As the research focus becomes identified by your students, your job now as teachers and facilitators is to step back. Where support is asked, it can be provided, but the aim is that the children will take on the initiative to find out new information. They will need to describe this and find ways of
Training Module 2: Action Projects
Phase 2 is primarily focused on carrying out research in the classroom. During Phase 1, the student develops an idea or interest that can be turned into a research question. Their focus now changes from debate and discussion to articulating a question that they want to answer. Phase 2 then supports them to become critical, start thinking more deeply about the subject and to work out what they would like to research. Some students may prefer to work in a group, some individually.
As the research focus becomes identified, the teachers and researchers step back. Where support is asked, it can be provided, but the aim is that the children will take on the initiative to find out new information. They will need to describe this and find ways of collecting the information. They will need access to the online world, they may want to carry out a questionnaire, they may need to interview or phone people. The aim of this phase is that they carry out their fact-finding missions themselves.
The aim is that they are gradually building up the material that will allow them to produce a research artefact or product. This can be in a wide range of formats, from the creative approach that might involve song, art or drama, or a more traditional approach that focuses on a report, presentation or document, or indeed an ICT based approach where the result is a podcast or a video or sound recording.
For Phase 2 after the first and second session, lesson plans become less useful as the children are now researching using all the time available for the session. Phase 2 is when we want the children to take their own initiative when it comes to the research
