re-Searching
Module 1, Activity 1.3 - The Research Cycle
Teacher Page
(student page for this lesson)

Activities:

Task One - Searching
Students visit pre-selected web sites to learn about how to conduct an effective search. View the student page for this lesson to see the links on how to search on the internet for infomation.

Students should be able to explain how to limit a search, what they can learn from reading the URL and why a directed search is better.

Task Two - The Research Search

Even if some groups do not actually find the responses to all of their questions, the time limit (deadline) and the need to explain what they found (reporting) will be a good first exposure to the process of being a journalist.

Remember that no two groups may do the same topic, because the secondary purpose of the task is students locating and reporting all the steps of the research cycle. You will need to help some students fill in the gaps when you discuss what they learned in the debriefing following the presentations.

Because the students are finding, assessing and reporting the information, they need to practice searching skills. For that reason, it is better if they do not have pre-selected web sites for Task Two.

Objectives:

Students will be able to
- locate, assess, and summarize information from a variety of sources
- recognize the value of teamwork and co-operation
- speak to inform

Task Three - Debriefing
Now that the students are done presenting, the class should discuss three key questions:

1. Why was it hard to find the information in the time limit? If it was easy, what made it easy?
2. Why is the research cycle valuable when you are preparing to report about something to an audience?
3. What things about the reasearch cycle are still unclear? Why are they unclear?

There are several key things that you might choose to assess:

• reading for key information
• working effectively with others
• finding information
• summarizing information
• listening to information presented by others, and recording key points

While evaluating student learning, using a checklist or rubric is an effective tool for collecting information for about skills. However, it would be inappropriate to turn a checklist into grades at this stage. It might be useful, however, to assess where your students are at the start of the course. This formative assessment could been conducted and shared with students, provided that it focused on just one of areas of assessment listed above.

You may choose to use this sample tool for assessing listening and recording. It does not look at the skills in context of further growth, however. Use the see related objectives link higher up on the page to look for assessment tools that track skills on a continuum.