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Teaching Research: Home

A collection of resources and support for teachers to effectively teach research skills.

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Citation

Noodletools is our citation generator. Used correctly, it will format your citations for you and ensure you get full credit for providing your sources. 

Introducing/Assigning Topics

Some Tips

  • Review the research process; the difference between primary and secondary sources; source evaluation.
  • Have the students come up with how they want to show their learning
  • Have students select 2-3 potential topics they are interested in and do preliminary research to determine which topic works for them
  • Offer a broad selection of credible sources that shows various viewpoints
  • Pre-reading research (time period, people, etc.)
  • Give students options when introducing/assigning a topic, some part of that topic that interests them most (ex. 1960s technology, music, etc.)
  • Students brainstorm topics after giving background, RQI process
  • Work through texts and free-write questions (things students are curious about), generate a broad list of topics from questions (topics also pre-selected to supplement)
  • I provide a list of topics and students choose what to focus on. They are also allowed to conference with me if they choose a topic not listed.
  • Start with a theme- give example topics to fit theme.
  • Use the "text" as a gateway to the theme or topic and then offer opportunity for students to question before choosing a topic
  • Consultation with Librarian
  • Give list of broad topics, have students choose a few that interest them to generate questions around, questions help students to narrow down subtopics

Inquiry Questions/Supporting Questions

An Inquiry Question

A Supporting Question
  • Is Complex and Open-Ended
  • Focuses on a researchable issue or problem
  • Leads to a claim supported by evidence and reasonable
  • Requires critical and careful reading of multiple sources
  • Can be turned into a thesis statement
  • Is specific and closed
  • Has a concrete answer
  • Connects of leads to larger inquiry
  • Becomes evidence to support the claim

Native American Inquiry Jamboard

Renaissance Inquiry

Organizing/Synthesizing (Notetaking)

Notes Should

  • Include an interpretation of the information in their own words and commentary on how they will use it as evidence for their claim

  • Be organized by subtopics/broad details of support

  • Reflect their process, learning, and growth in understanding the purpose of the inquiry

Note taking can be done using digital tools (like Noodletools Notecards), or handwritten notes using styles students prefer, as long as they have these common elements!

Note Taking Organizer

Choosing the Best Information

Does the Information?  
  • Directly answer a supporting question?
  • Relate to your inquiry?
  • Support your claim?
  • Contain words and phrases that are in your inquiry or supporting questions?

If YES, use the information.
  • Serve as a rebuttal to your claim?

Either your other evidence is strong enough to refute it, or the new information will lead to a change in their claim.

A Thesis is Flexible! 

Writing and Revising a Thesis

Evaluating the Process

What did I learn?
  • About the topic and its significance?
  • About the inquiry process and my research skills?
  • About my own connection to or ideas about the topic?
  • About myself?
How can I apply my learning beyond this moment?
  • To future inquiry experiences
  • To better understand the future and my place in it

 

Noodletools In-Depth

Noodletools is more than a citation generator. It can be a whole research platform. Find some tutorials of other components of Noodletools below.

Using Noodletools Notecard Feature

Noodletools as a Complete Research Platform

Useful Search Strategies

TRUNCATION

Truncation lets you search for a term and variant spellings of that term. 

Just add an asterisk (*) to a word with multiple endings:

EXAMPLE: interact* will search interacting, interacted, interaction, and interactivity

 

BOOLEAN SEARCHING

For more precise searching, connect your keywords in a meaningful way using the words AND, OR, and NOT.

Using AND narrows your search.

EXAMPLE: 

The more keywords you connect with AND, the fewer results you will retrieve. The database will need to find each of your keywords in the text in order to show it to you.

EXAMPLE: "homeless youth" AND "education" AND "new york city"

Using OR broadens their search. You should get MORE results using this strategy.

EXAMPLE: water OR lake OR river OR stream

Using NOT narrows your search.

This type of search is good to use when you already know what you DO NOT want.

EXAMPLE: (cars OR automobiles) NOT Europe.

 

QUOTATIONS

Sometimes you may want to search for a phrase. Using QUOTATION MARKS around a group of words will search the phrase as a whole instead of by individual terms. 

EXAMPLES: 

"common cold"

"primary school"

"community college"

 

 

Google Tips

Google Web Search

We recommend you avoid the battle engendered in the statement "Don't google it!". Instead student use of Google (or any other search engine) is an opportunity to start a discussion about evaluating sources. One tried and true method of source evaluation is the CRAP (sometimes CRAAP) method.