Where Do 
I Look First?

A Study in How Critical Thinking Can Enhance Information Searches 

Alice Wittig

Mendocino Unified School District Librarian

Grade Level:
K-12

Length of Project:
On Going

Produced in conjunction with the NASA NREN K-12 Partner School 
Program and the California Telemation Project
            
	
I. Introduction
	
	From  scholarly discussions to popular talk shows one recurring 
theme is how to find our way through the storm of information 
covering us all.  Critical thinking skills are addressed in all the 
California State Curriculum Guides and are intrinsic in a well 
functioning school program.

	The information hub of a school and the teacher/librarian is an 
ideal place to start with a curriculum planned to be applicable at many 
grade levels that can enhance the classroom project by helping the 
students ask the right questions of themselves to start on successful 
information discovery.

	Using the Internet is an ideal common thread with which to 
secure critical thinking.  The vast resources available to the staff have 
led teachers into it for rich professional development.  Students can 
contact other students, browse for the exciting idea, obtain broad 
clumps of information and search for discrete facts.  How can a student 
aim rather than muddle into this fine resource?

	Asking the right question, for the teacher to assist a student or 
better yet for the student to direct themselves is the crux of this study.  
Few adults and fewer students starting an information search can 
articulate what they want.  

	In  Secrets of the Super Searchers  by Reva Basch, 1993, the 
reference interview is stated to be Òthe most critical component of the 
searchÓ. Going on, she quotes Robert F. Jack, NASA Center for 
Aerospace Information, ÒI always say that the first question is 
ÔwhyÕ....The ÔwhyÕ will tell  you the ÔwhatÕ if you give it enough 
thoughtÓ.

	I plan to work with high school student library aides to survey 
library using students and to develop a grid of questions which can be 
used at several age levels to start this thinking process.  Using this grid, 
I and the high school students when possible, will work with teacher 
and students in a primary class grades 1-2 at least once a week for eight 
weeks while they are in contact with a similar classroom in Australia 
and a middle school special education class at least once a week for 
eight weeks as they address their Internet introduction.  

II. Student Outcomes

A.  Student Outcomes - High School Library Aides

	
	--Be able to conduct a reference interview of a peer with at 
	
	  least three sequential questions.

     	Be able to suggest at least two possible directions for search

B.  Student Outcomes Grades 1-2

	
	--Form a meaningful question

	
	--Postulate an answer

	
	--Using the media and paths provided, investigate until the 
	
	  postulation is proved correct or incorrect.

	
	--Product a visible result:
	
	
	--An answer to a received letter,
	
	
	--Information discovered during a search
	
	
	--A construction done in connection with an 
	
	
	experiment



C.  Student Outcomes, Middle School Class

	
	--Form a meaningful question

	
	--Postulate an answer

	
	--Using pathways given, discovered or guessed at, continue 
	
	  the search until the projected answer is proved or disproved.


III. Activities

A.  Activities, High School Library Aides.

	The following activity can serve as a model for how students 
might carry out thereference interview strategy. Several sections of 
General Science will be working on the assignment of investigating the 
properties of different types of cancer. The library aides will be started 
on Internet in early September on the same assignment but with the 
instructions to record the location of information, the amount and the 
specific type of cancer.  This will be an  on-going project and out if it 
will come the questions which were necessary to lead them to the 
material.

	
	Aides will be instructed in Internet searching using a variety of 
strategies including :

--Veronica Searches on Gopher
--W3 Catalog Searches on Mosaic
--List appropriate usenet newsgroups
--Monitoring the NCSA Mosaic What's New Page and the Internet 
Scout Report
--Using the Internet  Directory by Eric Braun to research appropriate 
listervs as well as other print resources such as Osborne's Internet 
Yellow Pages  and The New Riders Yellow Pages
--Use of the Clearinghouse for Subject Oriented Research Guides
--Searches of established lists of links including gopher bookmarks and 
mosaic hotlists

Such search tools might result in the following resources for the 
previously mentioned unit on cancer:
--NYSERNET's Breast Cancer Information  WWW at 
http://nysernet.org
 --OncoLink, a WWW-server and gopher server oriented to CANCER. 
This resource is directed to physicians, health care personnel, social 
workers, patients and their supporters.
http://cancer.med.upenn.edu
--Imperial Cancer Research Fund http://gea.lif.icnet.uk
--National Cancer Center gopher.ncc.go.jp
--National Institutes of Health gopher.nih.gov
--mailist cancer-l@wvnvm.bitnet
--A veronica search returned nearly 200 articles or links to cancer 
resources.

	The California Young Scholar Program students will be working 
out of the high school library and e-mail support will be part of the 
library aide training. 

 	LM_NET will be available for the group of us, students and 
teacher/librarian, to connect with others looking for information or 
looking for discussion of the theory of questioning part of the project.

	Working with youngsters grades 1-2 and middle school students 
will provide high school students and teacher/librarian the 
opportunity to try out questions for validity as we assist the projects 
initiated by the classroom teacher.

	This similar process involving the use of reference interviews 
will also be specfically used with Resource students studying 
environmental science and by 1st and 2nd grade students working with 
science and social studies issues.

IV. Assessment

A.  Assessment, High School

	--Students will create a portfolio of resources by topic area. 
The portfolio will consist of a number of entries based on the requests 
submitted. Each portfolio entry will contain the following:
	a. The results of the reference interview conducted before the 
search
	b. The methods use for researching the topic
	c. A list of URL's, addresses and bookmark and hotlists created 
including any necessary pathway information so that the material can 
be re-created if needed
	d. Student comments on the viability of the information and 
resources generated

	As an example, the following portfolio entry might be created 
around the cancer unit discussed earlier:
	a. In this case, the search is pre-designed so the parameters are set 
to find information about various types of cancer
	b. The methods used in the model included a W3 catalog search, 
a veronica search, a print resource check for newsgroups and other 
gopher servers, and a print resource check to find the mail-list cancer-l
	c. These addresses are listed after the resources in section III of 
this unit
	d. Finally, at the end of the unit, the student researcher would 
discuss with the students in the General Science class either orally or in 
writing how well the resources worked in giving them information.  


B.  Assessment, Grades 1-2 and Middle School

	
	--Observation with the two teachers of the results of the 
	classroom assignment and discussion with the students about 
	
	 how to look for things. Assessment will measured by the influx 
of telecommunications resources in the students' work. 


	Without a doubt there is an information superhighway, and 
surfing is a vivid image of the activities and excitement in discovery of 
its mass Ñbut to this researcher the sign of the age is Groucho, hand on 
hip, eyebrows elevated throwing out his great line
	
	ÒWhat did you have in mindÓ?