TEACHING RESEARCH SKILLS TO YOUNG STUDENTS:

The critical role of the media specialist

Janis Wagner remembers when she used to test her students to see if they could identify parts of a typical computer. An elementary school media specialist for 18 years, she says, "I used to call them up one by one and say, 'Show me the monitor, show me the mouse' and I don't do that anymore. The computer is so much a part of their lives."

While understanding how to operate a computer may be part and parcel of every kid's life, understanding the vast content it connects to continues to elude them… and most adults, too. Research, though faster, is complicated by the very item that makes it more productive…the Web, that fire hose of information provides so much data it overwhelms the novice researcher — especially when that researcher is under the age of 10. Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.

The process of teaching young students how to research, then read for information is also complicated by a variety of educational trends. Teachers point to the ever-increasing demands standardized testing places on their time. There is simply more curricula to cover. Additionally, the trend toward open classrooms and team teaching, though shown to be beneficial overall for students, often means more projects with less time available for each one.

The combination of the embarrassment of information riches and less time to wade through them places the media specialist in the critical position of cornerstone in the framework of teaching research skills that can last a lifetime.

Building structure that encourages deep reading

While the Web may be chaotic, it's important to remember that today's students have been raised in a world where information has been fed in disconnected chunks - chaos isn't new to them. Carolyn Boiarsky notes in the Journal of Popular Culture that "While still in their playpens, the members of this generation were introduced to the broken story lines of Sesame Street in which the oral/aural narrative were interrupted by short sound bytes for letters, numbers, and colors. Such fragmented narratives not only re-enforced the sort attention spans of these children but also provided them with a new story schema that did not require coherence among the parts." When faced with a barrage of information, kids have the capacity to scan for bytes, but not necessarily the ability to weave it into a story.

At Michigan's Deerfield Elementary, Wagner defines the challenge simply: "You have to make research child-friendly." She helps young students - in grades as low as one - conduct effective online research by sorting information for them. Each computer in the building defaults to the Learning Center's homepage. On it, Wagner organizes resources by type and by assignments - for example, resources devoted to Ellis Island and biographies. Students simply click through to sites and resources that are vetted by Wagner for accuracy and relevance to the students' assignments. From there, says Julee Thompson, who teaches a Deerfield third and fourth grade split class, kids can get to the information that improves "the final outcome. They're learning information age survival strategies."

Thompson's team-teaching colleague, Julie Kaufman fears that in today's compacted educational time schedule, there's little time for "deep reading." Wagner's organization of resources gets students directly to the "right" information, making the best use of their time.

It's not just about content anymore

Educational experts attest to Wagner's strategy of organizing research by narrowing the choices for information. But again, technology complicates the process of identifying the right resources. In addition to looking at appropriate reading levels and standard measures of quality -- relevance to the topic, accuracy, timeliness - experts note that educators should look at the navigational strategies children will need to understand computer-based text. Lawless, Mills, et al, recommend in the Journal of Research on Technology in Education, that educators point young learners to resources with fewer hypertext links, suggesting that "teachers wishing to use hypertext learning environments for instruction… implement this technique only with more advanced learners." Their study indicated that young students would be better able to sequence information, weaving an appropriate story, if they weren't exposed to "an open-ended, 'unfinished' reading environment."

These findings are important considering the home pages of popular online search pages for kids. Hyperlinks to other pages abound and educators should be wary of leading kids to them without ample instruction on how to navigate them. Additionally, these sites nearly always contain advertising. Though today's students have been raised in an advertising-laden society, a study conducted by Henke and printed in the journal Advertising and the World Wide Web showed that children have trouble identifying the goal of ads on the Web versus those they see in other media. They simply have less experience with Web ads.

Beyond the free Web

The pitfalls of the free Web can be avoided by taking advantage of statewide information resources - which often make premium databases available free to schools and citizens. For example, Wagner's Learning Center homepage connects to MeL, the Michigan e-library, which offers a variety of premium children's databases for free to all Michigan citizens. Through MeL, Wagner can point Deerfield students to such magazine and news databases as Kids Infobits, which culls only the periodicals appropriate for children into an advertising-free research environment.

The child-friendly spin-off of the venerable InfoTrac search service was released in a 2.0 version in February and will be followed shortly by 2.1. Aimed at grades K-5, Kids Infobits Product Manager Julia Furtaw says it serves two groups of students: "We're really looking at the K- Two group and a second, more research-savvy group from grades three to five. They approach searches in two very different ways."

