Reflection on giving and receiving feedback

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I have just been listening to my lecturer’s feedback on my blog stage 1 again and have remembered how important it is to give and receive feedback.

She mentioned how my fonts and formatting are all over the place in some of my posts and it reminded me of the hours of angst I’ve had the past couple of days copying and pasting content from Word to my blog. For anyone listening out there...this is NOT the way to do it! If anything is guaranteed to mess up formatting and fonts it’s doing everything on Word first and then expecting to copy and paste all that beautifully formatted and illustrated work, as is, to your blog. So now I’m afraid it may have happened again and I will have to check all my posts all over again because I’ve left things too late to ask anyone else to do it.

My lecturer also mentioned the poor quality of the very first video I did. She’s right and I meant to fix it and post another one to demonstrate my “learning experience” and growth before I submitted Blog Stage 1...but forgot! So anyway, I’ve done a repeat of that video as a comparison with the old one and to showcase the “learning experience”.

I felt quite pleased to know that my annotated bibliography provided my lecturer with a new source of material about Inquiry learning. I have found Coffman's book very interesting and informative. I was mortified, however to hear about the number of typos and spelling mistakes in that post and fear it may be a problem with blog stage 2 as well as I do not have time to ask anyone to proofread it for me.

The advice she gave about topic sentences and starting with the idea first before mentioning the author has reminded me of all the valuable writing advice I received during the first course I did as part of this Master’s degree. It has also made me resolve to go over those notes again!

Apparently my lecturer enjoyed reading about the ISP.  I was quite delighted to hear that, as I had really had fun creating that post, it is one of my favourites too.

As much as I enjoy receiving feedback - part of the feedback that I received from my lecturer was to inquire about feedback I had provided to my peers, and what I had thought of the experience.  So the rest of this post will describe what it felt like to critique someone else’s blog.

I suggested to Kerrie that she make more use of hyperlinks in her posts. For instance, instead of saying  “refer to figure 12”, perhaps just turn the words “figure 12” into a link to that spot.  I suggested it as I think it often makes text easier to follow. I picked up a couple of typo’s and sentence structure “glitches” as well. I find that it’s very hard to pick up places where I have not expressed myself very clearly and I am grateful for someone else’s “fresh eyes” to pick up any logic errors I may have made.

It was good to read her blog and see that she had had similar dilemmas to mine as she was also a spectator to an ILA rather than a creator of one. I let her know that I enjoyed her screenshots of students’ comments to help the ILA “come to life”.

I agreed with her on many of her observations about student learning and wrote,  

Good points about intervention and massive amounts of explanation being required at most points of the ILA. I think that often we, as teachers, and as adults tend to take for granted that students understand a lot of things that they don’t really understand. For instance, I was quite surprised that the students I was observing really didn’t understand the concept or meaning of primary data and secondary data (Year 9), even though it was explained (in writing) within the ILA documentation. I think we often underestimate students’ need for concrete, hands-on experiences before verbal or written explanations.

Giving and receiving feedback is very powerful as it forces one to think more closely about one’s own efforts, thus increasing metacognitive abilities. 

Questionnaire 3

1. Take some time to think about your topic. Now write down what you know about it.

Inquiry learning is all about asking the right questions! It is a constructivist pedagogy designed to assist students to build information literacies. Inquiry learning can be seen on a continuum from structured or highly teacher led inquiry to open or highly student directed inquiry at the other end of the continuum. All inquiry learning has the same basic tenets; it starts with a question, then moves into information seeking and ends with a way to “spread the word”. There are a number of different Inquiry learning models but not all models allow equivalent levels of student learning.

2. How interested are you in this topic?  Check (ü) one box that best matches your interest.

Not at all ☐    not much ☐    quite a bit ☐    a great deal ☐

3. How much do you know about this topic?  Check (ü) one box that best matches how much you know.

Nothing ☐     not much ☐    quite a bit ☐    a great deal ☐

4. Thinking back on your research project, what did you find easiest to do? Please mention as many things as you like.

I found it easy to locate information once I’d learnt about search strings and different databases. Eventually everything became easy to do (with practise). Blogging, posting video to YouTube, graphing, sentence structure/phrasing etc.

5. Thinking back on your research project, what did you find most difficult to do? Please mention as many things as you like.

It was hard to get the formatting on the blog page right when I copied and pasted from Word. In fact it was impossible, so that is something I’ll never do again! Deciding which category the students’ statements belonged in was also pretty difficult. The first time I tried doing anything it was hard, but everything became easier with practise. I suppose the hardest thing for me was making sure I got the work in on time!

6. What did you learn in doing this research project?

How to obtain information quickly and efficiently, from books and various internet sources. How to create graphs on Excel. How to use Snagit and PowerPoint. How to narrate to a Point Point presentation. How to upload videos to You Tube. How to determine whether information is accurate and valid. How to identify the appropriate parts of the masses of information at hand and phrase it sensibly in my blog posts. How to organise information so that it flowed sensibly and logically. How to create a fairly interesting blog site. That producing a large body of work is a good idea....but that I need to do it early enough to review the work later because mistakes can only be picked up by “fresh” eyes, preferably someone else’s!

7.  How do you now feel about your research? Check (ü) one box that best matches how you feel.

Unhappy  – I don’t feel confident with how it turned out ☐  

Confused – I don’t really know what I was looking for ☐

Confident – I think it turned out OK ☐

Happy – I’m really happy with how it turned out ☐

Presentation of recommendations and results

This is a PowerPoint video describing my recommendations and the results of my ILA. It can also be found here.

Action taken with students/teacher after Questionnaire 1

In retrospect I should have explained the requirements of this research and the purpose behind my research in far more depth with the teacher before embarking on this project. Boundaries should have been discussed and all parties should have been made aware of exactly where those boundaries were.

After looking at the results from Questionnaire 1,  I made a note of the difficulties that students mentioned regarding their research and sent an email to the librarian and the teacher. I also had a quick chat to the students at the start of the next lesson to let them know what had come up as a result of the questionnaire. Apart from this I looked up some sites to get website ideas for the best places for the girls to find information and passed this information on to the librarian. Here is a copy of the email I sent.

