School Library Conference (WA)
AUTHENTIC RESEARCH AND
AUTHENTIC LEARNING THROUGH
SCHOOL LIBRARIES
DR ROSS TODD
Associate Professor
Department of Library and
Information science
Rutgers, The State University
of New Jersey
rtodd@scils.rutgers.edu
scils.rutgers.edu/~rtodd
Advice is like snow -the softer it falls, the
longer it dwells upon,
and the deeper it sinks
into the mind.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
What is Authentic Learning?
• learning which emphasizes “meaningful,
authentic activities that help the learner to
construct understandings and develop
skills relevant to problem solving”
• learning activities that closely resemble
the ways that students will be expected to
use their knowledge and skills in the real
world
Keys to
Authentic Learning:
The heart of the
Information Age School
Library
1. Authentic learning is an
active search for meaning by
the learner
• Focus on development of personal knowing / meaning /
understanding through active engagement with
information (sources, people, popular culture)
• From “fill up” to engagement
• Students are creators, not replicators of knowledge
• Developing in students the will and the motivation to
know through engagement with information sources
and information technology
GETTING INTO RESEARCH
• Students fail as researchers often because of the
nature of the task set for them: replication vs
construction
• Does it matter if they never ever know?
• Whose interests are being served here?
• What are the cognitive, technical, evaluative
demands embedded in the task?
• How are you going to engage them in building new
knowledge for themselves, rather than producing
information for you?
• How can you be certain that students have the range
of information scaffolds to complete the task to your
specification?
• How do you accommodate for the cognitive,
affective and behavioural demands of undertaking
library / internet research?
Martin Luther King Jr:
An Historical
Examination
• http://www.martinlutherking.org/
THE RESEARCH PROCESS
• Simple and superficial view of research,
without understanding the complex
dynamics of research involving
behaviours, cognitions and feelings
• It is more complex than: Finding,
Locating, Selecting, Organising,
Presenting, Assessing
Model of the Information Search Process
Tasks
Initiation
Selection Exploration Formulation Collection Presentation
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------→
Feelings uncertainly
(affective)
Thoughts
(cognitive)
optimism
doubt
confusion
frustration
clarity
sense of
satisfaction or
direction/ disappointment
confidence
vague-------------------------------------→focused
-----------------------------------------------→
increased interest
Actions
seeking relevant information----------------------------→seeking pertinent information
(physical)
exploring
documenting
Carol Kuhlthau: “Seeking Meaning”
Stages of the ISP
• Effective information seeking occurs in seven
stages:
Initiation,
Selection,
Exploration,
Formulation,
Collection,
Presentation,
and
Assessment. These stages are named for the
primary task to be accomplished at each point in
the process.
• Initiation: when confronted with an information
need, students contemplate what they already
know, what they want and need to find out
• Selection: students identify and select general
topics which will guide their information seeking
to satisfy their information need.
• Exploration: students investigate information on
a general topic in order to extend personal
understanding and to form a focus
• In all three of the beginning stages of the ISP
students often experience confusion, uncertainty,
and apprehension.
• Formulation:
students become aware of the
various dimensions, issues, ramifications of the
initiating question and begin to form their own
focused perspective of the subject under study.
• Collection: students gather information that
defines, extends and supports the focus that they
have formed. Interest and confidence commonly
increases as they gain a sense of ownership and
expertise in the subject.
• Presentation: students prepare to apply / share
what they have discovered.
• Assessment: students reflect on what they have
learned to discover what went well and what might
be improved.
Model of the Information Search Process
Tasks
Initiation
Selection Exploration Formulation Collection Presentation
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------→
Feelings uncertainly
(affective)
Thoughts
(cognitive)
optimism
doubt
confusion
frustration
clarity
sense of
satisfaction or
direction/ disappointment
confidence
vague-------------------------------------→focused
-----------------------------------------------→
increased interest
Actions
seeking relevant information----------------------------→seeking pertinent information
(physical)
exploring
documenting
Carol Kuhlthau: “Seeking Meaning”
Uncertainty Principle
The affective symptoms of uncertainty, confusion, and
frustration are associated with vague, unclear
thoughts about a topic or question. As knowledge
states shift to more clearly focused thoughts, a
parallel shift occurs in feelings of increased
confidence.
