Katie Baker's Blog of Inquiry

Saturday, February 12, 2005

Getting organized

What I did:
I was really excited on staring to research. I realized that I wouldn’t be around a computer every second that I was working on this project, so I wanted to use a way that would allow me to continue to work no matter where I was. I decided to come up with a way to record/sort information before I got started. I remembered the folder idea that was used as part of the Pre-Search method. Students were distributed folders with four envelopes glued inside. They wrote their questions on the three envelopes and bilbliography on another. A note card could not be filed in an envelope unless it related to the question on the front. This was mentioned in “Pre-Search” by Virginia Rankin in School Library Journal (March 1992, 38(3), 168). I wanted to develop something like that. I had two main ideas (nutrition facts and habits for weight management) that I was organizing my project around. So, I labeled two folders, each with one main idea on it. I also wanted to collect bibliographic information as I went so I didn’t have to go back and do it all at the end. I developed a cover page for all of my information that required the record of bibliographic data, but also to evaluate the source. View this document at http://portfolio.iu.edu/kaabaker/bibliography.record My plan is to collect the data on this cover sheet for each source so I won’t have a ton of papers flying around. I would then place each sheet in the corresponding folders.

I was feeling very organized and I was very excited to begin my research. I felt like I had all my ducks in a row and I was ready to begin!

What I Learned:
Organization is key (again!): I truly believe that with a storage system already in place around key ideas, categories, and/or questions, students can focus on doing sound research, rather than researching and trying to organize a mess of papers at the same time. It is too hard to do a quality job on both at the same time. By separating these two processes, hopefully it will alleviate some of the strain of doing sound research.

What I can apply to my teaching:
• I think as students get older, the more you can allow them to organize in the way that they wish. The key is to give students the opportunity to use a multitude of ways to organize when they are younger, so when students are older, they will have the background to make a good decision in how to organize their research. Therefore, for my younger students I will try to develop ways for them to organize their information and actually make it a part of the process in their projects. When they are older, it still will be emphasized as an important part of the process, but it will be an independent part where they have more say in how it takes place.