PBL Students Searching Online
As the Digital Literacy Coach of students grades K-8 at The Children's School, I often support student research for classroom projects, as well as research for projects in my specialists classes. Typing the question right into the search bar is the strategy I frequently see students use when finding answers to a question. Of course there are pitfalls to this strategy. Using this classroom data to inform instruction, I will then usually teach a lesson about keywords and narrowing down a topic, etc.
What I realize I should also be doing is encouraging classroom teachers (along with myself) to share their search stories out-loud when doing an online search in class. This is similar to the idea of showing your mistakes and modeling how to fix them, including your self-talk out-loud, in front of your students. It will be crucial to include what to do when you don't get the results you want, when there are too many responses, or when there is conflicting information.
As I reflect, I realize I do this all the time when I am researching a topic for a lesson or presentation. I need to put aside a few minutes to model how this process progresses and how I problem solve as problems occur.