Hi A & B

After examining the comments from the first questionnaire that I gave the Yr 9 students on 9 October the following "difficulties with research" themes came up. 

1. Finding pertinent information within lengthy paragraphs

2. Presenting information.

3. Choosing websites, books, newspapers and encyclopedias with relevant, accurate, current information.

4. Understanding some words.

5. Writing bibliographies.

6. Source and research sheets.

7. Note taking.

8. Trying to understand what I'm searching for.

9. Knowing the key words to put into Google search.

10. Putting information into my own words (summarising & rephrasing)

11. Trying to understand the basics of the task and what to do.

12. Avoiding unnecessary or irrelevant information.

13. Staying on task/ avoiding being distracted by the computer (internet?)

I thought you may find them interesting. I tried reassuring the girls that everyone has most of these problems when they first start researching a topic.

Thanks

J.

My main purpose in chatting to the students was to reassure the them that many of the things that they had written down as difficulties are experienced by most researchers initially (as mentioned in Kuhlthau’s ISP). Their experiences and frustrations were normal and to be expected.  In retrospect I should have discussed this in more detail with the teacher first.  I should have collated and graphed the student’s responses to the questionnaires immediately. Finally, I should have discussed my findings with the teacher and given my recommendations with explanations and backup explaining my reasons for thinking and suggesting various courses of action.

Recommendations for future practice

Inquiry learning is all about asking good questions and learning how to learn and on the whole I would have to say that the ILA was a very effective Guided Inquiry learning task. Inquiry learning as a pedagogy is effective because students are required to “answer their own questions”. It is accepted that certain content is prescribed by any curriculum, but it is essential to provide a “hook” to get students attention; this can then followed by an invitation to explore a part of the content that they find particularly exciting or attention grabbing. The ILA definitely achieved that objective when the survey completed by the students graphically illustrated to them that we have only one earth and quite a few more “earths” would be required to support us if everyone lived the typically wasteful first world lifestyle that we do. 

Inviting students to explore ways to alleviate a part of their “ecological footprint” in order to “save the world” gave them a feeling of power and control; not only because they could do something about a major world problem, but also because they could choose a part of the problem that interested them in particular. This achieves the objective of making students feel like “masters of their own destiny” and in so doing makes the learner feel more responsible for their own learning.

Another aspect of the ILA that I felt worked well was the fact that the students were given ample time to explore and produce the product. An entire term was allocated to the task (with various deadlines along the way so that students were not tempted to leave things until the last minute). However, when the teacher found towards the end of term that the students had really not had enough time to complete things to her satisfaction she negotiated with leadership to organise an extension on the project. Kuhlthau has cited “lack of time” as being a problem when doing inquiry based learning in her book Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21^st century so it was very gratifying to observe the teacher appreciating the importance of sufficient time. Time is also important for the instructional team to get together and do their planning. This does not appear to be a problem in this school as great importance is placed on the involvement of the teacher-librarian and collaborative teaching in general. Sufficient time is always allocated for “instructional team” meetings.

A potential problem for inquiry learning tasks identified by Kulthau’s studies at Rutgers University was the confusion of roles. Fortunately this has not emerged as a problem at this school as the members of the instructional team have a mutually accepted philosophical base of the importance and relevance of constructivist learning.  They share a commitment to the development of students’ information literacy and understand that good collegial collaboration is essential for successful inquiry learning support.

Clearly identified roles and collaboration had enabled the librarian to anticipated the need for printed matter on the subject before the task was administered. She had ordered relevant and up to date books beforehand. These were ready and waiting as the students started their project. The librarian also demonstrated effective internet search strategies and the identification of valid and reliable internet information.  In addition to this she modelled effective ways of keeping a record of references in order to build up a Bibliography.

A further potential problem could have been a poorly designed assignment, but once again this was not the case here. The assignment had been specially designed for the course and the entire term was used for the assignment. This meant that information literacy was acquired during the course of the assignment. Skills were not taught in isolated lessons on a once off basis, with no relevance to “real life” situations. There was no “teaching to the test” and indeed the students were expected and encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning.

As this is a private school, there were not as many issues with “blocked sites” as tends to happen with EQ, plus there were ICT specialists on hand at the school to quickly remedy any problems as soon as they arose. This prevented the technical frustrations that often go hand-in-hand with the use of technology. Teenagers can become quite easily “put off” and distracted by technical “glitches”. Fortunately these were not an issue.

ACARA has not specifically mentioned the development of literacy skills. This places the responsibility of IL development into the hands of TLs who will “need to examine the dimensions of the Curriculum to find the elements of information literacy that are present, and make links between these elements”.  (Lupton 2012). Students conducted their own research and produced meaning from that experience. Primary data in the form of graphs, interviews, surveys and photographs were required as part of the task. The data obtained then needed to be analysed and reported. Students received demonstrations on how to analyse graphs and write logical and meaningful sentences about their data thus helping to build excellent information literacy skills.

In Step 4 of the task, emphasis of the iterative nature of inquiry emerged in the instruction, “It is also expected that as you proceed with your research you will develop and/or refine your research focus by developing new inquiry questions and research strategies”. Although not explicitly stated in Kuhlthau’s ISP, this circular or spiral pattern of inquiry learning is part of many inquiry learning models (eg Brunner's Inquiry Process). The circular nature of learning was certainly illustrated in this ILA.

Students are usually unprepared for the feelings of anxiety and frustration experienced during the early stages of an inquiry process. This is illustrated in some of the student comments from the second questionnaire, when the students would have been experiencing the doubt, confusion and frustration of the exploration stage of Kuhlthau’s ISP.

