CREATIVELY:

We want our students to be open-minded  searchers.

Creativity refers to the act of generating new and useful ideas, or of re-evaluating or combining old ideas, so as to develop new and useful perspectives in order to satisfy a need.  It is the capacity to select, re-arrange, combine, or synthesize existing facts, ideas, images, or expertise in original ways

Qualities  of a creative  online  searcher:

Curious, even passionate

• We can build  research choices into assignments from the very beginning , allowing students to choose a topic of interest to them. The internet allows us this luxury, unlike printed resource materials that limited us through cost.

• We can ensure that students seek out all stakeholders points of view to ensure a lack of bias & and respect for diverse opinion

Risk-taking

• We can create scaffolding to ensure that students feel secure and build confidence & a willingness to try things and relinquish them if they are not useful.

Focused

We can remove opportunities for distraction ( cellphones, Facebook etc.), and promote a quiet, nonfragmented learning environment.

Patient

•  We can structure time for research and accountability for it. Students naturally use what is easy and accessible - often - Wikipedia as their only source ( similar to World Book in the past). We can teach our students the strengths & weaknesses of Wikipedia; and that finding quality online materials takes time.

Intuitive /Aware

• We can teach and model for our students the concept of open-minded inquiry