The Research/Inquiry Process For the Junior Grades
4) Creating
Students: Students will make or present their
final product.
Teacher/TL: Assist with selecting an appropriate method
of presentation by showing examples.
Teacher/TL: Encourage each students to focus on their strengths and weaknesses to best challenge the student
Students: Self assess (Assessment AS Learning)
Teacher/TL: Hand out self assessment checklists. 3,2,1 exit tickets, one glow one grow during other students presentations as well as their own
Teacher/TL: Encourage future goal setting during relfection and self assessment for future learning
Teacher/TL: Encourage reflection on all of the phases, not just the final product, so they can improve upon future inquiry at every phase
1) Exploring
Students: Select a Topic of Interest
Teacher/TL: Minds On activities to Use Previous Knowledge
Teacher/TL: Have Several Resources available to select a topic
Students: Think of questions they want answers to
Teacher/TL: Remind students to Brainstorm questions
Teacher/TL: Remind students of WH5 questions
Students: Think of the reason/purpose for research
Teacher/TL: Outline the assignment and Success Criteria
Teacher/TL: Examples of final products, possible audiences
2) Investigating
Students: Create a plan
Teacher/TL: allow for collaboration
Teacher/TL: Assessment Checklists/Templates for a plan
Teacher/TL: Ensure students know the plan can change. Have students have a large scope then narrow it as they see fit.
Students: Find resources/Sources
Teacher/TL: Teach students about legitimate information
Teacher/TL: Teach students pathways to legitimate sources
Students: Narrow the Foucs
Teacher/TL: Have students submit a "proposal" and give feedback
Teacher/TL: Teach students about focus being too broad or too narrow (relating back to the purpose of their assignment)
3) Processing
Students: Decide which information
is useful
Teacher/TL: Give feeback based on previous
stage during the investigation
Teacher/TL: Have students work together
to analyze each others findings to compare sources based on its relevance and legitimacy
Students: Make choices on which ideas
they want to use
Teacher/TL: Refer students to success criteria checklist
Teacher/TL: Refer students to their original plan/Focus
Students: Organize their findings
Teacher/TL: Provide a variety graphic organizers/templates to organize their ideas based on what they want their final product to be (whether it is a written paper or a hands on final piece) Organizers can be chronological, idea focused, etc.