Furtaw says the younger group often can't narrow their topic to a single phrase, or if they can, they don't know how to spell it. Kids Infobits opens with a lively, icon-rich topic tree that allows children to click and drill down to a single topic. For the upper-elementary levels, kids who know what they want and are less patient than their younger counterparts to get to it, the database also includes a search bar on the opening page. Type in the key word and results are delivered in a simple format that organizes each resource in folders by type - reference, magazines articles, newspaper articles, charts and graphs, and images. That span of resource type is an important part of the product, says Furtaw. "The strength of this product is the combination of reference written specifically for elementary school students and periodical content, that's also written specifically for that level."

The concept behind Kids Infobits is much like Wagner's Learning Center homepage: organize vast resources into a narrower range that's child-friendly, highly structured so kids can find things easily, and vetted for appropriate content. The content is drawn from a variety of high-quality sources: references from Blackbirch Press (for example, The Kid's Visual Reference of the World and Encyclopedia of Science and Invention) and periodical content from 125 full-text magazines aimed at the elementary audience (such as Discovery Kids). Content from Kidbits, Blackbirch's popular visual reference, populates the charts and graphs portion of the database with colorful images. News content, from Knight-Ridder and UPI, is carefully selected so students aren't overwhelmed with relevant results.

The addition of charts, graphs and images in Kids Infobits (which can be accessed separately from text) is an important feature in helping kids read for information. Wagner's teaching colleagues, Thompson and Kaufman, note they like to use resources that address the multiple ways kids learn. For example, while one child may find information easiest to understand when it's explained in text, another may only grasp it when it's presented visually in a graph. To that end, Kids Infobits includes a variety of educational handholds that deliver information in multiple ways. For example, locator maps which identify where on the globe a particular country is found.

Print has its place

Wagner's resource list isn't just a click through to online resources. "I list appropriate print resources, too." She's taught young students to find books on the shelves by their "addresses," making it easier to understand the concept of spine labels.

Kaufman and Thompson appreciate the inclusion of print. Says Kaufman, " I think you need to read a book to practice getting at in-depth information. We're teaching a microwave generation and they need to be taught to do more than skim the surface."

Reference sources for elementary and middle school grades are multiplying as publishers learn more about what engages kids. Such publishers as Blackbirch Press, KidHaven Press, and UXL - imprints of reference grand-daddy Gale - deliver high-quality content on pages with colorful images, shorter sentences, larger type sizes that make it easier for kids to intuit important information.

Though encyclopedias tend to be the first choice for research assignments, picture books can be a source of information, too. For a recent assignment on Michigan history, Kaufman and Thompson turned to "M is for Mitten" from Sleeping Bear Press' state-by-state alphabet series.

"Ninety percent of what they'll read as adults is going to be for information," says Thompson. "It gives them practice distilling information from different types of sources."

Additionally, she points to how easily engaged kids can be with a picture book, making research fun.

Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate

At Deerfield, the Learning Center is physically located at the hub of the school. Wagner makes a point to be sure it's the research hub, as well. Her organization of resources by topic and assignment works because it's relevant. She works directly with teachers to have resources ready when students need them. "We brainstorm together to find the way the students learn best," she says.

In addition to scheduled weekly planning time with her colleagues, Wagner keeps in touch informally, asking at lunch about upcoming assignments. Additionally, she encourages flextime in the Learning Center, when teachers can join their students as they conduct research. "We all work together to help the students," she says.

Publishers are often good sources of ancillary items that make teaching research-related skills easier. For example, Kids Infobits includes a variety of supports in its "Teacher Toolbox" that media specialists can direct their colleagues to. The downloadable templates, written in language appropriate for elementary students, can be used by teachers to explain such areas as how to write a topic sentence. Says product manager Furtaw; "It's really designed to be a full-service Resource Center for kids and educators."

Research: The media center touchstone

There's perhaps no greater opportunity for a media specialist to connect with both teachers and kids than by supporting research needs. Though technology often complicates matters, it also provides an opportunity to more effectively integrate into the classroom. Remember these points:

• Sift resources for teachers and students, pointing them to the best resources for their assignment. Consider Wagner's strategy of having all school computers default to the Learning Center homepage, rather than the school home page.
  
• Evaluate electronic resources, not only upon the quality of the content, but the presence of advertising and the amount of hyperlinks buried within the text.
  
• Though the free Web has its place in research, look for opportunities to connect students with premium databases and specific Web sites that don't rely on advertising.
  
• Look for teacher tools available from publishers and share them with faculty.

Above all, collaborate with teachers to learn about upcoming assignments and how you can help turn research assignments into opportunities for children to learn lifelong information processing skills. By carefully planning and interacting with teachers, the media center can be both the hub of the school - no matter the age of the student - and a key ingredient in improving student achievement.

Resources:

A great way to learn more about Kids InfoBits is to sign up for a free 30-day trial and see this exciting database in action.