Notes from the following website by Carol C. Kuhlthau, Leslie K. Maniotes, Ann K. Caspari:
GID stems from the research of Information Search Process (ISP) describing the inquiry process of students from a variety of sources of information and how to achieve deep learning. Research includes Kuhlthau (1985, 2004, 2005), Seeking Meaning (2004) is a summary of the research. The research explores students’ feelings, thoughts and actions during the stages of learning in the ISP. Interestingly, Kuhlthau found that even a simple assignment involved a complex inquiry process requiring “guidance, instruction, and assistance for optimal learning for every child”.
Six stages were discovered, as well as a seventh assessment stage. These include:
- Initiation – initiating a research project: students feel uncertain and apprehensive about the workload and expectations. Encourage students to discuss ideas and questions and not attempt to do it alone. Conversations help to exchange ideas and push along their thinking on the topic.
- Selection – of a topic: students may want to hurry through this stage and jump straight to collecting information and complete the assignment, causing a problem. Groundwork is an important part of selection, allowing students’ to formulate meaningful questions expanding their knowledge on the topic.
- Exploration – exploring for focus: students can also skip this stage as well, without having a research focus. This stage can be the most challenging as students research and have to decipher between different perspectives, inconsistencies and incompatibilities. Finding the importance within a text is also difficult, skimming and scanning helps to gain a general understanding and then when to slow down to get sufficient background information. Detailed notes at this stage should be avoided, instead taking down key points. Support, structure and strategies are required to help students understand various sources of information, ideas and to form a focused question going forward for their exploration.
- Formulation – of a focus is a turning point of the ISP, clarifying their research question and zeroing in on what they are looking for. Confidence increases here, as they now have a focus for their research. The research question is formulated half way through the ISP, not at the beginning as would be expected.
- Collection – of information on focus: thorough reading and detailed note taking, with students having a “study frame of mind of concentrated attention”. Sorting through information to find more important ideas, a good focus can be changed as students learn as they read, write and research. Interest increases as students have a deeper understanding of their focused question.
- Presentation – preparation for presenting – the start of the writing process begins, constructing ideas throughout the process makes it easier to present what they have learned, also giving them feelings of satisfaction and achievement.If facts are merely collected and not understood, this creates difficulty for presenting and disinterest occurs with the inquiry project.
- Assessment – assessing the process (Kuhlthau, 1985): feelings from the student indicate how well they adhered to the ISP and how much learning occurred. Self-assessment allows students to determine how to approach future projects. After several projects, students had absorbed the stages in the ISP and it became the “way I learn”.
Impact of the ISP model
ISP has enlightened teachers to the students experience of constructing understanding from multiple sources of information, providing ways to guide students in their learning. With the correct guidance and intervention during the inquiry process, students are able to engage in personal learning and develop transferable skills, rather than just copying and pasting with little real understanding.
I can really relate to the ISP during my experiences of both assignments for this course. The online element adds to the confusion and feeling of frustration and doubt. I did feel disappointed when I handed in my assignment, as due to COVID19, I was unable to complete all of the additional research that I had planned to do. Nonetheless, I had enjoyed choosing a topic – I believe that this is an important element of the process. Choosing the topic allows the individual to follow their own interest and gives a sense of ownership of their learning. While initially daunting, it does spark interest and a thirst for further knowledge.
Guided Inquiry Design (GID)
GID framework is built around the ISP with specific direction for each phases of the inquiry process.
ISP GID Students ISP
Initiation Open Initiating research project
Selection Immerse select topic, background knowledge
Exploration Explore Explore information
Formulation Identify Formulate a focus, inquiry question
Collection Gather Collect info on focus, seek meaning
Presentation Create & Share Preparing to present
Assessment Evaluate Assessing process
Kuhlthau, Maniotes, and Caspari 2012
GID
Open – pique attention, start thinking, make connections with their world outside of school. Sets the tone and direction of the inquiry, setting the stage for learning.
Learning team:
Stipulates the learning goals, then creates an opener that draws the learners in , introducing the general topic to engage all of the students. Goal is to open students’ minds and pique curiosity, inspiring them to start the inquiry. The opener should spark conversations and an exchange of ideas to think about the overall content of the inquiry and connect with what they already know.
