Guided Inquiry:

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Guided Inquiry A constructivist framework for
learning through the School Library Dr Ross J
Todd Director, Center for International
Scholarship in School Libraries Rutgers, The
State University of New Jersey cissl.scils.rutgers
.edu rtodd_at_scils.rutgers.edu
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• The transformation of New Zealand into a
  knowledge-based society and economy

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Stay Focused
Pick one Card It is YOUR card Think about YOUR
card for 20 seconds Stay focused on YOUR card
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Ross is now going To remove YOUR Card!
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YOUR card has been removed
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A TIME OF BOLD ACTION Lauren Becall

• "Standing still is the fastest way of moving
  backwards in a rapidly changing world.
  Imagination is the highest kite one can fly"

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What Schools Are AboutIntersections
Collaborative Forces
Interdisciplinary Learning
Discipline-based learning
Physical, Personal and Social Learning
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What NZ School Libraries Are About Intersections
Collaborative Forces
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School Libraries
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School Libraries
But how do they work?
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Student Learning and School Libraries

• School libraries as powerful and engaging places
  in the lives of students do not happen by chance
  or force.
• Learning outcomes are achieved through deliberate
  actions and instructional interventions of school
  librarians
• INFORMATIONAL TRANSFORMATONAL FORMATIONAL
• YOUR Action

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Student Learning Through Ohio Delaware School
Libraries

• 39 school libraries in Ohio 13 school libraries
  in Delaware
• Grades 3 12
• 13,123 valid student responses (Ohio)
• 879 teacher / administrator responses (Ohio)
• 5,733 students valid student responses
  (Delaware)
• 468 teacher / administrator responses (Delaware)
• Impacts on Learning Survey (Students)
• Perceptions of Learning Impacts (Faculty)
• helps measure of 48 statements of learning
  outcomes
• Critical Incident response to capture voice of
  students (14,000 responses)

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WorkingTransformatively?

• How can my school optimize the use of its library
  to impact in a powerful way on the learning,
  literacy and living goals of schools?
• What do we want students to do in the school
  library?
• The leading of learning through the School
  Library

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Inquiry Learning

• An inquiry approach to learning is one where
  students actively engage with diverse and often
  conflicting sources of information and ideas to
  discover new ones, to build new understandings,
  and to develop personal viewpoints and
  perspectives.
• KNOWLEDGE OUTCOME
• --------------------------------------------------
  ------------
• It is underpinned by stimulating encounters with
  information encounters which capture their
  interest and attention, and which motivate and
  direct their ongoing inquiry.
• READING - INFORMATION FOUDATION

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READING AS THE BASISFOR INQUIRY

• Learning to Read
• Transformational Role of School Libraries
• Reading to Learn

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LEARNING TO READREADING TO LEARN

• When reading is at risk, it is not just school
  libraries that are at risk more critically, it
  is knowledge that is at risk.

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Student Learning throughOhio/Delaware School
Libraries

• How helpful the school library is
• -with getting information you need
• -with using the information to complete your
  school work (l.L. skills)
• -with your school work in general (knowledge
  building, knowledge outcomes)
• -with using computers in the library, at school,
  and at home
• -with your general reading interests
• -when you are not at school (independent
  learning)
• -general school aspects Academic Achievement

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Reading PatternsDelaware / Ohio

• In terms of perceptions of how school libraries
  help students, reading statements overall ranked
  low, compared to other helps
• Reading helps strongest in primary schools, and
  decline throughout schooling
• Reading helps significantly higher for African
  American students
• Reading helps significantly higher for girls
  rather than boys
• The scores of schools in small cities are
  significantly higher than other type of schools

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Mean Reading Scoresby Grade
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Barriers

• Developing an inclusive community boys and
  girls
• Demands of curriculum No time to read
• Playing psychologist? Moral high ground?
• Personality issues Enforced choice
• Perceive reading enrichment to be the role of the
  public library Seamless environments?
• Library systems and rules what do they convey
  about what is important?

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What Gets Kids Reading?Ohio / Delaware Research

• Understand the lives of your students
• Personalized, targeted, proactive service
• Identifying interests, developing self-esteem
• Availability of latest releases
• Using curriculum as link to reading enjoyment and
  enrichment leaping from curriculum to personal
  interest
• Showing that academic success can be achieved
  through improving reading
• Personal empowerment learning about self
• Open mind about what kids read
• Knowing the dynamics of improving reading

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Delaware School LibrarySurvey (2004 3005)

• Survey 100 of public school libraries
• Measured
• - School Library employees
• - Frequency of co-operations, co-ordinations,
  collaborations
• - Participation in professional development
  activities
• - Provision of professional development
  activities
• - Information literacy interventions
• - Reading / writing initiatives
• - Significant learning outcomes enabled by
  school library
• - Information resources, information technology,
  budgets

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Promoting ReadingDelaware

• Typical activities to promote reading literature
  displays, book talks, promoting information
  resources, reading incentive programs, and to a
  much lesser extent story telling, book clubs and
  author visits.
• Primarily passive activities.
• Reading activities that foster active student
  engagement, discussion and creative outputs far
  less frequently reported.
• High school students dont have time to read.

