Identify best practices for using ISearch in the classroom.
Consider methods for sharing ISearch with teachers, tech coordinators, administrators, and parents.
Reflect on learning by sharing information with others.
The lessons in this module focus on how you can help your students, their parents, and your colleagues use ISearch to find resources for research projects. The steps in the first lessons focus on finding items in your school library. The steps in the last lesson introduce students to using a simple search to find items in your school library and digital resources from INFOhio. This lesson builds on those, shifting the focus to finding a variety of resources for research projects.
Tell students ISearch is a great place to look for a variety of resources when they have a research assignment because it's full of resources that the library purchases and recommends.
Show students how to find ISearch. If you are pointing students to an ISearch widget, demonstrate how to select their library from the drop-down menu.
Before demonstrating a search, review INFOhio's GO! Ask, Act, Achieve (for elementary through high school students) and Research 4 Success (for high school and college students) to determine whether you will use these tools to walk students through the research process.
Demonstrate a search that uses a few, precise keywords to show them how to find books in your library and articles from INFOhio. For example, you could try a search for polar bears.
Point out the tabs at the top, letting students know they can find items from your library on the My Library tab, encyclopedia articles on the Encyclopedias tab, magazine and newspaper articles on the Basic Sources tab, and scholarly research articles that are more advanced on the Advanced Sources tab. Let students know if their topics are related to STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, or math), they should check the STEAM tab. If they want to find government documents and other freely available resources, they could check the Open Access tab. Tell students it's a good idea to start with the My Library tab first.
Let students know if there isn't anything on their topic in your school library or if their search is too narrow, they might land on the Encyclopedias tab.
Point out where they can find the call number and availability.
Click a book cover to show students they can find more information about that book including information they can use to cite the book.
Discuss the limiters that appear in the left column of the My Library tab, and let students know they can find limiters like those on every tab of results.
Point out the subject terms. Tell students they can use the subjects to come up with new search terms to try. Encourage them to brainstorm closely related terms, broader concepts, and narrower terms. Point out the term "arctic" under the Subject limiter. Ask students if they know what the arctic is. (If you need a refresher, read the full text of this article in World Book Kids.) Ask students why they might think of this as a broader term. Is there another word they could use with arctic to make it an even better broader term? [Hint: arctic animals]
Discuss any other limiters students will find useful.
Explore the results on one of the other tabs, letting students know they can find encyclopedia articles on the Encyclopedias tab, magazine and newspaper articles on the Basic Sources tab, and scholarly research articles that are more advanced on the Advanced Sources tab.
Demonstrate how to access the full text of any article from INFOhio using the View/Download button.
Show students how to find the save or email digital resources. Point out the citation tools. Remind students they cannot use the URL in the browser address bar to get back to that item. Instead, they need to click the Permalink button and copy the URL from the Permalink box that appears.
Show students how to mark and save items on different tabs using the My Lists feature.
Show students how to find their books on the shelves.
Remind students that when they are looking for information on a topic, they will probably need to try more than one search.
Failing Forward
Once again, this lesson builds upon the information you have learned in other lessons, including how to help students develop persistence in searching during a research project. If you have not already, read the article If You Have to Fail—And You Do—Fail Forward. "Failing forward" involves learning from mistakes or errors to achieve success. One way to help students fail forward and develop grit is to provide them with opportunities in safe spaces to make, identify, correct, and learn from mistakes. Complete these steps to give students a positive example for how they can learn from mistakes to achieve success.
Remind students of the word arctic. Demonstrate a search for artic (spelling arctic incorrectly on purpose).
You will land on the My Library tab, but you will have very few results.
Explore the results on the other tabs. There will not be many and most will be unrelated. Tell students, "Whoops, that didn't work very well, did it? I know I have more items about the arctic in my library than this, and I know INFOhio has lots of resources about the arctic too. What's wrong? What should I try?" Let students provide suggestions or try to help you find the error.
Try a new search for arctic (spelled correctly this time).
Explore the results on all the tabs. Ask students if these results seem better.
Remind students that when they are looking for information on a topic, they need to try more than one search and they can ask you for help. Sometimes they may not get good results because of a spelling error or sometimes they may not get good results because their search terms are too broad or too narrow. They should try different searches, looking at the subject terms for ideas, to get the results with the information they need.
Answer the following questions in the ISearch Users Open Space group Discussions. Find the Finding Resources for Research Projects reflection question in the Discussions tab. Reply to the thread and review other participants' responses.
What part of the search process do you think will be most difficult for students?
What part of the search process is most intuitive for students?
Can you think of time when you anticipated students would find a new task difficult but were surprised when it seemed intuitive or came easily to many students?
Can you think of a time when you have made, identified, corrected, and learned from a mistake? How did you feel when you made it through that process?
