Final Reflection - Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry

I have learned several important things after completing this course on Information Literacy and Online Inquiry. Our school has been doing an 8th grade inquiry project for the past two years and many of the skills and concepts we discussed in this class relate very closely to what we have been doing. I have learned not only how I can create and implement inquiry projects in my classroom, but also how I can better assist other teachers using technology during their inquiry projects.

First of all, one thing I have learned is that perhaps the most difficult part of an inquiry project is getting students to come up with higher level questions that they really have an interest in learning about. This is the underlying key to a good inquiry project – that the students develop a question that has interest to them and has no known answer. They cannot be just finding facts and reporting them back to the teacher. They must develop an open ended question that inspires passion for learning. Without this quality question, the inquiry project will fall flat on its face.

Second, students should be creating a digital product to communicate their message to a genuine, authentic audience. Students and teachers are so used to creating projects just for the teacher, just for a grade. If an inquiry project is to be a powerful learning tool, students must be communicating to more than just their teacher. They should feel like their project can affect the world in some way, and in order to do that they must communicate their message to an audience that has an interest in and a connection to their topic.

Finally, it is essential that students understand that they must be critical of any information sources they use. There is so much information available to them that they must develop strategies for distinguishing between credible sources and ones that have a hidden agenda. They also must recognize that in today’s world, there is rarely an information source that is completely unbiased. The key is to understand why a source may be biased and what effects that bias may have on the information being published.

One goal I would like to work on for next year is to be more active in making sure our current 8th grade teachers have a more successful time implementing our 8th grade inquiry project to their students. This year went pretty smoothly, but the students did not present their projects to an authentic audience, and some of the teachers don’t see why this is important. I am starting to correct this situation this spring by reminding the teachers that the whole premise of the project is to do something that is genuine and not just an assignment for the teacher. Next year I will need to communicate with the teachers more to make sure we are all on the same page. We plan on having a reflection meeting with all of the 8th grade teachers at the end of this year to find out what went well and what we need to improve for next year. This will be a good time to document what changes we need for next year.

I really do believe that inquiry projects can be great learning experiences for students and teachers. The difficult part is getting both students and teachers to get out of their usual mode of finding facts and simply reporting them back to the teacher. This process that has been taught for generations has little impact on 21st century skills, and is certainly not the teaching model we want to continue to use. I am finding that it is difficult to break both teachers and students out of this ingrained and limited process.