Discussion Forum #5 Student as Researcher

 

Students can develop critical thinking skills when assigned the role of student researcher.  Becoming a researcher hopefully engages students in the learning process.  They learn to find, vet, and publish information.  They learn to find credible websites and by this, I mean that they learn to assess whether a site is promoting a product, belief or facts.  They learn to improve their use of search tools, such as the advanced search option using specific key words or phrases, as well as other “smartsearch” techniques such as link.  Learning how to use these tools teaches students how to do a more direct search than they are used to doing.  They have to think outside the box, which helps them develop critical thinking skills.  They learn to ask better questions, find factual and correct answers and apply the information found to their lesson or project.

The difficulties I foresee in assigning students the role of student researcher is that they don’t know how to do a correct online search, choose unreliable websites and perhaps plagiarize material that they do find. 

If I had to design an assessment that required my students to use the internet, the assessment would involve students providing deep thought into the questions. If they were learning about the US taking land from the Native Americans, questions could be along the lines of:  Why did the US believe it was okay to take Native American land by force?  Why do you think the Native Americans signed contracts to give their land to the US?  Do you think the US had the right to take their land?  In order for the question to differ from a memorization question, the question would have to based on critical thinking skills.  Students would have to take what they learned and apply it to the question.