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Planning to do research
What role does the research play in your plan of work?
Is the research going to provide a context to help you interpret sources (a text, original document, work of art or music)?
Is research to achieve a more authentic or meaningful creative outcome (e.g. a story set in historical period)?
Will the research be a mix of experiment and factual research to help you solve a problem, test a hypothesis or design something useful?
Is the research an end in itself so that the product will be a presentation of what you found out and how you did it?
When does the research play a role?
How much time will it be allowed?
Will you stop at a certain point, even if there is more to find out?
Will there be different stages and types of research e.g. background facts, testing opinions, sourcing materials and so on?
Who or what will determine the research?
Do you want to emphasise openness, giving you freedom to decide on questions and topics, with the outcome determined by the beginnings?
Or will the necessary goal determine the direction of the research?
Is it possible to give opportunities for you both to explore questions set by others and to set your own questions?
Is it possible for you to design your own experiments, surveys or prototypes before demonstrate established tests for particular problems?
How will you model research?
Can you act as a researcher, to show what it is that you still need to learn and to show the best ways to research?
Can you employ a professional researcher, or a subject specialist or creative practitioner who is engaged in research? If so, what will their role be? For example, will they be evaluators of the project, subject experts to guide them to information, modellers of a research process or trainers in creative skills?
Do you need to provide any conceptual models to help prepare to do research?
How will you ensure beyond copying and pasting; or simple reporting of facts found?
Do you intend to use cultural sources (texts, images, sounds, objects) as the starting point, so that your interpretations of them can lead to questions and deeper enquiries? Will cultural sources (other than factual texts) provide data or answers to your enquiries? What methods will you use to interrogate and interpret those sources?
How will you enable their access to information?
Will you need to collaborate with another subject teacher, or plan with librarians or resource assistants?
Will you be involved in deciding what reference materials and information-seeking methods they will use?
How will you help other researchers to do their own searching for information? How will you guide them to look beyond the obvious sources? Is it possible to throw them in the deep end, getting them to reflect on their challenges as they go?
Can your research collaboratively in groups, forming a community of enquiry, as well as doing personal research?
What will you do with your research ?
How will you communicate your discoveries and remaining questions to others?
Will the research be used to make a design, a solution, a new system, a new interpretation of an artwork, an informative presentation, a creative outcome?
Sources:
British Library. (2012). Planning for students to do research. Retrieved from
http://www.bl.uk/learning/cresearch/skills/planning1/planning.html
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