synergy : volume 2, number2
Strategies
Turning theory into practice in the classroom
By Shirley Melissas and Lesley Burgess
In a world of exploding information, increasing use of the digital medium and concerns over plagiarism, the traditional role of schools is being redefined. Knowledge dissemination is being challenged as the primary goal of education. Students are expected to develop independent learning skills, to connect with information and move beyond the facts by honing in on their analytical and literacy skills. The role of the teacher is being increasingly viewed as that of a facilitator who mediates the learning experience, scaffolding students in their quest to be self-initiated learners. But who helps the teacher in this new role? Teachers like students also need scaffolding. Pat Kiddey, manager of the Stepping Out product range at ECU Resources for learning states that teachers, like students, need structures and support: “So what do teachers want?… It’s the how to. That’s what’s missing . . . That’s what teachers want” (Kiddey, p. 32). The newly-published CD Making a difference – research guide is one small step along the path to providing that scaffolding for teachers.
Making a difference – research guide was developed at Mentone Girls’ Secondary College (MGSC), Victoria, Australia, by teacher-librarians Lesley Burgess and Shirley Melissas. A major objective is to make it quicker and easier for staff at the school to deliver quality teaching and learning by translating some of the ideas from the plethora of professional development activities into the classroom. Professional development provides a tantalising glimpse of the way we would like it to be. Incorporating the ideas into the daily grind can be daunting. Experience proved that to revise one small assignment to incorporate some ideas from professional development took an inordinate amount of time. No wonder the theory is struggling to find its way into classroom practice!
The support material developed at MGSC is based on the research process and assignment writing. To make a difference, the teacher support material has to be easy to use, accessible through-out the college and designed to lighten not increase teacher workloads. This CD Making a difference – research guide focuses on facilitating teachers to apply higher order thinking skills by using Bloom’s Taxonomy. It also simplifies Gardiner’s multiple intelligences and Edward de Bono’s six thinking hats, providing practical suggestions for their inclusion in classrooms.
The resultant CD is therefore a blend of information literacy skills with some of the current professional development pedagogy. The original material was deliberately developed as part of the school intranet to facilitate access for staff and students. At the end of 2002 the material was presented in a workshop at The Middle Years of Schooling Conference, Melbourne and was again demonstrated in 2002 and 2003 at the School Library Association of Victoria (SLAV) Conference. The response was an inundation of requests by teachers for a copy of the material. This was the impetus that triggered the eventual publication of the material on CD.
Research is not as easy as it seems. Support through the stages of the research process can make it easier. Often teachers themselves do not have a clear understanding of the skills required in the research process. Some feel it is enough to provide students with detailed instructions directing them to complete the task. So much of the focus is on the content that often skills needed to complete the task are neglected. Who is teaching the students the skills? Garland interviewed students and teachers and found:
Students generally faced research tasks with uncertainty and apprehension. The teacher and teacher-librarian intervention throughout the whole process could successfully moderate those feelings. Students needed practical help . . . The message was do not abandon students.
A useful way for staff to begin is to gain an overview of the research project – the who, what, where, when, why and what. While such thinking sets the content boundaries of the research it also extends the research planning to include the aims, skills and evaluation. The prethinking section of Making a difference – research guide provides such a starting point for teachers.
Crucial to research is the task or question. Dr. Ross Todd said: “The quality of the question is the best indicator of student performance”. Making a difference – research guide supports teachers in writing the research questions. The Quick Question section of the Research Guide directs teachers to remember the Who, What, When, Where, Why and How questions. While stating the obvious this type of question can be very powerful. Consider the class that, upon receiving its research task, is less than enthusiastic. Turn the tables. Ask the class to design their own questions within the broad parameters of the topic.
