fyi : back issues

Winter 2005 - Engaging readers

Researching Together

By Sue Dracoulas

The timing of my introduction to Researching Together: Engaging Minds was fortuitous. As a new teacher-librarian I was just starting to grapple with what my role entailed. Some 25 years in the classroom and a variety of teaching experiences, including working with at-risk young people in community education, being Head of House in a private school and teaching both adults and teenagers in the government system, had given me a love for learning and teaching, but this was entirely different.

I was taking some breathing space from full-time teaching – travelling, catching up with life and doing some CRT work which led me to working in school libraries. As a teacher of English and IT I found that I enjoyed the work and especially the opportunity it gave me to work with students one-on-one. I had never realised how significant the contribution of the teacher-librarian could be to individual students who would wander into the library looking for support. I soon found, however, that the initial request did not always indicate the underlying issue. For instance, the statement “I have an assignment on Greece but I‘ve lost the sheet and I can’t remember the questions”, really means “I have no idea where and how to start this assignment.” And the comment from a Year 12 girl that “I’m looking for a picture to inspire me for my art work”, revealed, after a long conversation, that the student in question had hit the wall and needed encouragement.

I decided that working as a teacher-librarian was the new challenge I had been seeking. I researched various courses and ultimately decided that I would undertake the Diploma of Library and Information Services offered off-campus through Box Hill TAFE. I successfully applied for a position at Warragul Regional College and began working part-time and studying one day a week.

Working at Warragul proved to be an exciting challenge from many points of view. I was the only teacher-librarian at the school and although things ran smoothly and the library technicians were amazingly competent and supportive, I struggled with what my role really was.

At this point I met two very inspiring teacher-librarians. Pam Remington-Lane came to Warragul to deliver a PD on Making a Difference. This started my journey of understanding into how a good teacher-librarian can add value in a significant way to the experience of classes booking into the library. Subsequently, I attended a SLAV conference at Moorabbin last year and was introduced to Researching Together by Jennifer Hall. I followed this up and attended a training session on the program at Bendigo.

These two teacher-librarians broadened my concept of my new role. The individual problems experienced by students who came to the library with requests for assistance in researching often stemmed from the same inadequate preparation. The lists of questions or assignment topics provided by teachers did not include the tools to step through the process of selecting, organising, analysing and presenting material. I saw my past flash before my eyes. As a teacher I had been guilty of this myself, telling students: “Here is the topic, go to the library and find the information.” I had felt that students needed to be able to find information themselves, not be spoon-fed the answers, but I hadn’t realised how difficult it is to navigate the myriad of information available electronically and in hard copy.

In term one this year I took up a permanent role as teacher-librarian at Berwick Secondary College. Fortunately the library manager, Ruth Sampson, had also participated in the Researching Together training and could see its value. Together we have attempted to introduce the program and its concepts to the staff.

I started with a sympathetic colleague, a science teacher, who I knew to be keen to introduce her Year 7s to meaningful research. The two of us developed a unit of work on Nobel Prize winning scientists. We chose a Research Inquiry format and designed a data grid with three question stems using Bloom’s taxonomy. The three questions related directly to paragraphs the students would present in an article for a combined class magazine on the Nobel Prize. Our data grid provided space for three sources which we instructed the students must be from different formats. We also provided a detailed bibliography sheet for the students to enter their research sources with clearly marked examples of each format. To evaluate the work we designed a rubric with space for both teacher and student assessment.

With the support of the classroom teacher I led my first group of students through research procedures in our library, including how to use the catalogue and the library home page. The students then attempted to fill in their data grids using their new search skills. The idea of researching a specific question and then having to translate that information into their grids, rather than simply finding out everything they could about the Nobel Prize and either copying it from a book or copying and pasting from the internet, was a new and risky endeavour for many! Quite accomplished in skipping the selecting and organising stages, they were ready to continue as they had done for many years, simply opening a Word document and copying and pasting anything they found on the first site listed in their Google search. All they had to do then was add a nice picture and a Word Art heading and, hey presto, assignment completed.

It took some gentle persuasion to encourage our students to take their first steps into real research. Ultimately they did use the data grid and write their magazine page from this information. From the students’ point of view their final product may not have been as good as if they had used their old method. The concept of the work looking good and there being a lot of it is quite entrenched. We will have to work hard to overcome this. The power of a well-designed and well-used graphic organiser as a tool was very evident to us as teachers, however. The work that was produced truly reflected the students’ understanding and ability to organise, analyse and present information.

I have since used the same assignment with other Year 7 science classes, refining the questions on the data grid, the assignment instruction sheet and the rubric each time. It has also given me the opportunity to work in partnership with the science teachers to assist the learning and engagement of our students as they grapple with developing their research skills and techniques.

The success of this first venture sparked interest among the staff. As teachers came into the library to book their classes and discuss current assignments, I was able to demonstrate the Researching Together program individually. With each new opportunity we found more depth and possibility. At a recent PD day I ran a session on Researching Together: Engaging Minds for interested staff. The LOTE KLA leader was so impressed that she followed this up with a session specifically for LOTE teachers. The other KLAs have been invited to similar sessions which we have organised for Term 3.

From a personal point of view, the power of the program has been in the opportunities it has offered me to work in partnership with the classroom teachers to develop our students’ research skills. Teachers

frequently complain about their students’ inability to produce work that is beyond mere copying, and yet researching is a skill to be learned like any other. It must be taught well in clearly defined steps, taking into account different learning styles and thinking strategies. As teachers we are aware of many of the tools presented in the Researching Together program but we don’t necessarily know how best to utilise them. I have found the program excellent in the way it leads us through the use of these tools and strategies and often prompts new ways of adapting them.

Next term our library will be upgraded to include a flexible learning space and my role will be to act as Teaching and Learning Coach in that space. I look forward to the exciting opportunities for learning this will present, both for myself and for the students. Researching Together: Engaging Minds will be a big part of this growth, enabling the partnership between teacher, learner and librarian to develop further.

Sue Dracoulas has been a teacher of English, IT and psychology, a Foundation Director of the Visy Cares Link Centre, and is now Teacher-librarian at Berwick Secondary College.