Improving Research Skills with Effective Keywords, The Teaching Channel (6:31)
Students: Good afternoon Ms. Ramos!
Olga Ramos: Today’s lesson is going to be called, “The Key to Keywords.”
My name is Olga Ramos. I teach at Amistad Dual Language School found in Washington Heights in Manhattan.
Who can read the word for me? Caitlin, loud voice.
Caitlin: Identifying key word strategies that will give you the best search results.
Olga Ramos: Very good.
The objective of this lesson is to have the kids become more aware of precise and alternative words that they can use in order to better their searching.
So let’s just review some of the vocabulary. Sydney?
Sydney: Key words: most important words related to a subject that you type into a search engine when looking for info.
Olga Ramos: Sound familiar?
Students: Yes.
Olga Ramos: Common Core Standards for researching are all about searching and initiating research projects. This is a good segway into doing that.
You want something to be precise with precision, clear and exact. Next: synonyms. Larissa?
Larissa: Words with the same or similar meaning.
Olga Ramos: Very good.
I am going to do a kind of opening activity. We are going to play what we know as taboo.
I am going to need three volunteers to come and help us with our activity.
What they are essentially going to do is they are going to practice their skills of describing and looking for alternate words and other precise descriptions in order to get their point across.
Try and describe it.
Student: It is green and grey. It clips things together.
Olga Ramos: Do you want to call on someone?
Student: Reggie. Reggie: Stapler?
Olga Ramos: Correct! A stapler, very good. A round of applause, thank you. So now we are going to go a little faster.
Student: You can use the computers, it will help you a lot. It is used mostly on desktops. Lucas?
Lucas: A mouse?
Student: Yes.
Olga Ramos: Correct! What were some of the things that you can notice that you guys just did during this game? Before you answer me talk to each other.
Student: I think we were describing it without saying it.
Student: It was so weird because people did different things.
Olga Ramos: The second activity is called fetch. I am going to have them sit in pairs. They are going to be working with computers. They are literally going to go and fetch answers for searching activities. This helps because they are already starting to build their skill of synonyms and making precise selections of words and how that can affect their searching.
The questions are as follows:
1. What foods are toxic to dogs? 2. What types of dogs are the smartest? 3. What jobs do dogs do for people? 4. What are some of the smallest and largest dog types?
You like our theme of dogs?
Students: Yes.
Olga Ramos: What they are essentially going to do for the first one is that they are only going to use one keyword. They have to tell us how many results were found on the page and then they have to look at the first three results. They need to make an educated guess whether they think they are going to find the answer to their question in those results.
Okay, begin!
Student: One word in the search engine: that word will give us lots and lots of topics.
Student: You see that one?
Student: Sure.
Olga Ramos: The next allows them to use two key words and they repeat the same thing. Student: How many keywords did it take to find the answer?
Student: It will take about four.
Olga Ramos: Noticing that you have to what?
Student: Be more precise.
Olga Ramos: Be more precise, very good, right. Keep going.
By the time they get to the last selection which is basically they need to use more keywords, they are bound to find their answer.
Did you find some of the answers? Okay, there it goes! How was your experience?
Student: The first keyword we put in poison to see what would come up but it wasn’t poison for dogs or anything that we were looking for.
Student: We found one of the websites that told us a little bit about what jobs they do.
Olga Ramos: So using one keyword wasn’t that great.
Students: No.
Olga Ramos: But as you got more precise and maybe some of you starting using some synonyms, then all of a sudden you started getting some of the results that you wanted.
The next was kind of a segway to now doing this challenge. I called it the pair challenge.
Go! I love how you are working together. You guys are brainstorming and picking each other’s brains. That is great. Five minutes! We have two pairs that are finished. Two minutes!
Student: The first activity helped a lot because we knew already how to be precise and find out how better the information.
Student: You have to be more specific with the words that you pick. Me and my partner put the word dogs but it didn’t help us with learning what size they were. For the second one we put dog sizes and then it helped us more.
Olga Ramos: I think the takeaway is them seeing the connections on how these things, strategies and skills that they are learning affect their real life. The fact that sometimes through the Common Sense curriculum we are able to do those things. It is wonderful.
What did we learn about our key words? Emily?
Emily: We learned that when we use key words we have to be more specific.
Olga Ramos: Or what? What was that key word that we learned today? Everyone!
Students: Precise. Olga Ramos: Precise. Let’s go back to our goal screen. Who can read that for me very loudly? Cracendy?
Cracendy: Identifying key word strategies that will give you the best search results.
Olga Ramos: Did we meet our goal?
Students: Yes.
Olga Ramos: Yes we did, congratulations. Pat yourself on the back.
Classroom Takeaways:
1. Review goals throughout lesson 2. Encourage immediate vocabulary use 3. Have students call on each other 4. Use a timer for lesson activities