Fortune's Cookie

Social Studies Online

1. The best way to do this activity is to take each step of the Research cycle as a whole class activity and then to break into the predetermined groups to put that step into practice.
2. The class first learns how to ask the essential questions of : Why? (searching for the cause and effect), How? (problem-solving) and Which is best? (decision making based on the evidence or plainly stated criteria).
3. The groups then have to apply those questions to their research area.
4. The first time you do this with a class you will feel like a one armed paperhanger because they will all be wanting to help at once. However if you persevere you will find that each group and individual quickly becomes a proficient question constructor.
5. Once they have the essential questions sorted out it is easy for them to see what could be subsidiary questions. These must always relate to or be clarification of an essential question.
6. The next three steps on the Research Cycle are fairly easy for each group to decide how they are going to approach them in terms of their research area.
7. It is usual for the synthesising step to need whole class instruction before the groups attempt to do it with the material they have gathered. This is the stage which asks that they rearrange the information they have gathered so that it fits the essential questions.
8. Two things are likely to happen at this stage. (a) Firstly there are groups which have ignored their own questions and have gathered information that is only vaguely connected with their topic. Usually they have latched onto a key word in the research topic and they have to be told (gently) that they have to start again. (b) Secondly there those groups which have kept their questions in mind but have gathered so much information they are in "over-load". They often find it difficult to discard information and they have to be guided through the discard process.
9. If time is taken with the synthesising stage then the evaluation of that material can be done relatively quickly.
10. The next two parts of the Research Cycle are repeats of the first part. It is important that the students gone through at least one of the repeats to make sure that their first attempt has covered all the aspects of their essential questions.
11. The test for the groups on whether they have done enough is if they can be confident that they know enough to start work on the presentation of their material.