“I’m very confused about what I’m supposed to be doing and what information I am supposed to be looking for”, and, 

“I find it difficult when the teacher is trying to teach us things but I’m still not sure of the basics so I can’t learn more about something I don’t know” as well as 

“I didn’t really receive much help from my teacher therefore I didn’t understand (to the full extent) what I am researching”

Kuhlthau points out that “a large part of the instructional team’s work is assisting students through those troubling times of uncertainty”. (Kuhlthau, 2007). When students are going through this phase and these emotions they tend to think that they are the only ones experiencing increased uncertainty. They are usually relieved to discover that these feelings are common and to be expected.  The instructional team can support students during these emotional upheavals by scaffolding, reassuring and generally tailoring interventions in an enabling and enriching way. This gradually builds up their confidence and tenacity and helps students to develop the emotional maturity of knowing that the uncertain, frustrated feelings are normal; will happen again, and can be overcome again!

Part of the inquiry process is to flounder and struggle a little. But most teachers of young adolescents will attest the fact that teenagers are notoriously impatient! Therefore I would suggest a Blogsite or Facebook page that can be used as a student collaborative problem solving resource (or brains trust!) to support each other when the “storms” arise.  The teacher would need access to the page as well and it would exist with the understanding that it is not for gossip or “general whinging” but as a place to go to when timely assistance can be obtained, mainly from peers. It would also be a place where students would be gently and constantly reminded that they are responsible for their own learning because learning is not ‘something the teacher can give you’. It often helps to hear an instruction rephrased in terminology that you are used to hearing and this is something that could be accomplished on a shared site. One of the comments written on the questionnaire reflected this fact.

“Although I was confused at the beginning, with help from a few of my peers I was able to finally get on track and complete my assignment to what I think was of satisfactory standards.”

This type of problem solving ‘cyberspace’ place would also be useful for instructors to become aware of any problems that would need intervention from the instructional team, rather than just a nudge in the right direction from a peer.

One of the things I would change if I were to conduct research like this again would be to reword the questionnaires.  As mentioned previously the wording in questions 1 and 6 of the last questionnaire could be seen to be referring to the same thing. I would also provide examples of the types of responses to put into the questions enquiring about “what was easy” and “what was difficult” when doing research. Ensuring that the students had sufficient time to think and provide detailed answers for the first two questionnaires would also be a priority.

Although the task did possess aspects of information literacy that moved it into the Transformative window of the GeST model (Lupton 2002), namely “Identify a strategy that could be implemented (either by you or your family or more widely in the community) to reduce their ‘footprint factor’, I think this could have been emphasised more. Perhaps students could have shared it more widely in the community and indeed the world by creating a class blog. Perhaps inviting other classes that are doing similar projects in Australia and around the world could be invited to join in or comment. Maybe even a letter to a journal or newspaper or Member of Parliament? This would have moved the inquiry task further into the Situational and Transformative windows of the GeST model (Lupton 2002).

 In conclusion, I have thoroughly enjoyed my exploratory journey into Inquiry Learning. Now that I have experienced it, I cannot think of a better way to inspire students to learn. I hope to create an inquiry task of my own for students under my care one day, and I will certainly make good use of the learning experiences that I have gained watching others learn via Guided Inquiry instruction!

Critical Evaluation of the ILA against Information Literacy and Inquiry Models

In this post I evaluate the ILA against frameworks that deal with information literacy, internet searching and questioning.

The Six Frames for Information Literacy Education

This framework was designed by Bruce, Edwards and Lupton in 2006 to be used as a tool to analyse, interpret and understand challenges presented by different educators’ views on instruction and curriculum design.

The means of facilitating learning that was used in the ILA was contained within the “Learning to learn” frame. This frame uses the constructivist orientation and helps learners to build their knowledge and develop ways of learning that enable them to grow sophisticated thinking patterns (Bruce, Edwards & Lupton, 2006). As the students worked on their topic within this ILA they continuously developed and honed their new information literacy (IL) skills. Proof of the development of IL skills for the ILA was presented during the production of the AVD and subsequent presentation evening when they discussed their findings with relatives and friends. Reflection played a large part throughout the ILA and although the task was completed individually, students were encouraged to participate in group discussions with peers and instructors during class. I believe that this assisted significantly with the quality of research and their AVD.

Action Research Model for Reflective Internet Searching

This model describes a conceptual framework to use for effective internet searching (Edwards & Bruce, 2002). The authors developed it in order to assist students with the “challenges of working with an environment that is subject to continuous change”. The power to retrieve, assess and use information is vital for success in learning and the basis for the development of lifelong learners. (Edwards & Bruce, 2002).

The Action Research Model shown below consists of four steps that are intended to be performed repetitively rather than consecutively.  This circular or repetitive nature of the framework helps students develop their information literacy skills. Reflection on their successes and failures equips them with the tenacity required to develop the skills needed in inquiry learning. (Edwards & Bruce, 2002).

The Action Research Model for Reflective Internet Searching

Questioning frameworks

Questioning is arguably the most vital part of all inquiry tasks.  As mentioned in the post entitled “The type of inquiry method that was used”, all inquiry methods are fairly similar; having questioning, seeking and concluding components. But teaching students how to ask good questions helps them to take ownership of their learning. It is an essential lifelong learning skill. There are a number of questioning frameworks that can be used to ‘train’ students in the important art of questioning.

The Inquiry Process (Brunner, 2002) is an inquiry model that uses 4 cyclical phases to explore posing real questions, finding resources, interpreting information and reporting findings.This is an excellent questioning framework to use for most inquiry based tasks and is very relevant to “my” ILA. As the ILA is a guided inquiry task levelled at Year 9 students who are still developing their information literacy skills, the questions suggested in the framework help with more highly scaffolded inquiry projects (such as mine). The Inquiry Model can also lead the students carefully through what could become quite a frustrating experience for less experienced IBL students if they did not have a framework to  guide them.

Brunner's Inquiry Process

GeST windows

Bruce & Lupton envisage Information literacy as a set of three “windows” that are nested within each other. 

GeST windows

The inner and most basic “Generic” window is described by Lupton as “a set of discrete, neutral generic skills related to reading writing and the use of technology” (Bruce & Lupton 2010). “My” ILA remains largely within this window as classes included topic analysis, search terms (synonyms and related terms, Boolean operators, computer skills, constructing search strings and rules for citing and referencing.

