Traditional Research Experience
Guiding students through the process of conducting high quality research is a core aspect of many classrooms. Increasingly, web based content has become the most likely domain where students will find and evaluate research materials. As a former high school history teacher, one of the challenges I faced while guiding students through a research experience was making their research process transparent. When they found a new piece of web based information I would have them log notes on a document about the information, website or article in an effort to have them demonstrate their evaluation of the source. Additionally, this log would allow them to return to the original source, revisit the materials and use it in the following days.
Why Audio Research?
The problem that emerged with the process outlined above is that while students would often taken content related notes about the material they found by pulling quotes or excerpts for future reference, they would rarely add context for themselves.
Questions such as:
How do I know this is reliable?
Where do I intent to use this?
How does this help strengthen my argument?
Further, without these types of questions being addressed, I often had an inaccurate read on the quality and understanding students were developing throughout the process.
Audio Research Process & Experience
There are two approaches educators and students can use with Mote to create evidence of quality student research with audio. Sticky Motes and audio in Google Sheets.
Sticky Motes allow students to add audio to any web based content. In the context of research, when a student finds an article, primary source or resource, when they are done evaluating and analyzing the content they can add a Sticky Mote as evidence of their analysis. A unique link is created and both the teacher and student can use that link as a reference of both the student process and as a reminder later in the research process of the student’s thoughts about the resource and how it might fit into their research. The video walk-through below demonstrates the use of Sticky Motes!
Creating Sticky Mote
Audio Research on Google Sheets
Google Sheets are a great way for students to organize their research. With a structured research template, students can add the link to their resource, a description, tag the research with keywords, and add an embedded audio card with Mote! The embedded audio card can act as a tool for educators to truly get a sense of what students know and understand and as insight into the process of their research experience. For the student, the embedded audio card can act as a reminder of their analysis, understanding and intention for using the research as they progress into the writing phase. The video below walks through this process in Google Sheets.