Peek into Learning: Research Skills

Our weekly focus for the next 4 weeks will be on the IB's Approaches to Learning, so you are able to see what these skills can look like in the classroom at different levels. This week, we look at how research skills are embedded in our learning. Students develop their research skills from our youngest students in Pre K all the way up through through high school.  Research skills include information literacy where students learn to formulate questions, plan how they are going to find out the information, gather their data, record their findings and then synthesize, interpret, and evaluate their information before communicating what they found out in different ways. Research skills also includes media literacy where students learn how to use different forms of media, information and create their own ideas through different media. The final aspect of research skills is ethical use of media/ information, where students develop an understanding and apply this to their use of technology both socially and ethically. 

This week our PreK students have been using their research skills to inquire into the different spaces around our school. They have asked questions, observed closely ,looking for different elements and shared their findings through making models, drawings, mark making and conversations. 

In KG1 students have been using different books, looking at real life objects or living things and photographs to find out about different living things. They recorded their ideas through drawing and emergent writing. It provoked them to ask questions to further their understanding about living things. They used their research to help them to decide if different things were living or non living. 

Our KG2 learners have been inquiring into how objects move using push and pull forces. They visited the Innovation Hub to observe different ways objects move and ask questions about what they noticed about the push and pull forces used. 

In Grade 2 students are currently learning about simple machines. They explored various different simple machines at the Innovation Hub and discussed how they could work using the scientific vocabulary they have been developing as part of their inquiry.