Inquiry Activities: Active Learning for Online Searching

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Inquiry Activities Active Learning for Online
Searching
Nancy Dennis, Outreach Librarian Salem State
College Hanover, New Hampshire October 31, 2002
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IDS 357 New Technologies for Information
Retrieval

• 3-credit undergraduate course.
• Elective.
• Text Researching Online for Dummies
• by Mary Ellen Bates and Reva Basch.

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Inquiry Search Questions

• Good searching techniques.
• Critical thinking.
• Unusual queries.
• Full explanation of search analysis, execution,
  and evaluation.

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Where is Atkinson, Vermont?
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Researching Online Search Tips

• Be flexible.
• Try different approaches.
• Recast search assumptions.

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Plan A

• Ask Jeeves.

• MapQuest.

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Plan B

• Search engines?
• General?
• Meta?
• Specialty??

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just down I-89 from Montpelier
NOT
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Still in the game
Atkinson, Vermont Atkinson AND Vermont
Google AltaVista
Metacrawler Dogpile
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These cant be right

• Oprah Winfrey?
• Morris?
• Marie?
• A song?

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Where is Atkinson, Vermont?

• Fictional town.
• Setting of the novel Songs in Ordinary Time.
• Author Mary McGarry Morris.
• 1997 Oprah Winfrey Book Club selection.

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Inquiry approach Self-authentication of
search tips

• Be persistent, flexible, and creative.
• Revise the search.
• Know when to stop.
• Challenge initial assumptions.

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Supportive Student Learning Theories

• Authentic learning. Barbara Presseisen
• Nurturing thoughtfulness. Francis Schrag

• Augmenting basic cognitive skills.
• Charles Letteri
• Teaching college students.
• Robert Leamnson

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Creating Inquiry Search Questions

• Encourage persistence, creativity, and
  flexibility.
• Draw upon instructors search experiences.
• Build in searching pitfalls.
• Challenge students prior search assumptions.

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Lesson 1 Check spelling
Where is James de Priest, Music Director and
Conductor of the Oregon Symphony, appearing
during the 2002-03 season? What is the closest he
will come to Boston?
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Lesson 2

• Apply Boolean logic, phrase searches, and
  synonyms.
• Switch the order of search terms.

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Can people get arthritis in their eyes? If so,
how? Did the 2000 film Erin Brockovich
accurately depict events as they occurred in real
life?
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Lesson 3

• Recognize the need to gather preliminary
  information before proceeding.
• Be persistent with tricky web sites.
• Disregard extraneous information.

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October 17, 2001 The Laundromat Question

• While at the laundromat this past Sunday between
  830 and 1030, l listened to a panel of two
  women and one man debating the merits of females
  coaching male sports teams.
• The panel included a female head basketball
  coach, a male former head of womens soccer
  coach, and a female sports columnist.

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Laundromat, contd.

• The female columnist strenuously opposed hiring
  women to coach boys.
• What was her reasoning? How did the other
  panelists respond?

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Lesson 4

• Appreciate differing viewpoints on a topic.

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March 2002 Enron

• Last week, the U.S. Government indicted the
  accounting firm Arthur Andersen over its dealings
  with ENRON.
• Using newspapers, business periodicals, the EDGAR
  web site, and company web sites, find differing
  perspectives on what will happen to Arthur
  Andersen now.

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Lesson 5

• Look beyond traditional web sites for information.

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October 2001 Chinese Journalists

• Last week, while listening to WBUR, a friend
  heard a report that some Chinese journalists had
  been evicted from the U.S. for laughing and
  applauding over the collapse of the World Trade
  Center.
• Can you verify this news item?

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Lesson 6

• Some questions look easy, but are really quite
  hard.
• Some questions look hard, but are actually quite
  easy.

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Is the smallpox vaccination safe? Where was the
population center of the U.S. in 2001?
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Do fight clubs exist in real life?
October 2001 Fight Clubs
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Fight Clubs, contd.

• Has anyone commented on the similarities between
  the last scene in the 1999 movie Fight Club and
  the supposedly anti-corporate motives behind the
  destruction of the World Trade Center on
  September 11?

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The Detective Question

• Students
• Formulate own search questions.
• Verify facts of a controversial web site.
• Apply a full range of searching techniques.
• Apply higher-level evaluation insights.

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The Tapping of the Story

• Bryan Dean Watsons The Tapping of the Story
  advanced his theory of the attempted
  assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
• Locate, read, and evaluate the veracity of this
  document.

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The Tapping of the Story, contd.

• Exhaustively and creatively attempt to
  authenticate all details.
• Can you substantiate Watsons conspiracy theory?

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Applying Inquiry Questionsin an English
Composition Class

• Sharpen students searching skills.
• Reinforce course themes.

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Example 1

• Why did China try to pull the plug on Google?

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Example 2

• In Orwells 1984, the destruction and
  redefinition of vocabulary leads to control of
  what people may think.
• Is this believable?
• Could this really happen?

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Example 3

• During the week of September 8, 2002, the Boston
  Globe printed an article claiming that agendas of
  Hawks like Paul Wolfowitz were driving the Bush
  administrations plans to invade Iraq.

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Example 3, contd.

• What do the Hawks ultimately want to do? Why?
• Can you substantiate arguments presented in this
  article?

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Example 4

• Log on to http//multinationalmonitor.org. 
• Choose an article of interest.
• Evaluate the veracity and reliability of the
  document you selected by authenticating all
  details.
• Can you substantiate the authors claims?
•  

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Handouts

• Exam I, Spring 2001.
• Chart Relating Educational Theorists to Inquiry
  Search Questions.

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Thank you. For additional information, please
contact Nancy Dennis at 978-542-6218 nancy.dennis
_at_salemstate.edu