Problem Identifiers

Over recent years, Violet Harada, Professor of Library and Information Science at the University of Hawaii, has implemented several collaborative inquiry-based projects across K-12 learning environments. Harada has approached each project with problem-solving strategies modeled by the teacher and library media specialist team, but with the twist that before students can understand solutions they must be engaged to act as “Problem Identifiers.” A typical sequence to foster problem awareness and solution options at the secondary school level follows.

Brainstorming - Students work in small groups to brainstorm ideas generated by the driving question posed. Example – What does it mean to live healthier?
Webbing - Each group creates a web with questions linked from the issue-driving question and each group shares their ideas with the rest of the class. Under teacher and library media specialist guidance, students create a total class web that reflects all key ideas. This can be the first of many information products from the students to be displayed for other teachers, students and administrators to see the development of a critical thinking, problem-solving project.
Exploration of Sources - Students focus on general information sources and gather ideas from each source to share with the class. Such background reading and viewing helps to formulate questions that make sense and help students see which questions are also of greatest interest among classmates.
Individual Journaling - Students begin to generate their own questions in a personal journal and expand this list as they engage in more reading, viewing and small group discussions. Students apply guidance from the teacher and media specialist to select good questions.
Choosing a Research Focus - Based on personal interest, relevance to the inquiry theme for the class and availability of resources likely to support the investigation, students select questions for their extended investigation.
The Research Process - Students step through the standard process of seeking information, selecting evidence, discussing what can be inferred from the evidence, need for additional sources, a summary of conclusions to address their questions, and methods of presenting results.

Along the way, many instructional problems arise. A brief list of these and how they are addressed illustrates collaborative roles that need to be played by the teachers and media specialist.

Journal accounts revealed that students knew less about the general topic of nutrition than the teacher anticipated. The teacher added two more sessions for students to explore information resources, including more time to browse and report on resources in the library.
Observations showed that students were fuzzy about keyword searching. The library media specialist spent another session on keyword search strategies.
Observation revealed that students had limited prior knowledge about conducting surveys. The Teacher added two sessions where she presented models for surveys.
Students were able to gather survey data more quickly than anticipated. Time for the survey was reduced from two weeks to one.
Observations indicated that students had different interpretations of data. The teacher used another session to guide students in consensus of interpretations.