KEY INDICATOR OF RESEARCH INTERVENTION
UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE
Initiation Exploration Focus Selection Presentation
2. Authentic learning is
about making and
maintaining connections
• Linking information to
knowledge
• Linking mind and
environment
• Linking self and
others
• Linking deliberation
and action
• Linking actions and
outcomes
• Development of
information scaffolds
• Promoting an
empowerment model
towards knowledge
construction, rather
than a deficiency
notion
• Gathering evidence on
learning needs in
relation to building
knowledge
What is constructivist Learning?
• “Learning is a personal and social construction of
meaning out of the bewildering array of
sensations which have no order or stature
besides the explanations which we fabricate for
them”
• “Constructing meaning is learning. There is no
other kind”.
(Professor George E Hein, director of the
Program Evaluation and Research Group at
Lesley College, Cambridge, MA, USA)
Constructing Meaning
The Moon or a Studio in the Nevada
Desert?
http://www.primeline-america.com/moon-ldg/
Can we believe what we see?
“http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blphoto-wtc.htm
Points to Consider
• Doing research is not highlighting photocopied text from
books or web pages
• Recognise the distinction between “reporting” and
“researching”: Most information skills models
emphasise reporting and not researching
• How do you move students who perceive task of
searching as primarily one of gathering information to a
task of forming a focused perspective from the
information encountered?
• How do you develop formal interventions which enable
students to stay focused and not detract from the
learning task at hand?
• Making provision for situations that promote seeking a
focus during a search?
3. Authentic learning
is developmental
• Cumulative process, building to greater richness,
complexity and application;
• Knowledge growth is gradual: advancement,
consolidation, reinforcement;
• Tracking student development of understanding,
meaning and competence, and providing feedback.
INTERVENTION IN THE RESEARCH PROCESS
LEARNING INTERVENTION
• Do not abandon them at the most complex,
difficult time of construction (analysis, synthesis,
constructing the product)
• Proposal submissions – advice on structure,
organisation and conceptualisation
• Provide focused class-time for writing and
engage with students in the writing process
• Provide more practice in developing arguments:
working with claims, backing, rebuttals, evidence
• Provide clear understanding of assessment
criteria – use of rubrics
• Peer-editing sessions
GSB PRESS
Farmer’s Wife De-Tails Mice
London (ITI Press, 1st January, 2003) In a case that is
causing a sensation throughout the English countryside,
Mary Giles, wife of Middlesex farmer Herman Giles, was
arrested on Thursday by the local police for deliberately
torturing three small gray mice. According to police
reports, Giles was caught in the act of cutting the tails off
the mice by a neighboring milkmaid, Bertha White. This
action prompted White to contact the local animal
control authorities who commented, “Killing mice is not
a crime, but deliberately inflicting pain and suffering on
God’s small creatures is a travesty.”
As a result of the incident, local children have begun
following Giles, who has now been released on bail, and
singing this catchy ditty:
Three blind mice, three blind mice, See how they run,
see how they run. They all ran after the farmer’s wife,
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife. Did you ever
see such a sight in your life, As three blind mice.
While there has been some doubt raised as to
whether the mice were actually blind or whether
Giles had blinded the mice, the question that is
echoing through the nation is: “Why did the
farmer’s wife cut off the tails of the three mice in
question?”
Your task is to write a one page paper answering
this question. Its purpose is to demonstrate your
ability to construct an argument. An argument
typically makes some key claims, establishes
authority to make claims, provides evidence to
support the claims, and shows understanding of
both the contextual elements surrounding the
issue, and what might be some of the counter
claims.
Developing the Argument
• Creative, thinking outside the box
• Good at establishing the background / context for
argument
• Tend to give lots of reasons rather than stating a claim
or position and supporting it (ie. lots of claims)
• Multiple claims or reasons, without back up, is not an
argument. These are lists of guesses
• Need to address the question asked: it did not ask
you, for example, to talk about how cruelty to animals
is wrong, or look at the history of the verse
• Some managed to make a good claim, but did not
support it with argument. Need to work on extending
the arguments in a sustained way; bring in concrete
evidence
Developing the Argument
• Lack of back-up and evidence. Some depicted a
very interesting and vivid story but did not explain
why the story could be true.
• Use of words such as “may’, ‘might”, and “seems”
do not show taking a stance for the sake of an
argument
• Some tried to analyze rather than argue.
• Use weak assumption, such as “ any normal
person would not commit such an cruel act.”
• The claim cannot explain the phenomenon. For
example, one student said “Mary is irrational and
crazy because she cut off the mice tails.”