Teacher preoccupation with content results in lower order thinking questions and these types of questions invite plagiarism. Technology is a wonderful tool in the quest for knowledge. It focuses on information so it can readily satisfy questions requiring responses based on content. The challenge for teachers is to move students into higher order thinking questions. Bloom’s taxonomy with its six levels of intellectual behaviour provides the theory to enable such questions. The Thinking Questions in Making a difference – research guide makes the implementation of the theory into the classroom quick and easy by providing question stems in each level of thinking. Creating questions in the categories of applying, analysing, evaluating and creating provides “a kick in the pants to liven up your thinking” (Norton, 2002. p. 9).
Educational theory in the last two decades is also concerned with the learner and how he or she best learns. Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences acknowledges the individuality of students and identifies the existence of eight different styles of learning – interpersonal, intra-personal, verbal linguistic, logical mathematical, kinaesthetic, visual, musical and naturalist. Gardiner’s philosophy says that:
we are not all the same; we do not all have the same kinds of minds…education works most effectively if these differences are taken into account rather than denied or ignored (Smith, 2002, p. 12).
The onus is on the teacher to provide opportunities for their students to access learning through a variety of styles. The Creative Questions in Making a difference – research guide make this task much quicker and easier for teachers. The matrix provided integrates Gardiner’s multiple intelligences with Bloom’s taxonomy, enabling teachers to set questions at a particular level of thinking while simultaneously enabling questions that cater for any multiple intelligence.
Making a difference – research guide also provides strategies to support other stages of the research process. Selection of material as a research skill is scaffolded by incorporating an internet appraisal form which can be printed and used with students. Such a skill is vital today as students’ first choice is increasingly the internet rather than books. Internet users need to acquire the skills to distinguish between the over abundance of largely unvetted low quality information or ‘data smog’ (Principia Cybernetica, 1999) and authoritative sites.
Tracking the sources of materials referred to in research work is another essential skill. There is a growing student culture that condones cutting and pasting slabs of the work from someone else. Such plagiarism must be discouraged. Sources referred to in research work should be cited. Making a difference – research guide assists students to correctly cite a variety of resources.
Research tasks set for students may be presented in different ways – orals, debates, essays, reports, posters and so on. It shouldn’t be assumed that students, having conducted the research, could transform it into the required format. Making a difference – research guide provides some support in the form of hints and specially-designed note-taking sheets which guide the student in some modes of presentation. The material may be used as stand alone support. Alternatively it may included on the instruction sheet handed to students. Hence students on receiving the research topic also receive instructions and hints to develop skills in the mode of presentation.
Information literacy is an ongoing challenge. The CD Making a difference – research guide is a tool to scaffold and support teachers and students through the research process so that information literacy is encouraged. It is not an easy feat to develop successful information users. It is, however, a vitally important objective for both teachers and students. Peter Hill emphasises the need for teachers to focus on pupil growth when he says “schools and teachers can and do make a difference, and that consistent, high quality classroom teaching can deliver dramatic improvements in student learning” (Hill, 2001, p. 8).
BIBLIOGRAPHY Garland, K. (1999)[Online], Research on the information process available from the Internet, Available at:
Hill, Peter (2001) Perspectives on education : teaching and school effectiveness, Department of Education, Employment and Training, Melbourne.
Kiddey, P. (2002) ‘What teachers want’ in EQ, Winter, pp. 31-32.
Norton, H. (2002) ‘Structuring learning: What’s happened to knowledge? Bloom revised’ in The Professional Educator, June, pp. 9-11.
Principia Cybernetica, (1999)[Online} ‘Change and information overload: negative effects’ available at:
Smith, H. (2002) ‘Minds and their development: just how many intelligences are there again . . .?’ in The Professional Educator, June, p. 12
Todd, R. (2000)’Transforming learning’ presented at SLAV Conference Critical literacies: collaboration critical. July. Available on the SLAV website
Todd, R. (2001) ‘Sustainable leadership and dancing the knowledge dance’ in FYI, Spring, pp. 4-6.
This article was originally published in the journal Interaction, Volume 31, Number 4, December, 2003.