Student-Selected Research Projects

Course

Plan Not to Plan [3:32]

Learn how to create a loose year-long timeline for self-selected projects
Learn to recognize the essential skills and curriculum that are non-negotiable
Learn to evaluate your timeline at the end of each year and rework as needed

Let's plan not to plan. Everybody, calm down. Don't freak out. All right. What do you mean, don't plan? Our whole lives are about planning. Right OK, well, all right. You can play on a little. So there are must haves, you know, you must plan for your final presentation date. You have x number of kids that have to present. And you have y amount of time and you need to figure out how much time do you need to let each child present. So that's a definite thing that you need to plan. What skills do you need to teach? So, you know, I want to teach them notetaking. I want to do evaluation of resources. I want to teach them how to use the library catalog. I want them to read deeply. I want them to work on an essential question and developing that. And I also want them to be able to move forward with their research, and then evaluate their own work so far and go back and redo if they need to. And then, of course, there's non-negotiable programming. If your principal is expecting you to cover something that you know, everybody's saying, OK, we've done this for 100 years and we have to continue that tradition, then you have to continue that tradition. We're not going to, you know, abandon that just because we're going to do this.

So consider the school calendar when grades are due, you have absolutely have to have that done before then. And am I implying that maybe you want to take a grade on this? Yes, I am. OK, so but you're going to grade holistically and on based on the child as they come to you. And of course, what the expectations are set, how they're set in your community. OK, but still holding them accountable. Holidays, OK, you can't make kids come in when they're not supposed to be there. Right so you have to work that into your schedule. And then, of course, the lovely standardized testing. You have to make room for that. OK, so, you know, the kids are going to be less available to you during that time, so.

A timeline very loosely will look like this, you're going to look at your whole year, if you have the whole year. You're going to welcome them in August, you're going to build work on building culture in September, you're going to introduce the idea of a genius hour or PBL in October, maybe sooner. I don't know. Then you start looking at the resources that you want to cover your encyclopedia, your books, your free web, your project design. Oh, I'll stop there. And then at some point, you're going to need to take time to help them design their project and how they're going to present. You may need to give them time to work in school. I don't know how things work for you, I would not let my students work out of school because whatever things they took out never came back. So I would keep it there. So I could keep my eye on it to make sure everybody had something to show at the end. And then give yourself time for the presentations. And then you've got the last day of school.

So what are you going to do now? You're going to look back and think, what did I do last year? That was great. And what I want to keep. And then you're going to say, what do I need to abandon? Because that didn't work out. So well. And then you're going to start thinking about next year. OK, so that's what a timeline very loosely might look like.

Plan Not to Plan

Plan not to plan. Allowing yourself the freedom to loosely plan a timeline for self-selected research projects will help keep the chaos under control. Looking at the entire year to complete a project will give you the time needed to include all the non-negotiable programming as well as a successful research project!

RESOURCES:

Handout

Course Packet

REFLECT & PRACTICE:

We have all planned to do something and had time slip away and either ditch the project or rush through it. By creating a loose timeline that starts on the first day of school and ends on the last possible day students can present their final products, you are setting yourself and your students up for a successful self-selected research project. Using page 9 of the Course Packet found in the Resources, create a genius hour timeline for your school year. Be sure to include any time limitations or must haves that are non-negotiable for your year. At the end of the school year, review your timeline and figure out what worked and what needs to be adjusted.

MLA Citation

Rush, Elizabeth Barrera. "Student-Selected Research Projects: Plan Not to Plan." School Library Connection, August 2021, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2267006?learningModuleId=2267489&topicCenterId=2247903.

Entry ID: 2267677

Additional Resources

Bibliography.

About the Author

Elizabeth Barrera Rush is a library specialist for a school district in Texas. She received her BBA from St. Mary's University in San Antonio and her MSIS from the University of Texas, Austin. Elizabeth has spent over 20 years serving elementary and middle school students in private, charter, and public school libraries as well as the San Antonio Public Library. She is author of Bringing Genius Hour to Your Library: Implementing a Schoolwide Passion Project Program (Libraries Unlimited, 2018) and The Efficient Library: Ten Simple Changes that Save You Time and Improve Library Service (Libraries Unlimited, 2020). She has written articles for Teacher Librarian and School Library Connection. She has been an advocate for libraries speaking in a congressional panel in Washington, D.C., and a consultant for the National Assessment for Educational Progress in writing, and presented webinars and workshops for AASL, INFOhio, and ABC-CLIO. She is a member of TLA, and an active member of ALA's Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures Division as well as co-vice chair of the Cataloging Norms Interest Group and Member of the ALA/AIA Building Award Committee, and a proud ALA Spectrum Champion for the Office of Diversity, Literacy & Outreach.

MLA Citation

Rush, Elizabeth Barrera. "Student-Selected Research Projects. Plan Not to Plan [3:32]." School Library Connection, ABC-CLIO, August 2021, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2267006?learningModuleId=2267489&topicCenterId=2247903.

View all citation styles

https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2267006?learningModuleId=2267489&topicCenterId=2247903

Entry ID: 2267006