Key Words in Instruction

School Library Monthly/Volume XXVII, Number 8/April 2010

Revising Research

by Barbara Ungar

Students often approach research as boring, overwhelming, or just a necessary evil. Teachers often structure research assignments that require little more than finding the facts and copying them as a remix of material already presented in text or nonfiction books. As a school librarian in an elementary school, I wanted students to feel the excitement of the "chase" and the sense of satisfaction and wonder that could be fostered if only I could change how we "did research" at our school.

Looking for Solutions

I began by attending classes and sessions presented at conferences that focused on the shift in research. The first class I took was by David Loertscher and was entitled "Ban the Bird Units." According to Loertscher, "Bird units are fill-in-the-blank assignments or reports; the result of which is copying or outright plagiarism" (2005).

Following that eye-opening class, I began to explore a variety of research models currently used in classrooms outside our district. I wanted to find a method that offered structure, used a common vocabulary throughout the grade levels, taught investigative skills, developed critical thinking, fostered communication skills, and provided an opportunity for differentiated instruction. I also realized that if I wanted a new culture of research in our school, I needed to begin with the classroom teachers and how they structured their assignments.

During the time I was searching for a model that seemed to be a good fit for our school, I also led a study group comprised of a vertical team of teachers. We wanted to establish which research skills were currently being taught at grade levels kindergarten through fourth. The goal of the participants was to make sure research skills were taught in a logical, age-appropriate sequence without any gaps or unnecessary repetition. The group determined which skills could be taught by classroom teachers and reinforced by the school librarian and which skills would be better handled with direct instruction by the school librarian. In addition, the study group developed a current product list with connections to specific curricular units and grade levels to pinpoint product repetition without increasing expectations or setting higher stakes for students. In this way, there would be consistent accountability across grade levels and many new ways for students to show evidence of their learning.

IIM Research Model

Over the next year, I tried several research methods with students. These methods seemed to begin the process of change I was looking for, but none completely satisfied my original requirements. During an American Association of School Libraries (AASL) national conference, I attended a workshop taught by Cindy Nottage and Virginia Morse. The workshop, "All Students Really Can Do Research without Plagiarism," focused on a method of research called the Independent Investigation Method (of research) or IIM (Double I. M.).

This process is a seven-step model that is the same at all four levels:

• I. Basic Group: The students gather information, confidence, and experience in the process of the seven steps of research as the teacher guides the group.
• II. Basic Independent: Students independently research an individual topic within a broader unit of study and construct their own learning by using the introductory research skills of the seven steps of the IIM process.
• III. Proficient Group: A prerequisite to Proficient Independent, a transition between Basic Independent and Proficient Independent, and with sources less directed by the teacher.
• IV. Proficient Independent: Students build on research skills used at the Basic Level by incorporating: pre-search of literature to build prior knowledge, the use of a primary source, development of a thesis statement, more emphasis on higher level thinking skills, and a greater focus on topic development.

The seven steps are as follows:

• 1. Topic: Discuss the essential questions and big ideas of the curricular unit. (Relate the topic to standards.) Create a graphic organizer of what students know and what they want to know.
• 2. Goal Setting: Formulate questions about the topic. Discuss possible and/or required resources. Determine due dates. Define requirements of the assignment and the expected outcome.
• 3. Research: Use a variety of resources to gather information. Take notefacts—short and true records of information in the student's own words. Record an accurate citation for each source used.
• 4. Organizing: Review notefacts, determine major categories, color-code notefacts by category, and gather citation information into one place (bibliography).
• 5. Goal Evaluation: Review goal questions to determine if an appropriate amount of information has been gathered. Evaluate if too much information beyond the original goals has been collected. Decide if more research is needed to meet original goals.
• 6. Product: Choose an appropriate method of displaying acquired knowledge about the research topic.
• 7. Presentation: Develop an appropriate way to share your information with a target audience (Nottage and Morse 2005).

Finally, I knew I had found what I had been searching for! The Independent Investigation Method satisfied all the conditions that would be needed as an impetus for change in the research process at my school. The vocabulary of the process—the name (IIM: The Independent Investigation Method), the symbol, and the seven steps—remains constant through the grades. This is particularly important in our district since students transition through three schools before reaching the high school level. Students are encouraged to develop investigative skills by using a wide variety of resources and to simultaneously keep track of these resources through citation information included on note taking pages. IIM develops critical thinking by asking students to choose relevant information to answer questions that specifically relate to the goal setting process. Communications skills are fostered not only through a finished product, but also through a presentation step that requires students to focus on sharing their work in an appropriate manner and to develop a sense of comfort in presenting to all kinds of groups in a variety of situations. Finally, it provides an opportunity for differentiated instruction in every step of the IIM research method by creating flexibility in goal setting, product, and presentation. An additional benefit of this research method is that it includes a component to help parents become appropriately involved in their child's research.

