarian change or grow in the context of guided inquiry learning?"

Information retrieval in and of itself is teacher-librarian's stock-in-trade, but Kuhlthau has argued that in guided learning, a constructivist point of view and a belief in zones of intervention lead to a substantial expansion of educational duties.

T]here is a need for redefining the roles associated with information provision in the workplace. These participants call for a more interactive, collaborative role for the library information professional. The collaborative role may require the librarian to enter into a partnership with the user to accomplish the information seeking task. In this partnership the librarian may advise on resources and process whereas the user brings knowledge of content and context. The aspects of information seeking and use that these users seems to need help with were in the ongoing thinking process related to interpreting and connecting the disparate pieces of information gathered in order to provide value-added information. This is new territory for the librarian whose traditional role of providing access to references and sources relevant to a general topic has stopped short of the process of making meaning.

The key points from above for myself are that teacher-librarians are assisting in the "ongoing thinking process", not simply finding resources. From a constructivist perspective, if learners are constructing meaning as they retrieve information, then teacher-librarians are a part of that process. In fact, as we are helping students in their information search, the organization and structure we utilize will have an affect on individual meaning - much more so that if one was to dump some encyclopedias in front of a learner and then walk away. Also, as stated above, Focus on Inquiry states that students need to understand "the Retrieving phase of the inquiry process is a method of problem solving that requires both critical thinking and imaginative thinking", and here is where teachers and teacher-librarians obviously need to be more than gatekeepers of media and information.

Focus on Inquiry directly advises educators to structure information searches. For example, at the beginning of the search one suggestion is to use a stations approach and help students to create an information search plan or pathfinder (55). Alice in Infoland has some great information on the use of pathfinders, and Annette Lamb's Eduscapes is a really comprehensive look at pathfinders, subject guides, and thematic resources.

If you need to address basic search skills such as Boolean Operators, here's a quick easy lesson (a 3-minute tutorial is avaliable on YouTube here, and another good one for youngsters is from the Boolify Project):

Boolify Lesson: And, Or, Not

Skimming and scanning is one skill that I have seen a big need for in my practice. Many students simply don't know that they don't need to read whole articles, though they should start learning about it at an early age. Ontario Time Machine has a nice simple page explaining skimming and scanning, and it looks like it would be good for grades 6 or 7 and up.

There are many sites offering quick guides for evaluating both print sources and online sources. Thomson Rivers University offers one for Evaluating Print Sources and another for Evaluating Web Sources that are fairly simple. Although they seem to be aimed at post-secondary students, I think they would be good for grade 8 and up (see below for more web evaluation sources).

But what about Internet searching skills in general? Are educators in general able to guide students in efficient online searching? Lavery has commented on the fact that in his study, teacher candidates frequently missed high quality information that was available on their topics, though they found enough "large amounts of somewhat related information to encourage them in the belief that they are skilled at web searching". In other words, teacher candidates thought that they were much more skilled in this area than they really were. Lavery also goes on to state that "teachers do not need to approach web searching with the expertise of a librarian". Clearly, teacher-librarians need to be leaders in this area.

In my experience, it is best to assume that there are many little details that could benefit students - or almost anyone who is not an research expert or professional. For example, I've watched many students start searching and simply save possible sites/pages under Favorites, which soon becomes a huge, unwieldy list of sites that may be directly, indirectly, or remotely related to their topic or question. Even in secondary school, many learners utilize little organization in their information retrieval process - no slotting information into easy-to-access folders, no bibliography started until the very end of the process, and usually no backing-up of important work. Some students have flash drives, but do not really know how to use them. In short, it may be necesssary for teachers and teacher-librarians to do a great amount of formative assessment, pre-teaching, or reviewing of general searching or computer usage skills before a lengthy guided inquiry is undertaken.

As far as online information retrieval goes, Kuiper, Volman and Terwel have stated that "the task for education may not lie primarily in teaching students Web searching skills, but in showing students the need for learning and practicing specific Web reading skills and Web evaluating skills, as well as a reflective use of these skills". This statement makes perfect sense in light of a constructivist point of view, with learners expected to learn by doing, including thinking critically and reflectively within the process of guided inquiry. But I'm jumping ahead, I'll look at reflection and Web skills in post 5, Thinking About and Reflecting on Retrieving.


Further resources for web evaluation:

http://library.queensu.ca/inforef/tutorials/qcat/evalint.htm

http://21cif.com/tools/evaluate/

http://www.lesliepreddy.com/Inquiry/internet.htm

http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/webcrit.html

http://www.lesley.edu/library/guides/research/evaluating_web.html

References

Alberta Learning (2004). Focus on inquiry: A teacher’s guide to implementing inquiry-based learning. Edmonton, AB: Alberta Learning. Available at http://www.education.gov.ab.ca/k_12/curriculum/bySubject/focusoninquiry.pdf

Kuhlthau, C. (1996). The Concept of a Zone of Intervention for Identifying the Role of Intermediaries in the Information Search Process. Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science Annual Meeting, 367-376. Retrieved from http://www.asis.org/annual-96/ElectronicProceedings/kuhlthau.html October 13, 2009.

Kuiper, E., Volman, M., & Terwel, J. (2008). Students' use of Web literacy skills and strategies: searching, reading and evaluating Web information. In Information Research, Vol. 13, No.3. Retrieved from http://informationr.net/ir/13-3/paper351.html on October 12, 2009

Laverty, C. (2008). The “I’m Feeling Lucky Syndrome”: Teacher-Candidates’ Knowledge of Web Searching Strategies. In Partnership: the Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, Vol.3, No.1. Retrieved from http://journal.lib.uoguelph.ca/index.php/perj/article/view/329/892 Oct.13, 2009.