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AN ACTIVEREADING CULTURE

• Focus on reading activities that foster active
  student engagement, discussion and creative
  outputs
• web blogs
• book raps
• interactive book reviews
• online literature circles,
• reading pals online
• create your own e-books
• student-run school reading web pages

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Reading as the Foundation of Inquiry

• Learning to Read
• Transformational Role of School Libraries
• Reading to Learn

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What do we want of our school libraries?

• From active and confident information seekers to
  active and confident knowledge creators
• Learners actively searching for meaning and
  understanding
• learners constructing knowledge rather than
  passively receiving it
• learners directly involved and engaged in the
  discovery of new knowledge
• learners encountering alternative perspectives
  and conflicting ideas
• learners transferring new knowledge and skills to
  new circumstances
• learners taking ownership and responsibility for
  mastery of curriculum content and skills
• CONSTRUCTIVIST VIEW OF LEARNING and
  CONSTRUCTIVIST VIEW OF LIBRARIES

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Learning OutcomesDelaware Study

• 39 indicated school library had helped students
  develop skills in locating, selecting, organizing
  and evaluating information
• 37 indicated school library helps improve
  reading skills interest motivation in reading
• 22 indicated improvement in technology skills
• 16 indicated development of positive attitude to
  libraries
• 4.5 indicated outcomes linked to curriculum
  content and goals

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Great Minds at work?

• Learning habits

Building Effective Inquiry Through the School
Library
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New Jersey ResearchSchools Context and Sample

• 10 New Jersey public schools
• Experienced and expert school librarians
• Diverse public schools
• 10 school librarians working on curriculum
  projects with 17 classroom teachers
• 574 students in Grades 6 12 range of
  disciplines
• Did they learn anything? Did they come to
  develop new knowledge of their topics, and what
  did this new knowledge look like?

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Substance ofKnowledge
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Changes inKnowledge

• Two distinctive approaches to knowledge
  construction
• -- Additive Transportive
• -- Integrative Integrative

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Additive Approach to Knowledge Construction

• Knowledge development characterized by
  progressive addition of property facts
• As the students built knowledge, they continued
  to add property and manner statements, and to a
  lesser extent, set membership statements
• Stockpile of facts, even though facts were
  sorted, organized and grouped to some extent into
  thematic units by conclusion.
• Remained on a descriptive level throughout

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Integrative Approach to Knowledge Construction

• Initial superficial sets of properties
• Moved beyond gathering facts
• - building explanations
• - address discrepancies
• - organizing facts in more coherent ways
• Interpret found information to establish personal
  conclusions and reflect on these.
• Some students subsumed sets of facts into fewer
  but more abstract statements at the end

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Factors contributing to differences across
Schools

• Changes in knowledge (knowledge growth) did not
  occur evenly in the schools
• No significant variations across the age, grade,
  and gender groups
• Nature of task imposed task or negotiated task
  collection of facts or transformation of facts
• Engagement and ownership
• Nature of Interventions Development of skills
  to construct knowledge rather than finding
  information

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Guided Inquiry Deep Knowledge and Deep
Understanding

• Dont abandon students in the inquiry process
• Build engagement develop curiosity and
  motivation for their topics
• Connect with students existing knowledge and
  interests to establish relevance
• Students more motivated when able to exercise
  some choice over questions and how to present
  their new understandings
• Give opportunities to build background knowledge
  Lots of descriptive facts does not equal deep
  knowledge
• Deal with the affective dimensions doubt,
  uncertainty

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Guided Inquiry Deep Knowledge and Deep
Understanding

• Develop the focus question(s) and formulate
  personal knowledge outcomes
• Engage students in dealing with conflicting
  information
• Use of a variety of analytical methods to sort,
  organize and structure ideas cause/effect
  pro/con error analysis compare/contrast
• Teach students to build arguments and evidences,
  counter arguments and counter evidences
• Teach students to develop conclusions
  positions posit actions, implications and
  solutions reflect on these in terms of original
  knowing

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Students value libraries as Knowledge Spaces

• The effective school library helps strongly in
  terms of providing access to information
  technology (sources and tools) necessary for
  students to complete their research assignments
  and projects successfully
• It provides up-to-date diverse resources to meet
  curriculum informational needs
• Instructional intervention focuses on the
  development of an understanding of what good
  research is about and how you undertake good
  research
• It engages students in an active process of
  building their own understanding and knowledge
• It demonstrates the link between school library
  services and learning outcomes

