TechQuest: Project Description

Introduction to the Problem
In reviewing our MEAP data from last year, our committee found that all three grades (6-8) scored significantly lower on the informational reading section of the test. While we arrived at this decision as our area of greatest weakness, we didn’t exactly brainstorm any solutions for how to address the problem. In reviewing the curriculum that I taught for the 7th grade this past year, I realized that I never explicitly taught informational reading skills or addressed the tool set required, other than to focus on some of the skills during different genre units or to briefly focus on informational reading during the research unit. In previous years, the unit constructed to address informational reading did a haphazard and aimless job in my opinion. The unit was based on advertising and culminated in a digital story advertisement that students made themselves. In my opinion, this could be a perfect example of using technology for a fun activity but not necessarily to advance higher level thinking or important skills related to informational reading.

Instead, I would like to find a way to foster this important reading skill across the course of the year, while also making it fun and interesting for students. Some of the skills I hope to develop include evaluation of text, ability to summarize text, identify main points and supporting points, identify and evaluate bias, analyze organizational patterns, use prediction, inferences, and concluding skills to analyze and make connections with material, and practice synthesizing within and across different pieces of text. One of the first goals would be to create a context that engages students, allows for student interaction, and allows for creativity in creating lessons to elicit the skills above. I believe such a unit would be important not only for increasing MEAP scores, but more importantly increasing student source analysis for the research project, close reading across units, and life skills and engagement in reading more generally.

Research Approach
My approach towards researching this problem was to clearly define informational literacy and its importance to student learning, identify possible reasons for why this skill is lagging in the middle grades, and find potential strategies to improve student ability. After identifying these strategies, I also hoped to uncover examples and applications for technology tools to potentially solve this problem.

To begin with, information literacy is often closely aligned with technology literacy, which makes the use of technology tools a perfect resource to solve the problem. Information literacy refers to the ability to “manage information: locate, gather, and organize information using appropriate technology and information systems (Asselin).” The ultimate goal of this skill is to “gather and synthesize information” with the ability to “create and communicate knowledge (Asselin).” This skill set continues to grow in relevancy to student learning, especially as a result of the quickly changing technological landscape of the 21st century. Information literacy is crucial to student ability to locate and use resources both for school purposes and for real-life purposes (Dow). The ability to locate and evaluate non-fiction sources also engages critical thinking skills and requires student strategies for online reading comprehension. However, this skill is often overlooked in the middle grades because of a preference to teach “classical literacy.” “Fiction, in fact, is used more than four times as much as nonfiction in U.S. classrooms” (Erickson). There is also a huge gap in research and data related to the online reading comprehension of middle schools students, suggesting that in many curriculums there is no explicit teaching of information literacy skills, strategies for improving these skills, or even an understanding of how to do so in an online context (Chen).

In order to improve student ability in the area of informational literacy, it is important to explicitly teach the necessary skills while building strategies to increase reading comprehension. Many suggested activities for teaching these skills are based on the “ability to analyze and construct knowledge” (Erickson). Some ideas include concept-based learning, incorporating non-fiction sources and texts into classroom reading, using cooperative learning groups where students have the ability to analyze and evaluate through peer discussion, explicitly teaching literacy strategies such as QAR and note-taking skills, and applying Web 2.0 technologies as a context for social construction and development of information literacy (Erickson and Luo). Popular tools such as blogs and wikis were cited as useful Web 2.0 applications for helping students evaluate content through social interaction (Luo). Another potential tool is social bookmarking, which has been used to help teach controlled vocabulary, summarization, and the ability to sort and organize resources (Luo).

Proposed Solution
After reviewing the targeted skills covered under information literacy, my plan is to combine the tools of rss readers and social bookmarking to create an interactive hub where students can practice and develop the required skills over the course of the school year.