Many aspects of the ILA can be said to regard IL within the “situated” window. Here IL is seen as “Social Practices involving personal, work, family and community problems” (Lupton & Bruce 2010). The primary data obtained by the students, in the forms of photographs, interviews, surveys and the collecting and analysis of statistics are all forms of socially based “encountering information” (Lupton  & Bruce 2010).

The all encompassing “transformative window” is where social change is effected through an “emancipatory process”( Lupton & Bruce 2010). The skills and processes of the Generic perspective as well as the social practices and personal meaning of the Situational perspective are both contained within the Transformative window. Here IL is seen as a “range of information practices used to transform oneself and society”. IL is taught by empowering learners to critique information in order to challenge the status quo. This was a requirement of the ILA as students were encouraged to “identify a strategy that could be implemented(either by you or your family or more widely in the community) to reduce that‘footprint factor’. In other words students were being encouraged to transform themselves and society with their research discoveries. This transformative information literacy was rigorously tested when the students were required to defend their position and research when speaking to family and friends as part of their culminating activities.

Bloom’s revised taxonomy

The original Bloom’s taxonomy was developed by Benjamin Bloom, a cognitive psychologist, in the 1950’s. His purpose was to categorise and order thinking skills. The thinking skills start from the lower order thinking skills LOTS of knowledge, comprehension and application to the higher order thinking skills HOTS of analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Each word used was in the form of a noun. 

The Original Bloom's taxonomy

Bloom’s taxonomy was then revised by a former student of his, Lorin Anderson, in the 1990’s to fit in with 21st century learning. This is called Bloom’s revised taxonomy. She saw the need to reflect the modern technological and digital processes required of the 21^st century student. The revision entailed changing the words used to describe each category into verbs rather than nouns and the highest categories were swapped and changed into “Evaluating” and “Creating”. Each category is associated with various verbs describing the skills associated with that category.

Comparison of Bloom's taxonomy with the Digital taxonomy

The taxonomy represents the way we learn. Students have to remember concepts before they can understand them. When a concept is understood it can be applied. The ability to apply knowledge implies that it can be analysed and if we can analyse it then we can evaluate its impact. Creating a new concept requires that we are able to remember, understand, apply, analyse and evaluate it.

When I analysed and compared the ILA to Bloom’s revised taxonomy many skills were showcased. Some needed more representations and these will be discussed under recommendations.

Bloom's Digital Taxonomy

Students were well-versed in the application of skills such as note-taking, bullet-pointing, highlighting, locating, retrieving, naming, searching and "Googling". They were encouraged to keep a journal or “Record of Research” documenting their research findings and for taking rough bullet point notes of information they expected to use when presenting their topic. This all assisted them to remember the new concepts encountered in the ILA.

Their understanding of the Ecological Footprint concept was developed by directing them to the Ecological footprint site – getting then to complete the quiz on the site and then answer further questions for homework once they had perused the site. Class discussions also enhanced this understanding. Lessons in advanced Boolean search techniques also assisted the understanding process. Completing organisers during Step 4 of their task sheet would also have required an understanding of the topic.

Application of knowledge was evident when they started to use their knowledge and understanding of the topic to construct and conduct the questions in their surveys and interviews. It also helped with knowing which photographs to take and which information to keep or discard when they compiled their AVD.

The students’ analysing skills were tested/ given a work out when they analysed their research findings from their surveys and statistical data and tabled or graphed them. Analysis of statistical data gathered from other sources eg books and the internet also contributed to their “analysis toolkit”. It was recommended that ideas were presented in mind maps and other graphic organisers – this too would have required analysis. It would also have required creativity.

Once all of the above tasks had been completed the students were ready to compile and assemble their AVDs. This required the evaluating skills of checking, critiquing, detecting, monitoring to get everything as it should be.

Creativity was required to create interesting open-ended questions for friends and family to ask them during the presentation. Creativity was also required for the tokens and other exhibition extras required for their final presentation.

References

Bruce, C. Edwards, S. & Lupton, M. (2006) Six Frames for information literacy education: exploring the challenges of applying theory to practice. Special issue. Information Literacy - the challenges of implementation.

Brunner, C. (2012). The Inquiry Process. Retrieved from http://www.youthlearn.org/learning/planning/lesson-planning/how-inquiry/how-inquiry

Edwards, S & Bruce, C. (2002) Reflective Internet Searching: and action research model. The Learning Organisation: An International Journal. 9 (3/4): 180-188

Lupton, M., & Bruce, C. (2010). Chapter 1: Windows on Information Literacy Worlds: Generic, Situated and Transformative Perspectives in Lloyd, Annemaree and Talja, Sanna. Practising information literacy: bringing theories of learning, practice and information literacy together. Wagga wagga: Centre for Information Studies, p. 3-27.

A critical comparison of the ILA against the Australian Curriculum

Although it is described as SOSE (Study of Society and Environment) the ILA fulfils the requirements mentioned in the Australian draft curriculum for Geography. It slots neatly into one of the topics for Yrs 7 – 10 focusing on an environmental sub-strand. It also fulfils the cross-curriculum priority of sustainability that is entrenched within many aspects of learning. The Australian Curriculum achievement standards describe the extent of the understanding, knowledge and sophistication of skills that students should be able to demonstrate by the end of a particular teaching period. The “learning” that should be achieved by a Year 9 student is as follows:-

“Students determine the focus, purpose, and scale for a geographical inquiry. They frame and refine questions encompassing the perspectives of place and space and environment. They locate relevant sources, including from fieldwork. Students evaluate information sources and collection methods for reliability and representation. They process and synthesise information and data to identify order, pattern, trends, anomalies and generalisations. They form conclusions in response to their inquiry, including appraising alternatives by applying criteria and recommending a course of action. They use geographical vocabulary, concepts and geographical conventions to develop a range of geographical texts that incorporate data. Using their findings, they plan for action and devise useful individual or group strategies.” http://www.acara.edu.au/verve/_resources/Shape_of_the_Australian_Curriculum_Geography.pdf

This draft ACARA document emphasises that inquiry tasks should start from the observations, questions and curiosity of students.  This important aspect of inquiry learning was evident in the ILA before students even received their task sheets. One of the first “eye opening” lessons that I taught as a fledgling teacher was witnessing the enthusiasm and dedication that young adolescents (particularly girls) would put into completing surveys about themselves. To begin an ILA with this type of survey was inspired. It certainly piqued their interest about their “ecological footprint” when they realised that another six or seven “earths” would be needed to sustain wasteful lifestyles. The observations, questions and curiosity that were revealed through to this online survey served to set the scene for the ILA.

