School Board/School Name: CSDECSO, École secondaire l’Essor, École secondaire Ste-Marie, École secondaire Mgr Bruyère.

Collaborative Inquiry Team: Jason Defoe (ESL), Kimberly Fortin (ESSM), Christine Boucher (ESMB), Monique Spinarsky (Consultant CSDECSO).

Research Question: What teaching strategies will develop critical thinking skills to improve secondary school student success? More importantly, will teaching strategies for evaluating the credibility of online research sources improve the quality of student research, and their confidence in the process?

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Setting the Stage

Vision – Preferred Future Comber (2001) argues that being critically literate is not only central, but necessary to being knowledgeable in a media-saturated, diverse world. Given the digital environment in which our students thrive, a critical insight must be developed in order to prepare them for the future. The development of this capacity will lead to a deeper understanding of ideas and information in all curricular areas (including language, politics, science, health, economics, and history). It is from this precept that we have engaged in a collaborative enquiry, aiming at employing particular strategies to develop critically literate perspectives.

The Internet has infiltrated many elements of student life and in particular it has become the primary tool for research. Inundated with information from all corners of the screen, our students must develop an aptitude for filtering the information. Although many students are technologically sophisticated, they demonstrate difficulties when it comes to developing effective research strategies and judging Internet information.

While focusing upon teaching information literacy skills by evaluating the Internet, students in grades 9 and 10 Academic English classes at École secondaire Ste-Marie have acquired the knowledge and skills to efficiently and effectively access information while accurately evaluating and assessing the information they receive from any source but particularly, the Internet.

Theory of Action
‍If... / ‍Then...
‍We model a variety of critical literacy strategies... / ‍Student will become more aware of critical thinking skills and more sensitive to the meaning of a text.
‍We provide opportunities for students to connect critical literacy skills with their experience... / ‍Students will better understand the importance of critical literacy.
‍We give students opportunities to select and assess a variety of sources... / ‍Students will become more skilled and confident in pursuing their research, including discerning reliable sources.

‍RESEARCH QUESTION:

Purpose for the Study: To increase critical skill abilities among secondary school students.

Justification for the study – why was this particular subject

important to investigate? As previously mentioned, the development of critical skills is an essential feature because:

Changes in technology and the workplace have made the ability to think critically more important than ever before. Instruction designed to help college students think critically focuses on skills that are widely applicable across domains of knowledge and the disposition to use these skills. (Halpern, 1999).

Description of Procedures and Actions Taken

·  Lesson sequence (instruction procedure) as well as assessments discussed above.

·  Discussion and co-creation of different criteria for rubric levels of achievement 1-4.

·  Communication procedures include face-to-face (4 meetings in London), video conferencing, emails and the use of a Wiki space.

Findings:

Jason Defoe - Formative assessments

“Comparing credibility”

·  most students were aware of criteria but did not show evidence of actually analyzing the elements mentioned

o  e.g.: “site is unbiased”; “content is well written”; “there is no author”; “the author is mentioned”, etc.)

·  they were categorical about certain elements

o  e.g.: they felt that .org or .edu sites were necessarily credible, that bias is always unacceptable, that the mere presence of an author is sufficient evidence of credibility, etc.)

o 

Summative assessment (annotated bibliographies)

·  Stats (26 students x 5 sources = 130 annotated sources)

o  40% print sources

o  50% web sources

o  10% other (films, interviews)

o  some higher-achieving students have a higher proportion of PRINT sources

o  most lower-achieving students relied heavily on web sources

·  approx. 25% of students show some of the level 4 descriptors

o  they refer to multiple criteria in assessing a source's credibility

o  they give evidence of credibility (e.g.: details about the author's qualifications, examples of writing style, examples of objectivity, etc.)

o  they have conducted further research to better be able to judge the qualifications of a particular author or institution (e.g.: researching an author's past publications, or reviews of books, or the reputation of a newspaper, etc.)

o  they understand that bias may be appropriate in certain circumstances (e.g.: one student is researching the Catholic Church's attitudes towards censorship, and has selected two sources that are very biased, but that provide the Church's perspective on certain condemned texts)

o  they show evidence of understanding that a source may be credible to a certain degree, but that it still has weaknesses

·  approx. 30% of students still show at least some level 1 descriptors

o  they mention appropriate criteria, but do not show any evidence of applying them

o  they do not understand the concept of bias (two students claimed as credible websites written by – in the students' words – “someone famous for his criticism of Islam”, for instance)

·  the most grievous errors in judgment occurred concerning web sources

o  possible interpretations?

