Dear Ones -
I have a question about teaching children to do research papers that I would love to hear about from the perspective of trying to teach HG/PG kids. The reason is that I'm watching the school trying to teach DS10 how do use books to find answers to academic questions. I standing on the sidelines trying to be helpful, but I have my doubts.
The Middle School has all the teachers using the same terminology, following the recommendations of Big6
http://www.big6.com/ This is a help.
From the website:
What is the Big6?
Developed by educators Mike Eisenberg and Bob Berkowitz, the Big6 is the most widely-known and widely-used approach to teaching information and technology skills in the world. The Big6 is an information and technology literacy model and curriculum, implemented in thousands of schools - K through higher education. Some people call the Big6 an information problem-solving strategy because with the Big6, students are able to handle any problem, assignment, decision or task.
What I don't get is how a 10 year old is supposed to think of a question, and then find the answer to their question in a book. The great thing about our kids is that they ask such off-beat questions, either questions that don't show up in the children's non-fiction or that don't have answers yet. Even with the Internet, I find it difficult to track down information at times. I see DS10 getting so frustrated and I worry that he will learn is to ask easier questions. Example - DS10 came up with the question "What was the religious significance of the Nile to Ancient Egyptians?" You can bet that he couldn't find the answer in his source books and that it was the "11th hour."
So, to any of you who get the leisure to answer me, I know that people are busy now, but later is fine, too:
At what age did you start asking your child to create research papers with sources and citations? What signs were you looking for to see if they were ready? How did you know what level of quality to expect?
At what age did you start asking your child to create research papers where they weren't so interested in the topic?
Do you see research paper writing as exercises in summarizing and integrating the source material or as an exercise in pursuing a question using source material? Do you do some of both? If so, are the endpoints different for both types of exercise?
If any of you waited until the child was 10 or older to introduce this type of learning, what was the transition like? How many steps were needed to get the child comfortable with the process, and what were the stages like?
How much pushing had to be done? How did you know if you were pushing too hard? How did you distinguish the natural "I learned all I want to know about this topic" from the habit of being lazy?
Thanks for answering all my questions - I doubt that I could find a book that would be able to give me this information, but I'd love any book recommendations - aimed at the child or the "teacher."
Love and More Love,
Trinity
