Google Scholar

"Stand on the shoulders of giants" - the motto of Google Scholar. I always knew this to be attributed to Isaac Newton. Turns out it predates him by about 500 years.

In 1159, John of Salisbury wrote in his Metalogicon: "Bernard of Chartres used to compare us to dwarfs perched on the shoulders of giants. He pointed out that we see more and farther than our predecessors, not because we have keener vision or greater height, but because we are lifted up and borne aloft on their gigantic stature." (Merton, 1965).

Google search scrapes the entire web for relevant results - blogs, social media, websites of cats jumping at the sight of cucumbers. The variety and sheer number of results is what makes Google so powerful, but it also highlights the unreliable nature of its findings.

Google Scholar only provides results from peer-reviewed online academic journals and books, conference papers, theses and dissertations, preprints, abstracts, technical reports, and other scholarly literature. We can therefore have greater confidence that the resources we access through Scholar are written by "giants" and not teenage Russian trolls.

Scholarly searching

I wanted to start using some of the same search strings that I tried with Google to see how the results differ.

"Learning space" AND (inquiry OR enquiry)

16,800 results.

Mostly similar themes to my Google search - a couple of Guided Inquiry papers, and a few on learning space. None seem to combine the two ideas. Google suggests that I might like to try "pedagogical design learning spaces". I hand the reigns over to the algorithm....

Pedagogical design learning spaces

304,000 results.

A swathe of articles on ICT integration. This journal article by Oblinger, whilst focused on higher education, discusses the link between pedagogy, space and learning modes. It doesn't specifically mention inquiry learning, but I can use my knowledge to filter and focus on what is relevant. I'm very excited by this article so I click on articles that have cited Oblinger to scan for applications to secondary schooling.

Articles citing Oblinger - Leading the transition from classrooms to learning spaces

Only 152 results.

Most are focused on learning spaces in higher education settings. I feel that I'm on the right track but want to focus on secondary schooling.

Search within citing articles - "secondary" OR "high school"

52 results.

This is the point in my inquiry journey where I finally feel that I'm heading in the right direction. The results featured highlight the link between 21st century learning, pedagogy and learning space. This is by far the most relevant search yet, all thanks to the thread of citing articles.

25 results.

Some more quality resources that I scan and bookmark for later.

I try a few more search strings that I used in Google search. These brought up a couple of interesting trends around inquiry pedagogies as being highly effective at developing 21st century skills. This is an area that piques my interest.

Reflections

Google Scholar provided me with clarity and focus at a time where I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and uncertain. I placed faith in the algorithm and followed the unconventional ways of searching suggested by Scholar. Like most machine learning suggestions, the results became fewer and more focused. In this instance that yielded highly relevant results and helped me to clarify my inquiry.

I do wonder, is this really what I set out to find, or has the algorithm led me down this path?

Next steps

I also wonder if my primary question should be changed, with "learning environment" substituted for a more precise term:

How can the design of learning space support interactions in inquiry learning?

When searching, I need to be more, or less specific than "interactions". It seems this term is often used to describe the roles of teachers in inquiry learning. I'm more interested in the broader ways in which students learn - interacting with content and resources, other students, themselves, and teachers.

To broaden my results I also might need to remove inquiry learning from the search. The ways in which students interact in inquiry learning will cross over with other pedagogies. I might need to search far and wide and use my understanding of inquiry learning to select applicable interactions.

How can the design of learning space support inquiry learning?

Or

How can the design of learning space support student learning? And then manually filter for inquiry-relevant interactions.

Next search

A+ Education