§  Perhaps the less-motivated students tended to choose web sources, given that they are “easier” to find. These students are those that tend not to invest as much effort in the process of evaluating credibility.

§  Perhaps this is simply the natural consequence of print sources generally being more credible that web sources.

§  Perhaps the students who best understood the challenges of ascertaining credibility opted for print sources whenever possible, in order to reduce the chances that they may be misled.

Teacher Reflections (select quotes that best reflect themes identified)

Jason Defoe

·  Though our focus has shifted greatly over the course of this project, one concept remained central: critical thinking. Once we focused in on the research process, and more particularly the skills needed to evaluate the credibility of online research sources, the project in fact became more “tangible” for me, and connected directly to an important element of my grade 11 class.

·  When I first introduced the topic to my students, my general impression was that they believed they “knew all this already”. In fact, it quickly became obvious that they know ABOUT evaluating credibility, but not HOW to do it.

·  Throughout the teaching and assessment cycle, students became more and more skeptical of many websites, deciding to trust only those whose credibility was close to certain, such as the BBC, the CBC, and articles published by educational institutions

·  Once students selected their topics for their major independent research project, they began to take the issue of credibility more seriously, and began asking many questions about individual sources that they had discovered. During two class-periods working in a computer lab at this point in the process, I was gratified to see and hear students asking each other - and me – for help. This showed me that they were no longer accepting the first sources they found, but wanted to dig deeper in order to ensure they found the BEST sources

·  As stated above, I found that, as I read students' final drafts of their annotated bibliographies, that our project most definitely altered their approach to research. The overall quality of sources selected is far superior to what I am used to. Many students are able to clearly articulate the REASONS they chose a particular source. There are more PRINT sources than usual. There are very few online sources which are deeply flawed.

·  I am excited to see how this will influence the quality of their research essays at the end of the process!

Student Reflections (select quotes that best reflect themes identified)

Student Reflection Jason Defoe

·  They discovered the value of Google Books and Google Scholar as tools to discover digitized versions of print sources, increasing the general expectations of credibility.

·  Whereas before the process began, many students thought that actually WRITING the research paper was the most difficult part of the process, many now find that discovering sources is the most challenging step. I would say this is a positive finding, since the students now realize that finding QUALITY sources requires patience, effort and expertise.

·  When asked which criteria they found most useful in judging a source's credibility, students most often responded with “the qualifications of the author”.

·  The second most common response was a variation on “there should be facts, and the sources of these facts should be clearly indicated”.

·  Most students claim that they feel more confident about finding quality sources online.

·  Some students found that our discussions about the credibility of online sources “drove [them] away from the internet”. These students found that “print sources make [them] more confident and organized”. One student commented that she “rediscovered the awesomeness” of libraries. She found that the environment and the ability to browse print sources was “a life-saver”.

·  Some students commented that they realized the importance of being specific when researching online. Searches that are too “general” often resulted in too many “hits”, many of which were not credible or even relevant. In other words, carefully planning your research question before beginning is very important.

Student Reflections Kimberly Fortin

·  From my observations, it was obvious from the physical expression on many of the student`s faces that they were surprised I was questioning “authority” in other words, a websites` information.

·  Initially, students lacked confidence when trying to evaluate a website. They often said: “Madame, I don’t know” or “Madame, I can`t tell.” Nevertheless, as their experience increased with repeated attempts which allowed them to explore without “penalty” (a mark), their confidence developed as well as their capacity to effectively evaluate a website. I love it when they “get it”! This was definitely an empowering experience for them as it allowed them to question, infer, analyze and use their reasoning skills to assess based on evidence in a stress-free environment.

·  A collection of student written observations will be presented at our final meeting on June 1 2011.

Conclusions and Suggested Future Directions

·  Upon our final meeting (June 1 2011), conclusions will be drawn and plans for the future of this inquiry will be established.

·  I anticipate the future direction of this inquiry will be to expand the process into each of our schools and allow for the evolution of the PLC into a NLC.

References (if you have any to include)

Comber, B. (2001). “Negotiating critical literacies.” In Ideas for the Classroom. April 2001, 6, 3. National Council of Teachers of English.

Halpern, D. (1999). “Teaching for Critical Thinking: Helping College Students Develop

the Skills and Dispositions of a Critical Thinker” In New Directions for Teaching

and Learning, no. 80, Winter 1999, Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Ruggiero, Vincent Ryan. (1989).Critical Thinking: Supplement to becoming a master

student. College Survival Inc. Rapid City, SD.