Teaching Research: Google Keep, Padlet, and Halloween topics
I am one of the weird teachers where research does not stress me out! I actually enjoy the very clearly defined process and I consider it one of my strengths to be able to break down the process in to manageable bites for students to digest, and hopefully, be successful. I love teaching research!
This year as our starting point in research I decided to use Halloween as my inspiration. Elementary students love Halloween; junior high students love Halloween; high school students love Halloween. I love Halloween. So why not make it a fun and engaging way to create research questions and review documentation.
When I first started teaching research papers and projects, it was mostly paper based. We had research folders where students would keep and organize copies of sources, learning logs, notes and reflections as well as guides over MLA format and parenthetical documentation. It was a system. A system that worked!
I have changed the system, and I’ll admit it took me some time to figure out how to modify my older system into a hybrid system that involved both paper and digital resources. One lesson learned, all digital does not work. Thank you Covid for helping us all learn that
Paper and a blend of useful and easy to use digital products made the process easier. Using an inquiry based approach , I take students through from forming a question to product
Teaching Research: Class Passport Activity
This passport activity had students engaged in both paper based activities (graphic organizers) and digital activities. The passport allowed them to work at their own pace and required that they check-in with me and conference.
Teaching Research: Using Google Keep
One of the main players in my system is Google Keep.
The visual bulletin board style of Google Keep makes it easy for me to check quickly their progress, and like most of Google products, awesome features like downloading Keep’s contents to a Google doc.
I had students “keep” their sources, links, articles, questions on their Google keep. I used the following as my model. I do have a 1.1 technology.
I used the model questions and articles above to show the process and how I saved sources and wrote notes.
Using Padlet for student engagement and to provide peer models
Then they posted their research questions on a Padlet. I always check the option on Padlet to approve posts. Been burned by that one before. Lesson learned : )
This allowed struggling students to see a variety of examples, allowed all students to see the creativity and variety of topics their peers tackled, and allowed me to use student examples to highlight questions that showed real research depth and also how to improve weak questions. Since all are posted anonymously, I wasn’t signaling anyone out and , I discovered, most are more than willing to share, “hey, that’s mine, when you are showing off their skills!
Next, we went on to gathering resources. We talked about evaluating resources, especially websites, and since their topics were so varied, some very specific, about how to widen their search.
Creating Keywords
Students created a list of potential keywords that they could use. I will still have a few that their go-to is typing their ENTIRE question into Google, but this step helped prevent that.
Next they created an entry on their Keep app with all their keywords, research question, and research focus.
The end goal was for students to create an annotated bibliography with three sources they evaluated, documented, and summarized.
We used Easybib.com for documentation and a graphic organizer to prepare summaries. Left to their own devices, they just copy and paste chunks as a summary. This organizer did help ensure that they were truly writing a reflective summary for their bibliography.
Annotated Bibliography Graphic Organizer
A little messy, but one copy of my modeling. I use a document camera and model for each class so I have several copies by the end of my classes!
As far as research goes, it went smooth. Despite this tech-addled generation, many struggled with the technology side of the process and they really have no idea how to format a document (margins, spacing, etc). We could have spent a whole class period practicing that!
I have several resources in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. Teaching research is my jam!
