Post 12: The One Where I rant about Teachers!

I work very hard to teacher information literacy to students when in fact I ought to concentrate my efforts on my colleagues!  For 5 years I have been working with students to develop the skills they need for research, both on the Internet and with print material, and the skills necessary for citing sources.  It takes a very long time for these skills to develop.  Just as you don't emerge from year one a fully formed reader, a researcher grows in experience and skills through the years of their schooling.  As with readers, some become better than others.

However, many of my colleagues appear to believe that 11 year olds come to them fully formed and able to research and cite their sources with no further input.  Do you know how to cite, they ask their class, who believe that they do, and reply 'yes'.  Well that's fine then, no further work needed!  What child would say that they didn't know how to read, if asked the question.  Yes, would be the reply, even from the 5 year old who is just beginning.  However, we all know that at each stage we mature in our knowledge and skills.  An 11 year old does not have the research skills of an 18 year old or a 30 year old.  The question then is why do we believe that they do.

I have a few possible answers to that question.  Many teachers came to teaching at the beginning or even before the advent of the Internet as a major source of information.  They learned to research when the majority of sources consisted of books, periodicals and a number of other sources available in print or on microfiche or microfilm.  They found their information by using reference materials and the card catalogue of a library (either in drawers or on a database).  If they did go through school using the Internet, their teachers did not.  Thus, they did not acquire the skills needed to be able to effectively use the Internet for anything other than basic research.

Our students appear to be so at home on the Internet!  Some of my colleagues have said that they feel somewhat intimidated by the ease at which young people move from one site to another.  Therein lies the rub! We assume that because someone has dubbed them 'digital natives' that they are equally able in all aspects of Internet use, including being able to research for their projects.  When they start out, they aren't, and we are doing them a disservice if we think they are and do nothing to help them develop those skills.

When I went to school (oh, so many years ago), we were given the information we needed to know and to use for our work, either through textbooks or handouts.  We did some research of our own but it was usually limited to what we could find in the school library, the local public library or the set of encyclopaedia our parents had bought.  Now that we have done away with many of our textbooks, or expect that students will find supplementary information for their projects outside the classroom, students naturally go to the Internet as their source.

We often give assignments with little guidance on where to look for the information or how.  Studies of how students conduct Internet research indicate that they lack the ability to use effective search terms, generally never look beyond the first page of results and go for the first site that looks 'alright'. They are used to results coming instantaneously and want their research to be completed as instantly as Google can display it.

If we want our students to become better at doing this, we have to develop our own skills.  It's difficult to teach something that you don't feel confident about.  I have spent years developing research techniques and am still doing so.

(I have gone well beyond 28 minutes and will continue this tomorrow.  Please give me feedback if you have any.)