Where to start improving research assignments?

I got asked this question at a workshop I was doing last week. We were discussing research and relevance and HOTS and creativity and technology and other good stuff when a librarian asked:

But the assignments that are in the curriculum and that the teacher wants to do are very traditional. How do we get around that?

Not an uncommon question and I don't have a sure-fire answer. But something librarians should try would be to work with individual students to improve individual research assignments. Some ideas for kids who seem to be struggling:

• Ask the student what things they are interested in and then find a way to synthesize that into the required topic. (I have to write about WWII, but my interest is in video games. Topic: How historically accurate are the top selling video games set in WWII?
• Help make the topic local. (I have to write a paper about an animal. What animals do you see in your own backyard that look interesting?)
• Help make the topic personal. (I have to write about a disease. Does your family have any health problems that might be hereditary you might research.)
• Find a way to encorporated technology. (Why don't you try embed original video in a wiki/GoogleDoc/webpage as a part of your final project?)

David (Ban Those Bird Units) Loertscher and I (Designing Research Projects Students - and Teachers - Love) have both written about improving the quality of research. I think we librarians KNOW what we can do improve the quality of the assignments. The question is - how do we get teacher buy-in?

Start with individuals and then talk to the teacher about what you did AFTER the assignment has been turned in. Students you helped should have been more successful. Suggest that next assignment, you might work with the whole class using these strategies when everyone is getting started.

It's just so crazy it just might work.

Positive subversion - we need to practice more of it.

BFTP: Why do research?

My horoscope in today's paper read: LEO ( July 23-Aug. 22) Don’t attempt taking on a complicated task that you’ve never done and lack any know-how. Chances are you’ll bungle the job and screw things up so badly, it’ll have to be totally ditched. Sounds like a good day to just read a book, go for a walk, and take a nap. And people say horoscopes are useless!

A weekend Blue Skunk "feature" will be a revision of an old post. I'm calling this BFTP: Blast from the Past. Original post (while in China working with the International School of Beijing (has it really been five years ago?) February 22, 2006

“Why exactly do we ask kids to do research in the first place?” Such an elemental question but when we ask it, we're poking a real sacred cow in education.

When I ask that question to any group of educators or parents, I get some of the following responses: We ask students to do research so that they…

• Acquire skills needed in post-secondary schooling (especially the forms and formats of academic research).
• Acquire practical, every day survival skills.
• Acquire content knowledge at a deeper, more profound level.
• Acquire and engage in higher-order thinking skills.
• Acquire tools for persuasive communications.

So my follow up questions would be: Are these reasons ever at odds with each other? Do some uses ask for greater emphases on some aspects of the information literacy process* than others? Do all uses share any common characteristics? Might all demand questioning on the part of the researcher? Do all kids need all skills?

Those of us who ask students to do research need to be asking ourselves:

• How has the “information explosion” impacted research? How has technology, especially the Internet, changed the skills needed? Has Web 2.0 impacted research?
• What should students expect from the library and librarian? The classroom teacher? From online experts?
• Do schools need a set of common research assignment expectations of all teachers? How might a research expectation relate to academic honor codes? To requirements of asking for higher order thinking skills? For the use of multi-media in the findings?
• How is the “Net Generation” different from preceding generations? Has there been a change in student background, ability, or expectations? Is relevance now a prerequisite to any assignment, especially research?
• How important is voice? Is a first person narrative acceptable when communicating research findings? 
• Should teachers' concentration be on formative or summative assessments of research? How can we develop self-assessing students?
• To what extent should schools be bound by the expectations of the next level of schooling? (You can't do that because that's not something college professors will accept.)

Change must come to the way we ask kids to do research. What does that change look like?

Or is "that's the way we've always done it" the only response necessary?

If my horoscope improves during the week, I may share some of my ideas about the subject.

*An information literacy process model usually some or all of these components:

• Framing a good question
• Knowing sources
• Searching
• Evaluating/selecting information
• Synthesizing/organizing information
• Communicating
• Evaluating

An ancient library folktale

The BookShelver: a library folktale
with apologies to Gerald McDermott's The Stonecutter and all of Japanese civilization

There was once a lowly bookshelver working in a small school library. Each day she patiently reshelved books and did other small tasks under the direction of the librarian. The librarian, it seemed to her, had a wonderful position - selecting new materials, directing aides to do her bidding, and having lots of interesting tasks that varied each day. Who could be more powerful than the librarian?

One night the bookshelver prayed to the Spirit of the School, asking to become a librarian. Low and behold, the next morning when she arrived at the school, she found she had become the librarian!

She loved the new job - she shared those stories she'd been shelving with students. She taught teachers how to use new computer software. She helped the principal find information he needed for a report. And she was content. Until one day the library supervisor came to visit. Ah, the supervisor with his vast budget, his ability to make policy, and his contact with the real powers of the school district - the principals, the directors and the technology director. Who could be more powerful than the library director? 

That night the bookshelver prayed to the Spirit of the School, asking to become the library director. Low and behold, the next morning when she arrived at the school, she found she had become the library director!

As library director she commanded a vast budget, made staffing decisions and created great long-range strategies. She loved watching as the building librarians trembled at her approach and how the clerical staff jumped to do her bidding. Until one day she was summoned to the superintendent's office where budget cuts were discussed. Who could be more powerful than the superintendent?

That night the bookshelver prayed to the Spirit of the School, asking to become the superintendent. Low and behold, the next morning when she arrived at the school, she found she had become the sup!

What respect she commanded by the principals and the directors! She represented the school at community functions and was interviewed on television and the radio. Everyone in the entire school bowed and quaked when she appeared, often by surprise, in a building.  But one day the president of the school board summoned the superintendent to a meeting at which test scores were being examined. The school board president's scowl said it all - he had even more power than the superintendent!

That night the bookshelver prayed to the Spirit of the School, asking to become the president of the school board. Low and behold, the next morning when she arrived at the school, she found she had become the board president!

As board president, the bookshelver did not need to concern herself with the daily tasks and details of running the school. With broad policy strokes, the president set the entire school district on new paths - closing buildings, ratifying contracts, and making personnel decisions. At one meeting, as president, the bookshelver, who had forgotten her origins, decided to fire all library support staff so that taxes could be lowered. Who possibly could be more powerful than the president of the school board?

The bookshelver was finally happy and content.

Until the next school board election when she found all the fired bookshelvers had organized a campaign to vote her off the board - and elect a school board member who supported libraries.

In this time of budget cuts, those of us in "middle management" - really at all levels of management - find out how little power we actually have to save positions, to save budgets, to save programs. As powerful as your boss may seem, my guess he answers to somebody above him. That doesn't mean we all shouldn't exert what power we have to save the programs and services that we believe serve children best.

But be careful about who you villainize in tough times.