By Carly Muetterties
The third post in Carly’s exploration and reflections on the four Dimensions of the C3 Framework: Dimension 3: Evaluating Sources and Using Evidence
November 3, 2014
It’s interesting to hear what my students say about me. One student said he imagined that I have historical pictures from class on the walls in my home. I’m told that I’m weird and loud., but make class memorable. What’s more memorable than that weird teacher you had back in school? I suppose the less interesting the topic, the louder and more obnoxious I become. Our discussion of research literacy is a knee-slapping riot!
But seriously, research literacy skills are increasingly important and anything I can do to get students attention is fair game for me. The C3 Framework recognizes the importance of research literacies in the third dimension, “Evaluating Sources and Using Evidence.” Creating and defending an argument is as important as any aspect of the C3.
However, the effortlessness of clicking on the first Google result is sometimes too tempting for students to resist, so I try to show them the error of their ways through humor. When we discuss research online, I emphasize source evaluation. First and foremost, determining who wrote the material. Is it a Harvard professor? Is it an unemployed, high school dropout writing in his mother’s basement? Both individuals could easily create a website.
For my International Baccalaureate courses, we perform an OPVL analysis: origin, purpose, value, and limitation. This process aligns with the C3 Framework. Students are asked to consider who wrote the source, their credentials, and for what purpose they are writing it. Then, they evaluate its value and limitations for researchers based on the origin and purpose.
Students might get frustrated with this process, but that’s the hard part. Getting students to push through those frustrations is important. Sometimes they can’t find the author of the source, or if they can, they can’t seem to find any credentials. On more than one occasion however, students have made some interesting discoveries. A student once burst into my room and excitedly recounted one of her discoveries – a source that had seemed very professional and informative about the Great Depression ended up being authored by a Nazi. Another student discovered his source was written by a Russian spy! These discoveries can be eye-opening and can even energize students. But, no matter how mundane the source, students should think carefully about each one before using.
Assessing sources in this way helps students determine credibility, but also to refine their abilities to see the larger historiographical processes. If they can determine that a source, even one written by a respected historian, is not infallible, they can better assess historical processes, then create a synthesis of different interpretations.
And now…the challenge I made for myself! We can’t determine the value of a source until we know where it came from. Sometimes that means we need to follow the breadcrumbs back in time. One interesting way to research sources back in time is to time travel.! Students can use the Wayback Machine on the Internet Archive at http://archive.org/web/. This site catalogs changes made to websites since their appearance on web. Sometimes there are some interesting changes.
If students are having trouble finding out information about a website (already a giant red flag, but we need to show them this, rather than just say it), have students use the web site whois.com to find who registered the domain. Students can even Google map the address of the domain owner — we might very well find someone writing in a basement!
I have created an assignment titled: “Internet Detective Work: Case of the Erroneous Resources”. Feel free to send me an email if you would like to use it! I will tweet out other helpful resources to assist you in creating students who are research-literate.