Research as inquiry

This threshold concept sees research as iterative and depends upon asking complex or new questions whose answers in turn develop additional question or lines of inquiry (ACRL: 2015) Students or researchers must realize that research does not begin or end within a discipline but can extend further to the community at large.  It is also important to note that this type of research inquiry en-campuses a lot of debate, back to back dialogue for knowledge creation to occur.  Researchers or students must have attentive interviewing, listening and recapitulation skills to allow them to analyse and interpret what was shared to them and must adhere to research ethics and legal guidelines when acquiring information.

Today I carry on with my journey in understanding  Information literacy framework for Higher Education.   In my previous blogs I made mention of the 6 threshold concept that are pillars of this frame work i.e Authority is constructed and contextual, Information creating as a process, Information has value, Research as inquiry, Scholarship as conversation, Searching as strategic exploration. Last week I demonstrated Scholarship is a conversation in a lesson plan.  Today I will be designing yet another lesson plan, where will view Research as inquiry in a lesson plan.

Lesson Plan: Global warming 

Number of Students: 30

Duration of Exercise: 2 days

Stationery used

A4 Colored poster card paper
Coloring pens

Lesson Objectives

• Students will learn to formulate a research questions
• Students will learn to brainstorm and  mind map ideas
• Conduct research using various information resources and research methods
• Students will learn to to collaborate and work with others as a team

Activities

1. The teacher librarian will first do a topic ice-break/ teaser to determine how much the students know of the topic.  Online collaborative tools i.e todaysmeet, quiz-let, google chat would be use to stimulate the conversation as  they provide real time, instant communication
2. Students will be broken into 6 groups, to design an online or paper format poster of global warming and its effects
3. Students will be referred to the library to look at information sources i.e encyclopedia, books, you tube videos, interviews to collect more information on the topic
4. Students will be given time to put together group presentation of their posters, reflect and share on their findings with the class

Activity in relation to knowledge practice and dispositions

• Activity 1: As the teacher librarian is introducing the topic students will get an understanding of what has been done on the topic, will get to identify gaps and will follow up by reading what other scholars say of the topic
• Activity 2: on this activity the students will brainstorm and identify an appropriate angle or scope of investigation
• Activity 3: as students move from one source to the other they are in turn getting multiple perspective, which is a nice disposition to learning
• Activity 4:The last activity will allow students a chance to regroup and synthesize idea learned from multiple sources, they will also be able to draw reasonable conclusion on the topic based on their findings and analyses

Conclusion

In this lesson plan students will engage with each other, with the library, and with authors who have written on the topic.  They will get to ask questions among themselves, they will have disagreements and will maybe take the conversation further by speaking to community members,  farmers, industries, who might have felt the effect of global warming. All the elements of research as inquiry will come out as they engage, and learn how to ask pertinent questions, summarize whats been said to conceptualize and create new knowledge.