Research
Journal
Instructor
Guide
Goal:
The goal of the research journal is to give students enough structure to organize their thoughts and activities while allowing for creativity and independent thinking.
Objectives:
- Students will hold everything they do relating to the topic in the research journal.
- Educators and students will be more organized, which will allow for more time on task behavior.
- Educators and students will have expressly written guidelines, expectations, activities, deadlines, etc.
- Students will turn in
the research journal at the end of the inquiry for a grade. The research
journal will be used to evaluate student’s organization skills and completion
of all steps of the inquiry, as well as help in the grading of the process.
Suggested Readings:
· Callison, Daniel. “Key Words in Instruction: Time on Task,” School Library Media Activities Monthly, Volume XIV, Number 8 (April 1998): 32-34.
· Spitzer, Kathleen L. with Michael B. Eisenberg and Carrie A. Lowe. Information Literacy: Essential Skills for the Information Age. Syracuse, NY: ERIC Clearinghouse on Information & Technology, 1998. 142-144.
Teacher will:
- Develop contents for Research Journal that fits his/her teaching style.
Library Media Specialist will:
- Support the teachers needs as Research Journal is developed.
Teacher and Library Media Specialist together will:
- Brainstorm and plan together for developing a research journal that is age/grade level, resource, and project appropriate.
- Develop a Timeline for the student inquiry.
- Review research journal for contents, clarity, delineating tasks and responsibilities for the teacher and media specialists before preparing research journals for every student.
- Regularly review student’s journal and provide follow-up, feedback, and remediation as necessary.
| ACTIVITIES TO MEET OBJECTIVES |
All resources are available in Adobe PDF
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| ELEMENTARY RESOURCES | SECONDARY RESOURCES | Big6™ COMPATIBLE RESOURCES | |
| Click here to go to Assessment | |||
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Suggestion When possible, stretch out the project timeline by alternating days. Spend 1-2 days in the media center working on the inquiry with 1-2 days in the classroom moving forward with the textbook. This allows the educators time to review the research journals and provide feedback, follow-up, and remediation. This also provides students the opportunity to remove themselves from the process, which is sometimes how clarity, and brainstorms, occurs. |
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| Classroom teacher and library media specialist work together to evaluate student's information literacy needs, curriculum needs, and instructional time available to develop an appropriate timeline. |
TIMELINE: 'Used' Timelines: |
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What does a Research Journal look like? A research journal can be made out of many things—use your imagination and adapt it to fit the needs of your students, your topic, and your goals:
Students could even decorate the cover of their research journal as part of their final product in Stage 5 of the inquiry. |
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What should the Research Journal contain? The research journal should sequentially contain anything and everything relating to the inquiry. Depending on your teaching style and the complexity of the inquiry project, you may either put together a: 1. completed set of materials for the students; 2. partial set of materials (contains all the general paperwork that every student will need, like the timeline and contract) with other materials added as needed (like the source notes); 3. complete set of all the papers, including blank paper for lecture notes.
No matter how you decide to coordinate your research journal, at a minimum, any inquiry project’s research journal should contain:
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