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Information Literacy as Knowledge Construction

• 100 I needed help doing a project for government
  that had to do with presidents and they had so
  many books and then the librarian helped me find
  web sites. But then they gave me ways of sorting
  through all the ideas to extract the key points
  so I could get my head around it all
• 66 I needed to write a paper and I went to the
  Library where I was ultimately able to write a
  paper successfully. My ideas were a mess and
  talking to the librarian gave me a way to
  organize my ideas and present the argument.
• 3532 I was working on History project and we had
  to have several sources (primary documents) and
  the librarians instructed the students on how to
  go about compiling it into something worthwhile.
  I was able to combine everything together and
  earn a good grade.

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The Challenges for School Libraries

• Information literacy initiatives typically focus
  on information rather than knowledge
• Finding stuff rather than teaching students to
  do something with the found stuff - what is
  the implications of doing just this?
• Move from fostering an information culture to
  fostering a knowledge culture
• Move beyond simplistic research models eg
  define, locate, select, organise, present, assess
• Model effective inquiry in our schools

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6 Models of Meaningful Research Assignments
Framing the Task

• Advice to Action Model
• Compare and Contrast Model
• History and Mystery Model
• Take a Position Model
• The Recreate Model
• Reinventing a Better Way Model

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Advice to ActionModel

• An engaging problem or issue needing expert
  advice
• Predict guesstimate possible advice from experts
  create hypothesis
• Build background knowledge of issue generalist
  sources
• Determine focus on essential dimensions of
  problem
• Gather, sort, analyze expert advice (sources and
  people) / witnesses (detailed, specific
  authoritative sources)
• Test ideas with others (reflect, react
  feedback)
• Decide on course of action (propose solution)
• Eg How safe is drinking water in our community
  preventing controlling forest fires helping the
  homeless

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Compare and ContrastModel

• Identify purpose and items to be compared
• Build background knowledge
• Brainstorm and select criteria for comparison
• Use pertinent quality information sources to
  gather data
• Sort data into meaningful categories
• Analyze results
• Draw conclusions
• Examples How dinosaurs are similar to and
  different from large animals that live on the
  earth today How had nature provided models for
  engineering and design

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History and MysteryModel

• Build a case for solving a history / mystery
  problem
• Build background knowledge to determine specific
  focus of evidence needed
• Study pertinent primary / secondary evidence to
  gather best evidence
• Compare evidence deal with conflicting
  information
• Check evidence accuracy and bias of sources
• Construct arguments and counter arguments

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History and MysteryModel

• Topics
• Causes of war, changes in government, natural
  catastrophes, advances in technology, influence
  of artists
• Examples
• What evidence can you find to prove that the
  ancient Mayans were a highly skilled
  civilization?
• The Titanic was billed as the most luxurious and
  safest ship on the sea. Was the claim that it
  was unsinkable justified?

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Take a Position Model

• Background reading of topic
• Identify issues
• Investigate possible positions through focused
  sources
• Analyse feasible positions pros, cons, evidence
• Form an opinion, build evidence
• Take a position
• Prepare an argument
• Present the position
• So what? Understand impact of position

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Take a PositionModel

• Learn to take positions on sound ideas, rather
  than making snap judgments
• Learn how to understand ideas much different than
  own
• Develop critical analysis skills in face of
  propaganda
• Build empathy for all positions, even as you take
  a stand
• Topics political issues, controversial science
  problems, moral issues, community problems, eg.
  Stem cell research, use of pesticides and
  herbicides
• Sample products position paper, persuasive
  speech, debate, panel discussion multi-faceted
  website

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The Re-CreateModel

• Select event, issue, time period
• Explore event through pertinent research
• Research multiple aspects to ensure authenticity
• Use of primary sources
• Decoding of information from video, photographs
• Interpret, infer and predict
• Select format and construct
• Perform as drama, event, diary, newspaper,
  painting, story, newscast

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Reinventing a Better Way Model

• Brainstorm, decide, select a system for study
  system analysis
• Build background knowledge
• Investigate / research into current methods
• Compare / contrast current methods, establish
  strengths and weaknesses
• Reinvent
• Evaluate test, try, reflect, market
• Examples family surviving on 300 per month
  health care plans stinking swamp that council
  wants to pave over Improving Wellingtons public
  transport system

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A TIME OF BOLD ACTION Edna St Vincent Millay
1892-1950

• Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour
• Rains from the sky a meteoric shower
• Of facts, they lie unquestioned, uncombined.
• Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill
• Is daily spun, but there exists no loom
• To weave it into fabric.