Proposal Submissions
• Formulating the research question and / or
hypothesis. What are you curious about?
What is your informed guess that answers
a “why” or “how question”?
• What is your engaging question?
• Is the question too broad or too narrow?
• Identify 4 words and / or terms that are
critical to the research; use these words
• Provide a working bibliography that
demonstrates focus on the research
4. Authentic learning and
research requires
ownership
• Activities which enrich formal investigation:
constructing the compelling question and the
personal creative title
• Inclusion and reporting of personal engagement with
primary sources: interview, data gathering, simple
experimentation, analysis of external documents, site
visits.
• Links to real world issues that matter
• Integration of information and data to construct
personal position
5. Authentic Learning
requires Intervention
• Feedback  sustained learning; Practice 
nourishing learning; Opportunities to use 
meaningful learning
• Evidence-based feedback on progress towards
meeting learning standards: feedback on mastery of
information scaffolds
• Evidence-based recursive process of needs analysis
and improvement
• Encouragement and support for learning goals
The Gladstone NJ Project
• To understand what happens in students’
minds as they search for and make use of
information to build their own knowledge in
print / electronic information environments
- to understand more fully the knowledge
construction process
- to identify patterns of subject access during
the search process – through digital, print
and personal sources
- to identify patterns of cognitive intents
during the search process
SAMPLE
• 43 Grade 9 students at Gill St Bernards’
School, Gladstone NJ (21 girls, 22 boys)
• Semester long course: “Research Project”
• School librarian / teacher collaboration
• Instructional Intervention: Understanding
Information Search Process, Web searching,
information analysis and note taking
• 2 phases of course: Instructional
intervention culminating in major oral
presentation (7 weeks); guided free-choice
research paper (7 weeks) within the theme:
“Celebration in Culture”
DATA COLLECTION
1. Written protocol at three key stages in
the Information Search Process
(Initiation, Formulation, Presentation)
2. Structured search logs kept by each
student during the progress of
assignment
3. Affective Domain statement and Next
Task statement
4. Product analysis at completion of the
assignment
WRITTEN PROTOCOLS
• Free generation: to uncover respondents’
base knowledge
- How they label their project
- Recording all that they know about their
topic
- Why chosen topic
- Perception of how much they know about
their topic
- Aspects of research process that they will
enjoy most and least
MEASURING CHANGE IN KNOWLEDGE
•
•
•
•
Number of concepts – isolated or embedded in
propositional statements
Number of propositional statements
Analysis of propositions:
- Properties: describes characteristics
- Manner: describe processes, styles, actions
- Reason: explanations of how and why
- Outcome: end result
- Causality: some event causally leads to another
- Set Membership: class inclusion
- Implication: source idea and end idea exist at same time
- Value judgment: personal position or viewpoint
Coherence and structural centrality:
- discrete ideas, unrelated
- some coherent structure, interrelatedness
- high level of coherence, structural centrality
STRUCTURED SEARCH LOGS
• List the words you used to look for information.
(These are the words you put into the school
library catalog, or a search engine on the WWW,
or look up an index )
• Source used (give its citation)
• What were you hoping this information would
enable you to do? For each source, write one or
more of the numbers from the list below that
match best what were you hoping this
information would enable you to do? (Cognitive
Intents)
• For each source, give it a rating of its usefulness
to you in doing the topic: Very useful; Somewhat
useful; Not useful at all. (Utility measure)
Cognitive intents:
What were you hoping this information
would enable you to do?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
find some new facts about my topic
get some background information
on my topic
develop my particular theme more
get more specific details about
facts I already know
help me find some connections
between facts I already have
correct some ideas I know are
wrong
change my mind about some of my
ideas
help me find out if some ideas I
already have are right or wrong
help me feel stronger about some of
my ideas
see if some guesses I have made
are right
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
work out if I should stick with my
ideas / viewpoint
sort out some vague ideas I have
about the topic
find some explanations for the ideas I
have
find some different viewpoints about
the topic
clarify things I didn’t fully understand
before
help me work out what my viewpoint
is on the topic
help me form an opinion on the topic
come to some conclusion about these
ideas
work out if I agree or disagree with
the ideas I have
find an argument to back up my ideas
other
AFFECTIVE DOMAIN AND
TASK ANALYSIS
•
•
•
•
Date
Write one sentence about how you
are feeling about your project
My next task is ….
