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The Internet has made researching subjects deceptively effortless for students — or so it may seem to them at first. Truth is, students who haven’t been taught the skills to conduct good research will invariably come up short.

That’s part of the argument made by Wheaton College Professor Alan Jacobs in The Atlantic, who says the ease of search and user interface of fee-based databases have failed to keep up with those of free search engines. In combination with the well-documented gaps in students’ search skills, he suggests that this creates a perfect storm for the abandonment of scholarly databases in favor of search engines. He concludes: “Maybe our greater emphasis shouldn’t be on training users to work with bad search tools, but to improve the search tools.”

His article is responding to a larger, ongoing conversation about whether the ubiquity of Web search is good or bad for serious research. The false dichotomy short-circuits the real question: “What do students really need to know about online search to do it well?” As long as we’re not talking about this question, we’re essentially ignoring the subtleties of Web search rather than teaching students how to do it expertly. So it’s not surprising that they don’t know how to come up with quality results. Regardless of the vehicle–fee databases or free search engines–we owe it to our students to teach them to search well.

So what are the hallmarks of a good online search education?

SKILL-BUILDING CURRICULUM. Search competency is a form of literacy, like learning a language or subject. Like any literacy, it requires having discrete skills as well as accumulating experience in how and when to use them. But this kind of intuition can’t be taught in a day or even in a unit – it has to be built up through exercise and with the guidance of instructors while students take on researching challenges. For example, during one search session, teachers can ask students to reflect on why they chose to click on one link over another. Another time, when using the Web together as a class, teachers can demonstrate how to look for a definition of an unfamiliar word. Thinking aloud when you search helps, as well.

A THOROUGH, MULTI-STEP APPROACH. Research is not a one-step process. It has distinct phases, each with its own requirements. The first stage is inquiry, the free exploration of a broad topic to discover an interesting avenue for further research, based on the student’s curiosity. Web search, with its rich cross-linking and the simplicity of renewing a search with a single click, is ideally suited to this first open-ended stage. When students move on to a literature review, they seek the key points of authority on their topic, and pursue and identify the range of theories and perspectives on their subject. Bibliographies, blog posts, and various traditional and new sources help here. Finally, with evidence-gathering, students look for both primary- and secondary-source materials that build the evidence for new conclusions. The Web actually makes access to many –

but not all — types of primary sources substantially easier than it’s been in the past, and knowing which are available online and which must be sought in other collections is critical to students’ success. For example, a high school student studying Mohandas Gandhi may do background reading in Wikipedia and discover that Gandhi’s worldview was influenced by Leo Tolstoy; use scholarly secondary sources to identify key analyses of their acquaintance; and then delve into online or print books to read their actual correspondence to draw an independent conclusion. At each step of the way, what the Web has to offer changes subtly.

TOOLS FOR UNDERSTANDING SOURCES. Some educators take on this difficult topic, but it’s often framed as a simple black-and-white approach: “These types of sources are good. These types of sources are bad.” Such lessons often reject newer formats, such as blogs and wikis, and privilege older formats, such as books and newspaper articles. In truth, there are good and bad specimens of each, and each has its appropriate uses. What students need to be competent at is identifying the kind of source they’re finding, decoding what types of evidence it can appropriately provide, and making an educated choice about whether it matches their task.

DEVELOPING THE SKILLS TO PREDICT, ASSESS, PROBLEM-SOLVE, AND ITERATE. It’s important for students to ask themselves early on in their search, “When I type in these words, what do I expect to see in my results?” and then evaluate whether the results that appear match those expectations. Identifying problems or patterns in results is one of the most important skills educators can help students develop, along with evaluating credibility. When students understand that doing research requires more than a single search and a single result, they learn to leverage the information they find to construct tighter or deeper searches. Say a student learns that workers coming from other countries may send some of their earnings back to family members. An empowered searcher may look for information on [immigrants send money home], and notice that the term remittances appears in many results. An unskilled searcher would skip over words he doesn’t recognize know, but the educated student can confirm the definition of remittance, then do another search, [remittances immigrants], which brings back more scholarly results.

TECHNICAL SKILLS FOR ADVANCED SEARCH. Knowing what tools and filters are available and how they work allows students to find what they seek, such as searching by color, domain, filetype, or date. Innovations in technology also provide opportunities to visualize data in new ways. But most fundamentally, good researchers remember that it takes a variety of sources to carry out scholarly research. They have the technical skills to access Web pages, but also books, journal articles, and people as they move through their research process.

