Research As Authentic Inquiry
Sam Fisher
MTV show
Honoring what students know
Teaching contemporary drama
Media Literacy and the practice of questioning assumptions: A History
A Solution to cut- and -paste Plagiarism
Building an Evidence chart to Explore the quality of information
Digging Deeper: What Counts as Knowledge
Needed a fresh new way to make a connection with his grade 10 Ss
A teaching idea came to him when he stumbled by his teenage daughter's bedroom
Considered starting the new year by reading Arthur Miller's play, ' The Crucible', a dramatization of the Salem witch trials
Traces the experience of pregnant teenagers and their families
Addressed many of the thenes of The Crucible : authority and dissent, martyrdom, community versus individual, accusation, guilt, love, redemption, and conscience
3 million peaople watch this show
was an alien planet network ever since it stopped airing music videos many years ago
media literacy education has long been understood as a mechanism to reduce the gap between the world pf the classroom and the living room
Mr. Fisher knew that his students were active in their consumption of reality TV dramas
The place to start was by figuring out what students knew and thought about reality TV teen shows like 16 and Pregnant
Giving studnets a handout with the names of MTV relaity shows listed
A substantial effort made in writing the descriptive sentences, as students edited, crossed out, crumpled up notes, and revised their descriptions while engaged in lively discussion with their partner
Through exploring drama and theater arts students develop :
interpersonal skills
Problem-sloving capabilities
Through group interaction :
Ss apply the creative process to fundamental skills of acting, playwriting, and directing;
Ss relate the role of theater arts to culture and history, analyzing the characyeristics of traditional and modern forms of dramatic expression
Mr, Fisher's challenge here:
Wrote the definition of drama on the board and posted student's large sticky notes
unpacked the definition to discuss concepts like " performance", "enactment', " collaborative'', and "collective".
Invited Ss to compare and contrast how different groups had described these shows
Invited Ss to consider whether the MTV shows lited on the board deserved to be called dramas, based on the definition provided
Asked pairs od Ss to stand next to where a group of sticky notes were dispalyed and, summarize the similarities and differences they noticed
Discussion was lively. Ss had opinions about the variety of sentences that their peers had written on their sticky notes
Mr. Fisher noticed that Ss were actually engaged in talking about langauge
What's needed for being a good writer?
"Crap detecting skills", Ernest Hemingway replied.
During the 1960, new approaches to English education were developing as a result of rapid and dramatic changes in culture and technology brought about by the culutral rise of television
Neil Psotman said: " As i seeit, the best thing teaching schools can do for kids is to help them learn how to distinguish useful talk from bullshit....Every day in almost every way people are exposed to more bullshit than it is healthy for them to endure".
He wrote, " at present, the only way those on the top can maintain control is by carefully discriminating against what the students know as unimportant."
Research evidence shows the power of student talk as a stimuls that supports both reading and writing competencies
Oral explaining-with both students and teachers participating-develops reasoning skills that support reading and writing practices across the disciplines
A survey of high school students found that about 35% of students directly copied and pasted without citation.
Ss offer these reasons:
Lack of confidence. " I'm not good at writing papers."
Ease. " It's easier and faster if I copy.''
Necessity. " I need this information for my paper."
Peer Pressure. " I know that my friends do it."
Paraphrasing. " I copy and paste but then change around the information."
Research has shown that
Teacher's own attitudes about plagiarism have a significant impact on their students
When teachers are confused about what constitutes plagiarism, they may inadvertently pass along problematic practices to their students
17% of students were actively being encouraged by their teachers to copy, perhaps beacuse of lack of clarity in introducing the skills of summarizing, paraphrasing, and direct quatation.
Students learn effective strategies for building new ideas using:
Summarizing involves finding the thesis statement or topic sentence and considering the major ideas into a brief passage.
Paraphrasing encourages the reader to make to make connections with prior knowledge to access what is already known about the topic and to use words that are already part of the reader's knowledge.
Direct quotation can be used to build credibility, convey the unique style or voice of a source, or capture key facts.
What is an evidence chart?
A poster or other visual display that organizes 10 different information sources in vertical order, from most credible to least credible. For each information source, students do the following:
- Summarize , paraphrase, or select a direct quotation of a key piece of information from the source
- Compose a correctly formatted citation
- Offer an explanation of why it should be ranked more or less credible
The impact of the assignment on Ss
Because of the authenticity and meaningfulness of the research, Ss had fun with this project
Ss could examine informational resources that re not generally considered appropriate for school
Ss enjoyed the chance to critisize poor-quality or questionable infromation sources.
Most importantly, the evidence chart offered answers to research questions that they had generated themselves as part of a process of authenticity
Verification involves finding multiple sources, identifying the author or purposes, or examining the quality of evidence used.
Superficial criteria for assessing the quality of information:
Mental shortcuts that generally serve a goodpurpose
Heuristic speed information processing and we use them automatically
Assessing quality, credibility, and reliability by considering social characteristics of network environments:
A person who has 5,000 Twitter followers is assumed to be more credible than one with 12 followers
Amazon and Netflix ratings show that a book or movie is highly rated, this is another type of social cue that serves as an aid to making decisions.
YouTube video is seen by millions of viewers, it's because an informational cascade has led to rapid shring, because much of people's everyday behavior is shaped by their understanding of what others think and do