The Research Project Continues

The kids have been fully engaged in their Inquiry-based Project.  They have been excited to meet with me a hour each day and find out the answers to their questions.  I wish I would have had more time to really pre-load the new literacies more than I did, but despite that, they are still doing a good job.
The students have developed their questions that will drive their research and have used both print and online resources to find their answers.  Some students were unable to find information in our non-fiction books and subscription resources here at school.  For those students, we discussed how to turn on Google Safe Search and evaluate the resources we came across.  An example was one of the students who chose to research Harley Davidson motorcycles.  He chose this topic because his dad owns one and he wanted to know more about how they were invented, why are they so popular, and what the cost is on them.  He idd a great job of focusing his topic onto a specific motorcycle.  As looked together at the resources that displayed in our search, my student was able to notice that a timeline of information was on the list and was specifically from the Harley Davidson website.  He stated to me that this would be a good spot because we were getting the information right from them.

Here was one reflection I really enjoyed reading. "I liked to pick my own topic because we get to research on maybe our favorite person or our favorite thing.  It [this project] is going great and it is just right because WorldBook Online is giving me lots of information that answers my questions. What I like so far is getting to research on the Chromebooks because instead of going on google and finding lots of websites and google giving you lots of not true information the Chromebooks give you lots of really true information."

I conferenced with most of the students today and found out that a lot of them are doing great work.  They seem very engaged in their topics and some have been doing additional work outside of school.  They are eager to read more.

The challenge is that there are a few who are eager to learn but need a few reminders, as well as a quiet spot to not get distracted.  They do better work when I have them find a quiet corner with the Chromebook. 

Another challenge so far has been that the students read and absorb the information but they lack the note taking skills needed to record the good information they find.  This is something I will do a lesson on in the future.

Overall, I can see that the engagement level has increased for most of these kids and that they love the idea of choosing their own topics.  Some of the students benefit from it being completely individualized and on there own, while others need to have more collaboration with me or others.