Another achievement stand of ACARA requires that Year 9 Geography students are able to, “locate relevant sources, including from fieldwork”. Stage 4 of the ILA task sheet ensures that students rigorously explored this expectation as they were required to “ensure that your research involves the use of both primary and secondary sources of evidence”. Strategies, such as “teaching” search strategies and illustrating how to compile an on-line “survey monkey”, to assist students accomplish these requirements were carefully scaffolded and facilitated throughout the ILA by the instructional team.

The next ACARA “achievement standard” specifies that information sources and collection methods need to be evaluated for reliability and representation.  I must admit to being particularly impressed with the care and diligence taken by the instructional team to ensure that students would be able to tell which websites were reliable and valid as well as the emphasis placed on keeping track of sources in order to cite them correctly and create a suitable bibliography. This illustrates how the above standard was achieved during  “my” ILA.

During the course of the ILA data was processed and synthesised to identify order, pattern, trends, anomalies and generalisations. The students were encouraged to keep a record of their research in Stage 4 of the ILA.  This record consists of all information gathered during the inquiry, completed organisers, drafts of each section of the final product submitted electronically, reflection pro formas and a bibliography of the secondary sources used. They were told that “these items help determine how effectively you have planned, organised, conducted and reflected on your inquiry”. Students also took part in a “lesson” during which they were taught how to identify order, patterns, trends, anomalies and generalisations in statistics and graphical information by using “spiders”.  These were graphical illustrations, somewhat like mind-maps, that assisted students in locating highs, lows, trends, patterns, anomalies, causes, effects and consequences in their data. This was another way in which the ILA fulfilled the achievement standards set out by ACARA.

The students formed conclusions in response to their inquiry. These conclusions about factors that increase one’s “ecological footprint” as well as suggestions on alternative ways of living that would reduce the footprint and recommended courses of action to get friends, family and their community to reduce their “footprint” was presented in the form of a large poster (AVD). Students were then required to talk about their research and defend their conclusions during the presentation evening attended by family and friends. In so doing the ACARA achievement standard requiring the “forming of conclusions, appraising alternatives and recommending a course of action” were all accomplished.

In Stage 4 of the ILA students received a link to a “geographer’s toolkit” available in the school Masterfile. This assisted them to “use geographical vocabulary, concepts and geographical conventions to develop a range of geographical texts that incorporate data” as per the requirements specified by ACARA.

Although I did not witness any further action being taken, apart from the students exhorting family and friends to live increasingly “green” lifestyles; the potential did exist for students to communicate their findings further afield. This would certainly have “used their findings to plan for action and devise useful individual or group strategies” as recommended by ACARA.

In the Queensland Curriculum,Assessment and Reporting Framework we read that the “essential learnings” to be achieved by the end of Year 9 include, “understanding the importance of inquiry and major social and environmental ideas for investigating issues in context that range from local to global settings”.  All the hallmarks of inquiry based learning (IBL) are present in their “Ways of working”.  In this way we see that the ILA fulfilled requirement of both QCAR and ACARA.

It is gratifying to see that education about sustainability is so heavily embedded in both QCAR and ACARA.  Quite apart from ensuring the future viability of the planet, learning about sustainability also provides students with a cause to become enthusiastic about. This increases and improves information literacy skills such as developing knowledge, values and world views. This is both vital for inquiry learning, and for persuading people to contribute to more sustainable patterns of living.

The type of inquiry model that was used

Inquiry models can be placed on a continuum, from teacher-led structured inquiry at one end to completely open inquiry at the other, where the project is entirely student directed. The ILA that I witnessed was "Guided Inquiry" and this type of inquiry tends the falls at the middle of the continuum. It is the level of teacher involvement that determines the level of the inquiry model. (Banchi & Bell, 2008; Bell, Smetana & Binns, 2005; Coffman, 2009)

The ILA corresponded to a number of inquiry models. Three popular inquiry models for Years 1 to 10 Studies of Society and Environment are: Integrating Socially, TELSTAR and Action Research. The ILA that I witnessed was more similar to the Integrating Socially model than any others.

Adapted from Hamston, J. and Murdoch, K. 1996, Integrating Socially: Planning Units of Work for Social Education, Eleanor Curtin, Melbourne.

Tuning in:  Students were encouraged to become engaged with the topic by completing online surveys and participating in class discussions at the start of the task. They were then required to make the experience personal by exploring the ‘Ecological Footprint” website to see how and where they could reduce their footprint.

Preparing to find out:  Class discussions helped to establish what students already knew about the topic. Students then identified a ‘footprint factor’ of personal interest to them so that they could focus on that during their forthcoming experience.

Finding out:  Students were required to construct a set of geographical questions to guide their inquiry. The instructional team facilitated students’ ability to gather information by modelling internet search strategies using Boolean operators. The librarian provided a number of books on ecologically friendly information. The teacher showed students how to collect primary data by creating “survey monkeys” to email to classmates and family. Sentence construction for analysing data was also assisted with the use of “spiders”. Ideas for questions for the survey were discussed as a group.

Sorting out:  Students were required to keep a journal summarising any useful information they had found on their topic, this was also to help with the creation of the bibliography.

Going further: Students were not only required to source information from printed matter and the internet, they were also encouraged to obtain primary information by taking photographs, conducting surveys and interviews.

Making connections: Students were required to constantly submit draft sections of their work so that the teacher was able to address any problems the moment they arose before it was too late. Part of their drafting process also included reflecting on their findings to date to help them draw conclusions about their research.

Taking action: Students were encouraged to use their new found knowledge to suggest strategies that they and their families could reduce their ‘ecological footprint’. They were also given the opportunity to share their knowledge at the presentation evening where friends and family were invited. They shared the knowledge in the form of the AVD as well as inviting questions that they could answer about their topic.

