Practice Using Research Tools with Grade 3

Our grade 3 teacher Julie wanted to bring down her two classes to begin research on a project about Canadian settlers.  Our idea was to divide up the students into two groups; one group would focus on taking notes from the book resources we had on the topic, and the other group would use ipads or laptops to do their research using links that I shared through Google Classroom ahead of time.

I made sure to emphasize to students how critical it was that they take notes in THEIR OWN WORDS!

Students had a wide variety of links they could choose for their research... from online Canadian Encyclopedias to learning games about settlers to a video by the Canadian Film Board about pioneer life.  Depending on the learning style of the student, they tended to know in advance what sites they wanted to use.

This student is playing a fun game where she matched health ailments to pioneer remedies.

Quite a few students were uncomfortable using the books and were both resistant to using them and frustrated by them.  Many even attempted to go straight to YouTube for research even though I had provided links because that is what they do at home. Information is not so instantly accessible in a book as it is when using a device.  And yet most of the books were much more comprehensive and useful than the online links.

I think this indicates that we need to spend more time utilizing non-fiction books in the classroom so that kids develop an ease in using the printed page when they are working.  The only children who seemed to really excel with using books in research were our avid readers, the students who are always in the library signing out books. 

This student is using an approved site to conduct his research.  It has very easy to use links that showed photos of tools used in pioneer times.

Reading non-fiction and using those books in research projects is the foundation of teaching children how to use the internet for research.  Once you've learned to use indexes, to skim books for the content you need, to do proper book citations, then and only then can you move into using similar techniques when doing online research.  What's more, the books in our school's collection are always written by experts, unlike many of the websites students tend to try to use for research online, which means that the information is going to be accurate and appropriate for their projects.

This experience speaks volumes about how children from a very young age are taught to use technology to learn (via educational games, videos, online work)  at the expense of developing other ways of learning alongside it.  Both ways of learning need to be hand in hand to create a successful and literate student.