Learn how Shawnee (Okla.) Middle School used their unit, Assumptions: Conflict in Society and the Tulsa Race Massacre, to guide students to develop their own research projects.
Shawnee Middle School was the winner of ALA's 2020-2021 Sara Jaffarian School Library Program Award for Exemplary Humanities Programming.
In their program, they first taught students about how assumptions create conflict in society using the Tulsa Race Massacre as an example. Using Guided Inquiry Design, they then encouraged students to think about where they see assumptions causing conflict in the world today or in their own experience. Students chose a topic to research further.
In this free, 60-minute webinar, Shawnee Middle School librarian Carol Jones will discuss the program and share tips for school library professionals interested in developing a similar program.
Learning Outcomes
Participants will learn to:
- develop a lesson or program that helps K-12 students use evidence to investigate complex questions
- develop a lesson or program that leads K-12 students through a process of devising and implementing a plan to fill knowledge gaps
Resources
Carol Jones has been a librarian in Austin, Texas; Champaign, Ill.; Mt Vernon, Ga.; and Shawnee, Okla. She has taught students from Pre-K through adult. The school types have varied from a bilingual, dual-language urban elementary school to a rural high school and a rurally situated prison. Her current situation in Shawnee serves a middle school population of 750 students where one-third are citizens of Tribal Nations. In each situation, her students have taught her far more than she teaches them. She is most thrilled when students and teachers see the great experience that student-led research can be!