References

Banchi, H., & Bell, R. (2008). The Many Levels of Inquiry. Science and Children, 46 (2), 26-29

Bell, R., Smetana, L., & Binns, I. (2005). Simplifying inquiry instruction. The Science Teacher, 72 (7), 30-33

Coffman, T. (2009). Engaging students through inquiry-oriented learning and technology. Lanham, Maryland. The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group

How the Information Theory was enacted

Inquiry learning activities implement a social constructivist approach that enables students to interact with the information they discover. Students are strongly encouraged to ask questions to help build their understanding and comprehension and in so doing construct their own concepts and knowledge. The questioning approach, so fundamental to inquiry learning, is used throughout the inquiry process thus enabling students to progress from simple fact finding to the application of new found knowledge in new and unrelated circumstances (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, & Caspari, 2007).

The most important educational implication of constructivist learning is that it is student centred.  According to the constructivist view point knowledge is a creation of the mind and is constructed as we network with our surroundings. It is an active process of selecting and interpreting information and is influenced by our own unique, existing schemata as well as by our interests and motivations. The ultimate aim of all guided inquiry learning is to develop the initiative, confidence and problem solving skills required for open inquiry. Students need to develop this skill over time and this is where guided or structured inquiry tasks come in. Slowly, as students are scaffolded and facilitated through increasingly less structured tasks they develop the skills and mental stamina needed to accomplish these tasks.It is vital; therefore, that learning is student centred and active (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, & Caspari, 2007; Coffman, 2009).

Inquiry learning can be viewed on a continuum ranging from confirmation inquiry that is highly teacher directed, to open inquiry that is entirely student led. The ILA that I witnessed would be placed at the midpoint of that continuum as it is Guided Inquiry with sufficient teacher scaffolding as required by young adolescents. (Bell, Smetana and Binns, 2005)

The role of the teacher in guided inquiry learning includes:-

·         Encouraging curiosity:  During the ILA the teacher accomplished this by beginning the task with an online survey that enabled students to discover how many planets it would require for humanity to survive if everyone lived they way they do. This served to pique student interest about their ecological footprint.

·         Engaging extrinsic and intrinsic motivation:  students are more inclined to pursue something if it interests them personally. The teacher engaged students’ intrinsic motivation by asking them to identify one ‘footprint factor’ that was of interest to them in order to focus their inquiry research on that particular topic. Intrinsic motivation was further encouraged by making some of the goals personal, for instance “strategies that you, your family or local community could take to reduce your footprint”. One of the ways that extrinsic motivation was accomplished was to display excellent examples of past students work, this encouraged students to have a goal to work towards.

·         Facilitating:  this teacher guided the learning process by asking questions, commenting and relating new and unfamiliar experiences with established ones.

·         Creating a learning environment:  the teacher creates an environment in which the students can have the kinds of experiences they need to have in order to learn. The ILA was designed to lead the learner through a number of excellent learning experiences and not just to “teach” students about their environmental impact.

·         Diagnosing problems:  creating situations which will confront misconceptions held by the student to help them to reorganise their schema. This is often accomplished by using the “Zone of Proximal development” as discussed by Vygotsky 1978 in Kuhlthau, 2007. Using this technique students are able to master tasks that are almost out of their reach with the assistance of someone who is very familiar with the process. One way I was able to assist a student with this was by explaining and illustrating the meanings and implications behind primary and secondary research.

·         Modelling information literacy skills:  Students needed to use a number of information literacy; many of these skills were “taught” by an instructional team. Skills such as observing, collecting, analysing, synthesising, search strategies and technology strategies assisted students to make predictions and draw conclusion.

References


Bell, R., Smetana, L., & Binns, I. (2005). Simplifying inquiry instruction. The Science Teacher, 72 (7), 30-33

Coffman, T. (2009). Engaging Students through Inquiry Learning and Technology. Lanham, Maryland. The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 

Kuhlthau, C., Maniotes, L., & Caspari, A. (2007). Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century. Westport, Connecticut, Libraries Unlimited

The ILA (results)

Results

The responses to the three questionnaires from Kuhlthau’s SLIM toolkit were varied and occasionally unexpected. A sample of 10 students was taken from the original 24. Four students were unable to complete all 3 questionnaires due to absence. The sample was chosen on the basis of all three questionnaires being completed fully. Every second student was chosen on an alphabetical basis.  All completed questionnaires were, however checked for consistency of themes and content. To preserve anonymity, students are referred to as A, B, C etc.

Figure 1: Question 1 Number of facts reported by each student for each questionnaire

The students had received their task sheets and completed one lesson on the topic before answering the first questionnaire. During this initial lesson they had completed an online survey which was developed to help anyone determine their “ecological footprint”. This exercise had given them some idea of the topic and task requirements before they completed Questionnaire 1.

Their responses were qualitatively graded as facts, explanations or conclusions as explained in the SLIM toolkit. This question required students to report what they know about their topic with the expectation being that the number of facts would increase with subsequent questionnaires, as the students started researching their topic. Of the 10 sample students examined, this trend was noticed to a certain extent especially with students A, E, F, G and I. See Figure 1 below.

Figure 2: The proportion of facts, explanations and conclusions for the entire cohort

When taking all the students results into account across all three questionnaires we see that “Facts” represent the greatest proportion of the three types of responses.

A reason for the greater number of facts, rather than explanations and conclusions being reported in Questionnaires 1 and 2 could be that students were not encouraged to write their replies in full sentences (as recommended in the SLIM toolkit), and they did not receive sufficient time to complete the questionnaire. During Questionnaire 3 many of those statements were written in response to Questions 6. I have corrected my results taking those statements in account later in this report.

The changes noted between the questionnaires for the number of facts, explanations and conclusions reported for the sample of 10 students can be seen in the following graph.