District Adoption

The next phase in the process was to work toward district adoption of the model. In my presentation to our district curriculum coordinator and superintendent, I stressed the importance of adopting a district wide research model. I explained the following:

• Research needs to be taught in a sequential process.
• Students need to learn how to access information.
• Students must learn how to cite their sources using a standard format for their bibliography.
• Students need to put information in their own words and share their knowledge with an appropriate audience.
• Teachers need a consistent vocabulary to minimize transition time.
• Parents need to be a part of the process.

I showed them the materials from my workshop and the published books from Active Learning System that could be used by all teachers in our district. The books were another unexpected benefit of the method because it meant that we did not need to create everything from scratch in order to begin teaching IIM to our students. There are specific student pages at each level that give structure to the study but are open-ended for information gathering, analyzing, synthesizing, and other targeted critical thinking skills. Within each of the seven steps, there are specific strategies for different ages and ability levels to help differentiate curriculum. I also explored Active Learning System's Web site which provided further explanation of the research method, a source for providing districtwide training, teacher-produced lessons that are archived on the Web site, and a place for ordering materials (http://www.iimresearch.com).

Building Partnerships

That spring, with the support of the district, I attended a four-day trainer's workshop in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where I learned how to effectively train the other teachers in my district. The following fall, my principal arranged a professional development day to train every staff member in our building in the IIM for research. The first year was challenging for all of us. We adapted existing research projects to this new method, and many favorite research projects were revisited and recrafted to meet our new goals. We struggled to make research assignments more meaningful for students, to explain to the parent community why and how we were shifting the research philosophy, and, most importantly, to be sure that students understood that research was going to be evaluated not just on the finished product, but on every part of the research process—all seven steps.

It is not always easy to get a foot in the classroom door. I was lucky to find several teachers who were ready to co-teach the research process with me. With each teacher the process was a little different. Usually the process started with me dressing up in my "Inspector IIM" detective costume and visiting a classroom to teach or review the seven-step process. The results, however, were the same; we began the long process of change! It was exciting to teach information literacy lessons in the school library in the context of a research assignment and not as an isolated lesson. Encyclopedia lessons and search skills were finally being taught in "real time." Students saw us as a team, and every staff member was consistent in vocabulary and purpose.

Change

We started this process more than six years ago, and we are still refining and redefining research at our school. What I see today is an amazing transformation in what we expect from our students and in the results we see in their research assignments. Students at the kindergarten level understand that "doing research" can be as simple as asking a question and then knowing how to find the answer. They are taught that a primary resource can be the best way to find an answer and that there is a difference between thinking they know an answer and verifying an answer with an "expert" or an expert source.

The students understand that to substantiate an answer, they need to have a credible source provided in a citation. From first grade on up, our students have heard the word "plagiarism" and understand that it means stealing someone else's words, pictures, music, or ideas. And because our expectations, process, and vocabulary remain consistent, students can synthesize the IIM process and apply it to any research assignment at every grade level.

Research assignments have evolved into much richer learning experiences for students. First graders compare other world cultures to their local community using IIM. Second graders investigate regional Native American culture and traditions and understand the environmental influences on four different types of tribes. As an evaluation of this research assignment, students choose an artifact to predict which region might have used that artifact and what environmental evidence would support their theory.

IIM was instrumental in helping our third grade project, Virtual Museum of Illinois History (http://www.wilmette39.org/virtualmuseum), win the premier American Library Association (ALA) Sara Jaffarian Award for Exemplary Humanities Programming in 2007. Fourth graders become system analyzers as they research animal adaptations, solar systems, and human adaptation to environmental systems. We are proud that school librarians and classroom teachers from across the state visit our school to observe students doing research.

I am as excited today about the IIM approach to research as I was when I first began using it. It provides a model for school librarians and teachers to team up and support authentic research, prevent plagiarism, and produce written, visual, and action products with a research model as a foundation for student learning and understanding.

References:

Loertscher, David V. Ban Those Bird Units! 15 Models for Teaching and Learning in Information-rich and Technology-rich Environments. Hi Willow, 2005.

Nottage, Cindy, and Virginia Morse. IIM&$8212;Independent Investigation Method: 7 Easy Steps to Successful Research for Students in Grades K-12. Active Learning Systems, 2005.

Nottage, Cindy. Research in the Real Classroom: The Independent Investigation Method for Primary Students. Maupin House, 2003.

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