R IDGEFIELD P UBLIC S CHOOLS L IBRARY M EDIA S ERVICES : R ESEARCH P ROTOCOL F EBRUARY 11, 2016 Janet Seabold & Theresa Petrov

L IBRARY M EDIA S ERVICES G OAL Ridgefield Public Schools Library Media Services goal is to teach students how to be effective researchers, enabling them to handle a problem, assignment, decision, or task by utilizing the necessary information literacy skills.

D ISTRICT R ESEARCH P ROJECT I NITIATIVE In an effort to provide Library/Media services to all students from K - 12 with a department of only one staff member, the Curriculum Department and Mrs. Petrov developed a district-wide Information Services Curriculum, beginning with a research protocol. Ridgefield's Student Research Protocol is an initiative aimed toward higher-level thinking and inquiry based learning that utilizes electronic resources. Students are challenged to employ thoughtful reading, analysis, evaluation, and synthesis of information to create answers, not just find them.

The Media Specialist works in each school to deliver a research task for all general education students in grades K-12 within an approximately six week module. Curriculum was written over the summer of 2015 and is aligned the usage of Google Classroom, as the district transitions to the use of Google Apps for Education (GAFE). The topics for the research are developed with the grade level and department area teachers to directly align to curriculum being taught within the subject areas. Each grade level completes a different topic, ensuring that students are introduced to multiple types of research and digital product creation, as well as speaking and listening skills with culminating class presentations.

Inquiry Based Learning Models Second Marking Period – Grades Third Marking Period – Grades Fourth Marking Period – Grades K - 2

G RADES K-3 S UPER 3 Step 1- Plan Step 2- Do Step 3- Review

Step 1- Ask Step 4- Discuss Step 2- Investigate Step 5- Reflect Step 3- Create Grades 4-12

S TUDENTS UTILIZED NEW TECHNOLOGIES :  MacBook laptops  Chrome Book laptops  Google Apps for Education  Google Classroom  Educational Databases

S TUDENT S AMPLES Grades 3-8

8 TH G RADE

7 TH G RADE - C ONTEMPORARY L ATIN A MERICAN I SSUES

6 TH G RADE - A NCIENT E GYPT

5 TH G RADE - B IOMES

4 TH G RADE - F AMOUS N EW J ERSEYANS

3 RD G RADE - A NIMAL C LUES