Figure 3: The number of facts, explanations and conclusions for the student sample across all three questionnaires

 An increase in the amount of facts was reported in Questionnaire 2 followed by a slight decrease for Questionnaire 3.  The student answers for Questionnaire 1 commonly centred on a generalised conception of their ecological footprint.  The same question was asked in Questionnaires 2 and 3, with answers becoming progressively more specific to the students’ chosen research questions. My observation was that although the actual number of facts decreased from Questionnaire 2 to 3; the quality, detail and specificity of each student’s answers improved with each subsequent questionnaire. This is not taken into account in the graphical representations but can be observed in the following table.

 Table 1: The increase in quality and depth of statements in response to Question 1

For some students the number of facts supplied in Questionnaire 3 decreased.  This may be explained by students feeling reluctant to repeat information supplied in previous questionnaires.  In many cases it was also noted that students understood Question 1 and Question 6 of Questionnaire 3 to be referring to the same thing. Many of the statements that should have appeared in Question 1 of the last questionnaire actually appeared in Question 6; skewing the results and making it appear that fewer facts were reported in Questionnaire 3 than actually were.  The following table illustrates excerpts from student statements showing how answers to Question 6 would have been better placed as answers for Question 1. The reason for this was they were statements about the topic rather than statements reflecting the information literacy experience gained whilst undertaking an inquiry task.

Table 2: Examples of Question 6 Questionnaire 3 responses which would have been better suited under Question 1

Table 2 shows us that the results for fact, explanations and conclusions would have changed significantly had Question 6’s statements been taken into account where appropriate.    As explained under “Recommendations”; when repeating an inquiry unit of this type or administering the “SLIM” questionnaires again I would be very careful to explain the distinction between comments on knowledge of the topic vs comments on information literacy gained during the inquiry task.

If Figure 3 is corrected using Question 6’s replies where appropriate, the following graph is obtained.

Figure 4: Answers to Question 1 corrected using answers to Question 6 of Questionnaire 3 where appropriate

Here we see a steady yet significant increase in the number of facts reported during the course of the inquiry task. The number of explanations decreases fairly dramatically in Questionnaire 2 and then increases again in the last questionnaire, almost reaching the initial questionnaire’s level. Bloom’s revised taxonomy describes conclusions as a higher order thinking task comparable to evaluating. As an inquiry task progresses you would expect more of these higher order statements. The number of conclusions drops to zero in Questionnaire 2 and then doubles for the last questionnaire. A reason for the decrease and then increase in explanations and conclusions would most likely be that they students were in the “exploration phase” of Kuhlthau’s ISP.  This is described as the most difficult stage of the ISP with students becoming frustrated and discouraged. It is at this stage that students most require assistance from their instructional team of teachers and librarian. (Kuhlthau 2007) The noticeable increase in explanations and conclusions in Questionnaire 3 demonstrates that these students were able to benefit significantly from intervention strategies provided by the instructional team. These interventions consisted of; advice on search strategies when using the internet, how to determine whether a site is reliable or biased, how to reference and keep notes for a bibliography, using Word for a bibliography, how to do a “Survey Monkey” to get primary data and how to use proforma sentence structure devise to verbally analyse graphical data. During conversations with students it was also possible for me to assist with misunderstandings of words; for instance, the meanings and implications of “primary and secondary data”. Many of these interventions consisted of a one-on-one scaffolding as suggested by Vygotsky in his “Zone of Proximal Development" (Kuhlthau, 2007)

Figure 5: Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development.   Photo credit:

The students’ self reported “perceived” knowledge (Question  3) uses a qualitative scoring rubric of 0= Nothing   1= Not much  2= Quite a bit and  3= A great deal.  The question is “How much do you know about this topic?” When results are compared across the three questionnaires we see that in the first questionnaire only 2 students answered “nothing” and the majority of students answered “not much”.  No student felt confident enough at this stage to answer “A great deal”. This is to be expected when students have recently been introduced to a new task. 

 Figure 6: Perceived knowledge Questionnaire 1

When the same question was asked a few weeks later no students answered that they did not know anything, but at this stage of the task no student was confident enough in their knowledge to answer “A great deal” either.

Figure 7: Perceived knowledge Questionnaire 2

 By the end of the task when students had given their presentations, significantly more of them were confident enough in their knowledge to answer “A great deal” and only two answered “Not much”, with no student answering “Nothing”.

Figure 8: Perceived knowledge Questionnaire 3

Using the 10 student sample and making a comparison between answers to questions 1, 2 and 3 will demonstrate the correlation between perceived knowledge, interest and illustrated knowledge.  Illustrated knowledge was corrected proportionally so that all three parameters could be compared using a scale from 0 to 3 where 0=nothing and 3=a great deal. Therefore, “Perceived knowledge” as measured by Question 3: “How much do you know about this topic?”; “Interest” as measured by Question 2: “How interested are you in this topic?” and “Illustrated knowledge” as measured by counting the number of factual, explanatory and conclusive statements made for Question 1: “Write down what you know about your topic” were compared.  A strong correlation between these three parameters for the majority of students is demonstrated, especially for Questionnaire 3.  The steady increase in the length of the bars in the graph below demonstrates that the amount measured from questionnaire to questionnaire increases and is noticeably greater for questionnaire 3. This illustrates that these students, on the whole, are reasonably aware of their own strengths and weaknesses and this correlation lends credibility to their self reported insights.

Figure 9: Correlation between perceived knowledge, interest and illustrated knowledge

The same information was then manipulated to show each student’s  progression. It can be seen that most students experienced a marked improvement between Questionnaires 1 and 3. The graph also shows that many students either stayed the same from Questionnaires 1 to 2 or may even have declined slightly. This may seem counterintuitive, with the reader expecting the results to show a steady improvement in all categories as the task progresses. However the decline in interest can be explained by Kuhlthau’s stages of the ISP [provide a link here], as the second questionnaire would have been administered when most students were experiencing the “exploration” stage of their task. Common emotions felt during this stage would be confusion, frustration and doubt; this shows up as a decline in interest in the topic. Only students E and F experienced an improvement in interest in their topic from Questionnaires 1 to 2.