Immerse – build enough background knowledge to come up with ideas to research through an immersion experience. Learning team designs engaging ways for students to immerse in the broad ideas of the curriculum area. E.g. reading a book or article together, visiting a museum, field site or an expert.
Learning team:
Main task is to guide students to connect with the overall content and to discover interesting ideas for further exploration. Background knowledge is built together with students reflecting on ideas that they connect with and warrant further reading and investigation.
Explore – Browse through various sources of information, exploring ideas to develop an authentic inquiry question.
Learning team: guides students to apply the reading strategies of browsing and scanning. “Dipping in” is a reading strategy; exploring ideas by reading lightly to understand information they find, develop questions, explore interesting ideas without becoming overwhelmed by an overload of specific facts or differing views. An open mind is encouraged as they explore and reflect on new information discovered to find questions or ideas that connect with them.
Identify – pause in the inquiry process. Due to the time exploring and immersing, students are ready to formulate a question for their inquiry.
Learning team: introduces strategies that enables students to think through information and to specify the inquiry question that gives a meaningful focus to their inquiry.
Gather – gather sessions are designed to help students collect detailed information from a variety of sources.
Learning team: guides students in locating, evaluating and using information to progress to deep learning. The learning team guides students in a structured approach for managing their search and documenting what they are learning. Students “go broad” finding sources and then “go deep,” narrowing down to the most useful sources to read closely and reflect, finding connections and gaining personal understanding.
Create and share – students organise their learning into a creative presentation. This involves students stating what is most important about their subject and enables them to integrate their ideas more firmly into deep understanding.
Learning team: guides students to go beyond simple fact finding and reporting to summarise, interpret and extend the meaning of what they have found and create a way to share what they have learned.
Create sessions are designed to guide students to reflect on what they have learned about their inquiry question and decide what type of presentation will best represent their ideas for a particular audience. The learning team guides students in creating a meaningful, interesting, clearly articulated, well-documented presentation that tells the story of what they have learned.
Share – students show what they have learned by sharing their product they have created, sharing their expertise on their question for their inquiry community. They now have the opportunity and responsibility to share their insights with their fellow students and communicate their learning to others. Their inquiry products may be shared with a wider audience, such as their parents or another group of students in their school or in another school, perhaps online. An important component of Guided Inquiry is the collaborative learning that takes place when students share what they have learned in the inquiry process.
Evaluate – reflect on the process and assess achievement of learning.
Although Guided Inquiry incorporates assessment for determining student progress throughout all of the phases of the inquiry process, evaluation occurs at the end when the learning team evaluates students’ achievement of the learning goals.
The learning team guides students in reflection for self-assessment of their content learning and their progress through the inquiry process. Students’ self-reflection takes place while the entire process is fresh in their minds to reinforce content learning and establish good habits and competencies for learning and literacy.
- general framework for designing an inquiry approach across all curriculum subjects for students of all ages.
- It is a way of learning, not just for research assignments
Advantages of GID
students learn strategies in finding, using and evaluating a wide range of information resources.
Inquiry learning can start from a young age, as a way to learn that prepares them for living and working in the information age. This would create lifelong learners, as inquiry can be carried on and adapted to various information seeking uses.
GID also creates an environment motivating students to learn, connecting the curriculum with their world for deep learning.
Must read and follow up:
Kuhlthau, Carol, Leslie Maniotes and Ann Caspari. Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century, Libraries Unlimited, 2007.
Kuhlthau, Carol, Leslie Maniotes and Ann Caspari. Guided Inquiry Design: A Framework for Inquiry in your School, Libraries Unlimited, 2012.
Kuhlthau, Carol. Seeking Meaning: A Process Approach to Library and Information Services, 2nd ed. Libraries Unlimited, 2004.
Kuhlthau, Carol. Teaching the Library Research Process, Scarecrow Press, 1985.
Todd, R., Kuhlthau, C. C., and Heinstrom, J. 2005. Impact of School Libraries on Student Learning. Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Leadership Grant Project Report http://cissl.rutgers.edu.
The Information Search Process (Kuhlthau,2007) and The Guided Inquiry Design process (GID) Kuhlthau, Maniotes & Caspari, 2012, 2015