!
!
SPR
!
Virtual Library: http://springfieldlibrary.wikispaces.com
LIBRARY REPORT
ING HIG FIELD H 180 SCHO TOWN 1 OL SH Erd E Pape LIBRA IP: r e joyc nheim, Mill R RY TEL oad e_v PA 1 a E 215 PHON lenza@ 9038 -233 E sdst X 25 -6030 FAC .org 02 215 SIMILE -836 -523 7
ON IMPROVING STUDENT RESEARCH AND WRITING Many years ago, perhaps way back in 2000, our High School embarked on a journey that involved exploring how we might improve student work. The Research or Writing Initiative engaged our faculty in looking closely at student work and discussing strategies for improving its quality. As a team, we developed a series of professional development activities, scaffolds, and tools for instruction relating to student research and writing. Many members of our current faculty were not here for that initiative and are not aware of the steps we took or the progress we made. Here’s a little recap. We moved major written assignments away from the report. The accessibility of information and the low level skills required for simple retelling, make the reporting of information a relatively unchallenging task. In addition, asking learners to merely report often leads to plagiarism.
Feb. 2011
Volume 11 Issue 2
We decided instead to ask learners to: • to develop thoughtful questions around topics of their own choice; • take a stand--to move from question to thesis; • identify and evaluate quality, relevant sources; • support their thesis with solid evidence; • gather, use, share, and document information ethically; • carefully synthesize their new knowledge; • communicate the results of their knowledge-building in creative ways; • share their creative work with audience; • and, if possible, to make a difference. I am gathering some of the tools we created back in the early days of our initiative and combining them with a collection of new resources and applications, and sharing them in a new Research Tools guide. I’ll be introducing these tools with classes during their visits. Please help me by exploring and sharing these tools with your own classes and by sharing materials you discover and develop yourself with me so that I can add them to our shared toolkit.
Visit our new Research Tools Guide @ http://sdst.libguides.com/ researchtools
Springfield Township HS Library, 1801 East Paper Mill Road | 215-233-6030 X. 2502 | http://springfieldlibrary.wikispaces.com