Do Your Research!

I just completed a professional development course on research methodology using the Independent Investigation Method (IIM®) from Active Learning Systems, LLC. Our facilitator, Melanie, did a great job of covering a usually two-day class in one day.

The authors, Cindy Nottage and Virginia Morse, begin IIM® with a deceptively simple philosophical statement, “All students can do research.” To the best of my recollection, I learned the how-to of research, the methodology, through the dreaded high school social studies or English term paper. That consisted of a trip to the school library where we trudged through the Dewey Decimal System. That’s kind of like running in sand. You can do it, but it is really not fun. We never thought about the actions of research, much less learned a system.

Along comes IIM® with a simple 7-step process of research that all K-12 student, individually or collectively, can use in any class. It’s simple, easy to learn, and easy to use. Best of all, once learned in the early grades, a student’s research efficacy and efficiency increases through her school career. She simply produces more sophisticated quality research through adherence to the steps. So, from Kindergarten TEKS through the Social Studies Research Methods course, we are not just required by law, but obligated as educators, to provide our students with an understanding of the how-to of research.

Now, where is the district administration direction to mandate a standardized research methodologies system, like IIM® ? LEAs need to step up with local funding, development, training, and implementation of a system that will carry its students from K-12 into a guided approach to critical thinking, reasoning, and subsequent intelligent action throughout life.

As a side note, I promised to link Diigo in this post. Diigo advertises itself as offering two services in one, “it is a research and collaborative research tool on the one hand, and a knowledge-sharing community and social content site on the other.” On the research side it offers is a bookmark organizer and text highlighter where the researcher can add notes, tags, send info, filter, search keywords, create lists, and more. As a knowledge-sharing community it offers a social/professional network where one can invite friends/colleagues, create groups by topic for discussion, search & explore established groups, create lists, search & explore others lists, and still more.

I keep the Diigo toolbar resident everytime I go on-line. Try it and pass it along to your students.