CODING: confident, disappointed,
frustrated, relieved, confused,
doubtful, optimistic, satisfied,
uncertain, sure, other
INTERVENTION MATTERS
• Increase in number of propositional statements
• Initial representations primarily property (is a), manner
• Final representations: reasons, outcomes, causality,
implications, predictive, reflective (increased
complexity)
• Higher levels of conceptual coherence and structural
centrality
• Cognitive intents: From initiation to formulation :
getting a bigger picture (building background) getting
a changed picture (correcting misinformation); getting
a verified picture (confirming existing ideas)
• From formulation to presentation: getting a bigger
picture, getting a clearer picture, getting a position in
a picture)
INTERVENTION MATTERS
• “I have learned many things about the
research process after completing this
project. The tracking sheets showed me
that organization is important when
researching. It helped me manage the time
and showed me just how ind-epth my
knowledge became. Another good thing
was that there was always help available
from the teachers and librarians”
INTERVENTION MATTERS
“The entire research process is tiring and
long, but in the end it was worth it. Doing a
research paper sounds like a lot of work, but
when it is broken down into steps, and help is
provided along the way, it is much easier. I
was surprised this morning when I saw my
finished product. I said to myself ‘WOW, I did
it!’ When you go according to a plan,
everything will turn out peachy”
INTERVENTION MATTERS
“I learned how easy it is to write a six page
paper if you do the research this way. The
outline and proposals were probably the most
helpful. The note cards were a good way to
record the important ideas and to organize
them in ways so that they make sense. I
learned heaps about my topic. I also liked the
help the librarians provided”
INTERVENTION MATTERS
“Being given guidelines on research and
understanding the process, this helped me in
many ways. I liked the sorting and
categorizing. This helped me organize my
ideas. I liked how we had many deadlines.
Each time something was due, it gave me a
better idea of how I was doing and I always
had an idea of what I had to do next.”
INTERVENTION MATTERS
“This was a very exhausting process, but none
the less, it was all worth it. I finally learned how
to write a proper paper, not only for research,
but any paper in general. I got to spend quality
time with my teacher and librarian. The three
things I enjoyed in writing and research are
reading the books, making an outline, and
LEARNING. I definitely learned a lot – both
about my interesting topic, and the research to
make it happen”.
INTERVENTION MATTERS
“A six page research paper scared the bloody
crap out of me, but with the help I got while
doing the project, I knew I could do it. This
project opened me to new ideas, and how to
write my own ideas and thoughts based on
them. I enjoyed recording my thoughts
because I like to express how I am feeling
during the process. This allowed my teachers
and librarians to know my thinking throughout
the course and to guide me better”
INTERVENTION MATTERS
• The whole process has taught me to take
good notes and keep track of all my sources,
and in the end, having to write the paper was
the easiest part. Though I simply hated doing
them, the note cards helped me organize my
ideas really well and got me to being able to
sort out all my ideas that made sense, (my
teacher thought so too YEAH!! ): ): and the
outline helped me organize my thoughts.
ASSESSMENT FOR
INQUIRY AND MEANING
• Focus on knowledge construction, not
reproduction
• Focus on knowledge, not information
• Feedback on scaffolding: conceptual, technical
and evaluative process
• Problem solving, higher-order thinking skills and
deep understanding are emphasized
• Foster reflective practice: creating a culture of
student reflection (actions, behaviors, feelings)
• Provide self-analytical tools eg rubrics
• Diagnostic: attempts to remedy learner errors
and misconceptions – do something about the
problems
6. Learning is strongly
affected by educational
climate in which it takes
place
An effective educational climate for authentic
research is one that:
• values academic and personal success and
intellectual inquiry;
• involves all constituents in contributing to
effective student learning;
• gives a sense of feeling connected, cared for and
trusted.
THIS IS KEY TO THE LIBRARY’S ROLE
Is your library a hotbed of
learning activism?
• To inspire engagement with research, the library
needs to be a space where students can
encounter alternative perspectives and challenge
conventional views – in safety and respect?
• Does the library provide opportunities for
students to test the application of new
knowledge?
• Can students share experiences that have shaped
learning and identities with others?
• Can students unlearn personal views and
approaches when confronted by new information?
“Are you in earnest? Seize
this very minute. What you
can do, or dream you can,
begin it.
Boldness has genius, power,
and magic in it.
Only engage and
then the mind
grows heated ….
… Begin and
then the work
will be
completed”