A "Research Help Center" by and for Middle School Students

Skip back to June when I wrote the first (and second) blog posts.
One of my summer goals: Make the Blanchard Library website:
more user-friendly, more interactive,  more focused on student created content.

Well, I have a PLAN!

I got to to thinking about how I learn new skills; I might read (or watch) an overview, but then I generally just jump in and rely on online help to bail me out if I get stuck.

Maybe school should work that way too: Let students explore on their own but provide help files (or videos) for students to access When and IF they need it.

AND then I also remembered one reason I wanted to move up to Middle School was because the students are old enough to be independent and capable producers of information.

SO Why not  have the students create an online RESEARCH HELP CENTER where they (and their peers) can find answers to their Frequently Asked Questions AND get practice producing and authentically publishing information?

Over the course of a school year, I teach 30 sections of a 10-session “Research Class”. The class is not graded and is not taken by every student.  All students do, however, complete graded research projects each year in their core classes. (the subject teachers often, but not always, collaborate with me on these).

IF the research class students TEACH the other students the skills they’ve learned, it’s a win-win situation: The research class kids LEARN the skills better than they might otherwise, and ALL students have access to the topics we cover in the research classes.

I started the Research Help Center. (take a look and let me know what you think; it’s a work in progress!) The only page right now is “Cite Sources” which is populated by screencasts that I recorded. (these can be switched to student created content later)

My short term goal: Have this Fall’s 8th grade research classes populate the  “Find Information” section of the Research Help Center.  Their goal will be to share tips and tricks that help other middle school students master the Curriculum Benchmarks: Find, evaluate and select appropriate sources to answer questions using various relevant resources, including databases, and the online catalog”

Students in the grade 6 research classes will judge whether or not each contribution is “Worthy of the World”.  Only those that pass muster of this peer panel will actually be published.

If this goes at all smoothly, we will add other sections later. Possible topics include: “Successful Note-taking”, “Organizing Information”, “Curation”, “Collaboration tips”, “Publishing tools”, “Evaluating Information”..

For more information, see: the project overview -

or the write-up with WPS curriculum standards.

or (best yet) take a look at the project the way the students will access it.