Centuries ago, the teacher Socrates famously argued against the idea that the written word could be used to transmit knowledge. This has been disproved over the years, as authors have developed conventions for communicating through the written word and educators have effectively taught students to extract that knowledge and make it their own. To prepare our students for the future, it’s time for another such transition in the way we educate. When we don’t teach students how to manage their online research effectively, we create a self-perpetuating cycle of poor-quality results. To break that cycle, educators can engage students in an ongoing conversation about how to carry out excellent research online. In the long term, students with stronger critical thinking skills will be more effective at school, and in their lives.

What do you think it is most important for students to know about online research? Please share in the comments section below.

Have a question for The Savvy Searcher? Contact Tasha and check out the Search Education Team’s resources. Read more from The Savvy Searcher.

MikvaChallenge.org

By Sara Bernard

Last summer, 15 students from Chicago’s public school system were charged with answering this question: “How can 21st century technology enhance rigor, relevance, and relationships in high school?”

To answer the question, they interviewed teachers and community members, researched best practices, held panel discussions, and conducted a survey of 380 of their peers. They developed a 53-page document of 18 recommendations for Chicago Public Schools — titled “Bringing Chicago Public High Schools into the 21st Century” — as well as an entertaining video about the process.

It was a new twist on an annual project led by Mikva Challenge, a Chicago-based nonprofit that enables youth leadership and civic involvement through activism, electoral participation, and policy-making. The Education Council, as these 15 students are called, advises the CEO of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) on a variety of issues every year.

The 2010 Education Council had plenty to say — and they’re certain they’ll be heard. Among their suggestions:

1) Allow access to restricted Web sites like YouTube for educational purposes.

2) Hold technology integration training workshops for teachers.

3) Use cell phones as a “teacher-defined learning tool.”

4) Partner with media-savvy youth organizations like YouMedia so that students who participate in technology-rich projects outside of school can receive elective credits.

I asked participant Laurise Johnson, a junior at Roger Sullivan High School, her thoughts on the project. “When it comes to school issues, I think adults should listen to us. We’re the ones who go here,” she said.

Here’s more from our conversation:

Q: What do you think are the most important recommendations included in your report?

A: I think one of the most important recommendations is for CPS to offer workshops for teachers on using technology in the classroom. We have some technology at school, but teachers don’t know how to use it. If you look at the big picture, technology adheres to a lot of people’s different needs. You can hear it. You can see it. It can be hands-on. I think that if teachers really learn how to use technology, then they will have better engagement with their students. Kids will learn more and be excited to learn.

Another recommendation that captured me was the idea that teachers should have a personal password for unblocking restricted websites for educational purposes. During our research process, we used YouTube a lot. To make our video, we used clips from YouTube. A lot of teachers from our teacher panels said that they’d had the experience where there was a video that they wanted to share with their class, but they had to download it onto their own computer and take their personal laptop to school [because YouTube is blocked on campus]. If students are already using YouTube, and teachers can see where they can use YouTube in class, then why not let it happen?

Q: Do you think these recommendations are going to be implemented at CPS?

A: Yes. We already have momentum from the teachers and we have support from so many people. These recommendations aren’t far-fetched. They are basic things that I think CPS needs to go back to so that they can catch up.

When I was at the CPS Tech Talk held recently, I was talking to one of the ladies from Apple about our report and she’s interested in holding a workshop for us to help teachers better understand technology and learn how to integrate it into their classrooms.

And Todd Yarch, principal of VOISE Academy [a face-to-face high school with an all-digital curriculum, recently launched in Chicago] is already starting to implement some of these recommendations. He wants to talk to us about setting up a workshop on technology integration for principals, too.

Q: What advice would you give to other students and schools interested in replicating a project like this?

A: Keep striving for what you see best fits the students there. Don’t necessarily let decision-makers try to turn the tables on what they like and what they see as best fitting their school district. Reach out to any and everyone. Reach out to principals, students, and teachers. Make it a bottom-up movement instead of a top-down one. Start implementing some of your recommendations inside your own school so when you do go to head officials, you already have a portfolio of evidence that you can bring to them.

Also, research other schools outside of your district and state. Some of the research we found was implemented at universities in different states (Arizona, for example). We could see that it has been done. It is possible. People have already succeeded.