The middle school I work at publishes a monthly newsletter in which they are nice enough to include an submission from the library department (me!). This month, I went on a bit of a rant about the current state of research. It ended up fitting in pretty well with the Professional Development day we had this past Monday where Will Richardson gave the keynote about technology and schools. The article text is below:
When I was growing up doing research meant going to the library. Usually, the first step was a visit to the school library, then the local branch and maybe the main branch if I was looking for something that World Book couldn‘t provide. I can still remember being in sixth grade and getting angry that our tiny branch library didn‘t have a whole book on baby elephants. Now, the world is a changed place, and there is no place where that is more evident than in the way our children do research.
Starting in elementary school, when students now visit the library they are exposed to a world of resources. From books to databases to websites to online reference materials, the options are seem-ingly endless. In my opinion, this has made research more difficult, rather than easier. There is so much information available that students typically don‘t even know where to start. Luckily, this is why we have librarians and teachers, and, as a librarian, the first thing I teach my students to do is figure out whether the resource they‘re looking for is the right resource for them to be using.
At the middle school, we have developed an acronym which we are now using as an evaluation tool. The acronym is CART. Some of you may have heard your children say they had to CART something and been confused by the assignment. By CART-ing a resource, the students are checking to see if it is: Current, Accessible, Relevant and Trustworthy. It‘s more than just checking the dates and seeing who the author is; when we introduce CART, we give the students things to think about.
Take the issue of whether the resource is current, Is the resource up-to-date? More importantly, does it have to be? There is a difference in how recent you need the information to be when studying Ancient Rome and when studying modern Buddhism. What about the subject of accessibility?accessible? This asks students to figure out if a source is right for them, as well as if they can read it and understand what is being conveyed. Is the information presented in a way that is easy to follow and understand? Relevance asks students if the resource will answer their question. It might be a reliable source they can read, but if it‘s not on the topic, it‘s not going to help with the question. Trustworthy is one of the most difficult concepts to convey. This requires students to figure out where the information is coming from. Who wrote the resource and, as equally important, why did they write it? While the first three indicators are pretty straightforward to evaluate in any type of resource, the trustworthiness of a resource can be presently quite differently depending on whether the information is on coming from a website, database, book, etc.
By instituting CART as a standard of evaluation in sixth grade, the hope is that by eighth grade, the students will use all four indicators inherently, almost subconsciously, as a way to figure out which resource is best for them. It might not help limit the amount of information students are exposed to on a daily basis, but hopefully it will help them figure out what types of resources provide the best place to begin looking.
CART was introduced to last year‘s sixth grade class and is soon to become common language amongst this year‘s sixth graders. We encourage you to use the term at home when working with your children and help make it part of our recognized school vernacular.
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