Figure 9: Correlation between perceived knowledge, interest and illustrated knowledge

Question 4 served the purpose of finding out what students find easy when they do research. I categorised the information literacy standards achieved by the students as:

·           Develop research question/s

·           Access information

·           Determine accuracy

·           Organisation skills

·           Understanding and applying information

·           Communication skills

·           Improvement strategies

·           Acknowledging sources

·           Technology skills

The categories  correlate to those of the Standards for the 21^st century learner (American Association of School Librarians).

Most students were able to develop appropriate questions and search strategies leading them to source information on the topics that interested them the most.  After the second questionnaire students were much more comfortable locating relevant information. This can be attributed intervention strategies and training from their teacher and librarian to assist students with the development of focus questions, expert search strategies and evaluating the credibility of their sources.

The following excerpts are of typical student responses for tasks they found easy when doing research;

·         “Finding valuable information from reliable websites was quite easy because Public transit websites have valuable information and so did the state government.”  Student A

·         “I find it easy to get the information in my head and understand it. I find it easier to get information on the internet and newspapers. I find it easy when I get direct quotes from a person to use for evidence”. Student C

·         “Thinking back to my research project, I found finding credible book resources easy through using the school library and the BCC library, I also found finding internet resources easy as well as organising the research. Working out if information is credible.” Student E.

·         “I found it easy to pick out the information that was relevant and what was not which helped me a great deal when writing my AVD [annotated visual display]. I also found it easy to find the correct information when I researched more specific terms” Student I

Figure 11: Tasks deemed as "easy to do" when conducting research 

By the end of the inquiry task many students reported that selecting and narrowing down heaps of information for their AVD was difficult. The literacy skills skills of organising and understanding content well enough to summarise it and phrase it succinctly were needed to create the AVD which was a A3 sheet of paper with both information and illustrations. Typical comments were:

 Student A.  “I found putting the information into words and finding the right pictures quite difficult.

Student E.  “...picking out appropriate information from websites, creating the annotated visual display as well as working out which questions I should find research for”

Student I . “...difficult to know what exactly to put on my AVD and to find enough visuals so that my AVD was 60% visual and 40% text. This was due to me having too much into” Student “finding specific information about my topic”

Others found it difficult to come up with focus questions:

Student C.  “It was difficult to come up with the questions to start the assignment”.

Student B.  “To pick a topic”   

Student E.  “Working out which questions I should find research for”

Many students reported some of the information literacy skills both easy and difficult. This contradiction can be understood when examining excerpts such as the following:

Student A.  “If I’m interested, I will find reading and memorising some key points really easy”. This remark was categorised under “Understanding and applying information”, as it entails deriving meaning from information. The same student wrote “I find note taking really hard.” This was categorised as “difficulty with accessing information as it entailed difficulties with choosing the correct information from a wide array of information. It was also categorised under “Understanding and applying information”, as it entailed figuring out what was appropriate for the topic.

Student B made comments demonstrating self-insight and organisational skills under both Questions 4 and 5. For Question 4 she reported, “For me, I find it easy to take notes on paper because I can easily get distracted on the computer”. For Question 5 she put, “I find it hard to concentrate on the computer”.

Figure 12: Tasks deemed as difficult to do when conducting research

In the second and third questionnaire a question appeared asking students about their feelings regarding their research. The question was not asked in the first questionnaire.  Half way through the inquiry task only three student of the sample of 10 felt confident about their research and knew where they were heading. The rest of the students reported either feeling overwhelmed or confused. These sentiments were reflected by the cohort as whole although very few students reported feeling “frustrated”. This response is to be expected at this stage of an inquiry task. Once students have started researching they often find the enormous amount information available confusing and struggle to determine what is relevant, appropriate or true. It is at this stage that intervention from the instructional team is often required. Once they have started to master the topic and have presented their findings there is often an improvement in their feelings about the topic. This can be seen in the following graph comparing student feeling at the mid-way point to the end point of their inquiry task. 

Figure 13: Students' feelings about their research mid-way through the task as compared to the end of the task

As can be seen from the above graph all except one student either improved in affect or stayed the same. Only Student C remained unhappy about her work.

In Question 6 of Questionnaire 3 the students are asked “What did you learn in doing this research project?”

Although many of the students assumed this to be a repetition of Question 1 “Write down what you know about this topic” there were many others that reported gains in self-insight such as:

Student A.  “I learnt that I need to take good notes from information and then turn it into good, well-structures paragraphs. I also  learnt that time management is vital”.

Student C.  “I have to learn to manage my time before I start the project. I learnt that I need to complete all work when I can and as soon as I can. I learnt I need to prioritise”

Student D “researching for valid information is not extremely easy”

Student E.  “To start research early. Making sure to create a bibliography as I went. To not trust all websites. That some information is just opinion. Focusing on the assignment. Time management.”

Student F.  “ I need to work on not doing this at the last minute. I learnt that writing more notes and studying about my topic helps me present my topic better and makes it seem that I know a lot of stuff on litter”

Student H.  “ ...if I focus and concentrate hard I will complete a task, despite the due date. I also learnt that you have to have very good time management for a big research task like this as well as any other assignment or task”  Student I.  “I learnt to be organised and to make sure I keep up to date with my research and journal.”

Student J.  “I learnt about myself as a researcher that I am good at finding lots of general information, however sometimes I have trouble finding specific information about my topic. I also learnt that some websites are biased or have incorrect information”

Figure 14: Self reported skills attained by the inquiry task

As can be seen from the graph, responses that rated highly for this question were “Understanding and applying information” as well as “improvement strategies”; these were mentioned by over half of the students.  Organisational skills were also mentioned by a third of the students. These were identified as problem areas for many students in the previous 2 questionnaires. This shows that tutorials presented by the instructional team paid off and that students will be better equipped to excel at this type of inquiry task in future.

References

Kuhlthau, C., Maniotes, L., & Caspari, A. (2007). Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century. Westport, Connecticut: Libraries Unlimited

Todd, R. J., Kuhlthau, C. C., & Heinstrom, J. E. (2005). School library impact measure (SLIM): A toolkit and handbook for tracking and assessing student learning outcomes of guided inquiry through the school library. Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries, Rutgers University.