Journal 8: Find the Truth about the Pacific Tree Octopus

Ferrell, K. (2011, August). Find the truth about the pacific tree octopus. Learning and Leading WITH TECHNOLOGY, 39(1), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/digital-edition-august-2011.aspx

This article, “Find the Truth about the Pacific Tree Octopus” was about making an effective lesson plan for doing online research.  A teacher accomplished this with his fourth grade class by giving them a list of key terms to research and not informing them about the possibility of some inaccurate websites.  The students realized that the information they found was inaccurate when they presented what they found to their classmates.  After the students realized this the teacher redirected his students by providing them with words that would help them find more factual websites.  The words they used were, “who, what, when, where and why.”  The teacher also provided them with good URL suffixes to look for such as “.edu and .gov.”   I take away an imperative lesson from this article and that is the importance of allowing your students to first get their feet wet and make mistakes and then providing them with the scaffolding they need to become more critical researchers.

Q:1) What is one way that teachers can make their students more critical researchers?

A:1) By allowing their students to first take the initiative and try and figure something out on their own.  Then once they have made mistakes you can provide them with necessary information they need to conduct a more precise study.   

Q: 2) What are some good things to keep in mind when conducting more accurate research?

A: 2) Some good things to keep in mind are the URL suffixes like, “.edu and .gov.”  Websites that end in these will yield more precise results because they are more educationally related.