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Research & Inquiry

Research & Inquiry

Welcome to the Research & Inquiry topic page. These resources are designed to spark deeper dialogue around teaching research and inquiry across the curriculum. Explore how to support learners in growing from mere consumers of information to independent thinkers and investigators, and receive regular inspiration on ways we can collaborate to create a culture of inquiry in our schools.

Search Strategies

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Good research starts with a meaningful question—but it also requires the ability to take that question and formulate effective search terms that can, as the first "Searching Smarter" video says, "serve as a fish hook to snag the information we want from the ocean of the internet." The resources on this page present strategies that you can use with students to do just that, from imagining sources to utilizing stepping stone sources and, of course, applying Boolean operators. Read More >>

Classroom & Library

Searching Smarter

Academic Skills

Searching Smarter

This lesson helps students learn new strategies for shaping online research: selecting and adjusting keywords, using search tools and filters, and changing search parameters based on previous results.

Teaching Effective Search

Teaching Effective Search

Students have a wide array of resources available when they conduct research, but they need the right skills to help them find the answers they're looking for. In this on-demand course, Tasha Bergson-Michelson talks about how to help students think ahead in their research by predicting what the answers will look like and then applying search strategies to get to those answers.

Smart Search: Thinking about Searching for and Finding Great Information

Smart Search: Thinking about Searching for and Finding Great Information

This professional self-reflection tool offers guiding questions to help you consider how your instruction can best impact student comprehension while also addressing the use of technology resources and tools familiar to and favored by students.

A Librarian Asks,

A Librarian Asks, "What Good Are Search Terms When Searching Is Finished?"

Novice researchers are less likely to notice or compare conflicts across multiple texts when writers use different terms (e.g., prejudiced, racist, bigoted, biased) for the same concept. In this column, Debbie Abilock offers ideas to address these blind spots in reading comprehension using search terms students have already gathered.

Students Can Search, But Can They Research?

Students Can Search, But Can They Research?

The research process is transferable, a skill set that teachers should depend on their students' having throughout their school journeys, and teaching it can get school librarians really animated. We want them to love the hunt, and it's such fun teaching them how to be sleuths! In that spirit of fun and guidance, Sara Kelly Johns offers three stories and strategies in teaching students to research, collected through the years.

Using Online Resources to Teach Information Literacy

Using Online Resources to Teach Information Literacy

Most research databases have organizational schemes that are transferable across digital formats and require information literacy skills. In this article, Meghan Harper explores teaching how information is organized to help students make critical choices about which online information resource will best serve their information needs.