• RSS reader: Students will create a google reader site and be required to add a minimum of 5 educational websites. We will discuss together how to find these sites and which pages might be interesting to add. Over the course of the year, students will be prompted to find new sites or add required sites as they are discovered. The goal is for students to have access to a variety of resources and articles related to current events and educational interests. The teacher will explain the purpose for the rss feed readers and model how to use the site, as well as targeted informational reading skills.

• Diigo: Students will also join the class social bookmarking site at diigo.com. The teacher will explain the nature of this site and model how to use it, as well as strategies for online note-taking and organization. On a weekly basis, students will be prompted to peruse the updates on their reader page, in order to choose an article to use for a specified assignment (the assignments will focus on practicing skills for informational literacy). Students will bookmark the chosen article from the reader page onto the class bookmarking page. They will use the highlighter and sticky note features (as well as comments) to complete the assignments. Their work will then be viewable to the rest of our class. At times, the assignment may be based on interacting and reviewing peer submissions, as opposed to adding a new bookmark to our page. Scaffolding will be used to build the complexity of the assignments and the critical thinking required as the use of the site grows more familiar.

• In addition to focusing on skills such as summarizing, drawing inferences, synthesizing, etc, the assignments will also work to develop systematic approaches to the following aspects of working with resources:

o Locate sources (how do I locate sources about my topic?)
o Evaluate credibility of the sources (is this site credible?)
o Scan for relevancy (will this site be useful for my purposes?)
o Locate/record citation information (how can I return to this source in the future?)
o Read and take notes (when should I take notes and on what information)
o Comprehension strategies (am I understanding what I’m reading? what can I do to better understand this?),
o Organizing information (how do I organize all of this information to easily store it for future use?)

• My goal is that the coordination of the reader page and social bookmarking site will support student acquisition of these skills and strategies through targeted assignments. Throughout the course of the first and second trimesters, students will access their RSS pages on a weekly basis. There will be a different response assignment to complete focused on a different element of informational literacy skills. After practicing these information literacy skills on a weekly basis, students should be equipped with the strategies necessary to embark on an extensive, engaging, and critical essay assignment which will require them to evaluate a current event of their choice. In the past, content was lacking because so much focus was on the process. So if we scaffold the development of the process over time, then students should be able to focus more attention on the actual content of the research paper.

Common Places of Education
The role of the teacher is very much focused on planning and preparation. After creating the sites, carefully introducing the sites, and providing useful practice opportunities, the teacher really becomes a facilitator. The student should be able to navigate the sites and posted assignments, collaborate and discuss with peers via the postings, and engage with information they find interesting. The teacher is available for troubleshooting and to help push student thinking when needed, but after students are comfortable with the sites and work through modeling and guided practice with the informational literacy skills, the teacher really becomes just a supportive structure. The subject matter is at the heart and soul of seventh grade language arts: informational literacy and the research process. This project aims to explicitly teach the skill set needed in order to support the research process. It also hopes to engage students by focusing on topics of their own interest. The context of the setting allows for student collaboration and discussion via the social bookmarking site. This is far more engaging and interactive for students than working on individual topics and notes in their binders. Instead, the setting encourages students to share and construct knowledge, providing feedback that may otherwise be missed. The teacher and peers are also available in a face-to-face context as well, to extend conversations and provide technical support.

Plan for Implementation
During this course, my goal is to develop the RSS reader page and diigo sites for my students. I plan to create specific lessons for implementation, which will introduce students to using these sites. I also hope to plan lessons and activities to target the different parts of the skill set (evaluation, summarization, synthesis, etc.) as examples of formative assessment. After this course ends, I will be able to implement my plan into the classroom, with a goal of extending lessons over the course of the first two trimesters. By the time students reach the third trimester, they should be prepared to move into the Research Process WebQuest (which I am developing for 811), which leads them into the main research paper for the final six weeks. So my plan is to use this project to scaffold and support student ability to complete the WebQuest, which is really designed to scaffold and support the ultimate outcome of the research essay and presentation.