Improving Research Skills with Effective Keywords

This short video displays a lesson about improving student research skills online. The teacher, Olga Ramos, first introduces the goal of the lesson and some previeous and new vocabulary. The lesson is aimed to show kids how to refine their research techniques using key words. Ms. Ramos uses a great introduction that requires students to describe something without saying it, using synonyms and descriptions. She asks her students to discuss amongst themselves what they did to describe the objects. The main lesson is called "Fetch" and it requires the students to find out what foods are toxic to dogs, what dogs are smartest, what jobs can dogs do for people, and what are some of the smallest and largest types of dogs? The students will only be able to use one key word to search for the first answer and must document whether or not they think the sites they found are useful. For each subsequent question, the students may add one more keyword to search with. This exercise shows the students how using multiple key words while researching is crucial, while also showing them that the keyewords they choose is equally important.

The lesson seems very successful and effective. Students need to learn that their research techiniques, use of synonyms and precision are very important while finding new or supporting information. These skills are crucially important in any social studies class, which will inevitably require individual research. I plan to use similar techniques in high school to teach students how to use key words and phrases to search within an academic database like EBSCOhost  to find primary and secondary sources. Students could do the same initial exercise using google search and limited keywords as scafolding before asking them to search on an academic database. This skill is key for any student who is interested in a college education. At the same time, being able to research any topic is a key skill for any adult in our modern society.



https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teaching-strategies-internet-research