Questions about Islam

Summary

This lesson focuses on the creation of effective research questions and the role that the religion of Islam plays in current world events. Throughout the lesson, students use Padlet (a digital “whiteboard” tool) to anonymously post potential research questions on the role of Islam in current events. Padlet displays information in real-time, which allows the teacher and class to provide feedback on the research questions as they are being developed. This allows students to see the development of research questions as a process and track the evolution of a research question over time. While creating and editing these research questions, the students complete internet research to locate and organize news articles related to their topic of choice. For homework, the students use the class discussions on the development of research questions to finalize a research question and create an annotated bibliography that will help to answer their question. In a later lesson, students summarize their findings and present this information to the rest of the class.

TIPC Ratings

Ideal – 6

Research and information fluency are the major focus for this particular lesson. This assignment allows students to practice historical research methods that a true “historian” might use while writing a book or creating a museum exhibit. Constructing research questions is essential for any historian, as it determines the focus of his/her final product and helps him/her locate the most relevant information. Within this assignment, students practice constructing questions throughout the entire class period. Padlet allows the teacher and students to display and interact with these possible questions and evaluate these questions in the context of clarity, focus, and complexity.

Students learned source evaluation techniques at the start of the year, but review several of these strategies at the start of this lesson. After selecting accurate and reliable information, students organize their research into an annotated bibliography. In these annotated bibliographies, the students must explain how particular articles relate to their specific research question. In other words, the students must determine the relevance of their sources and synthesize each article’s content in order to connect each article with their specific research question. Although students organize and synthesize a wide variety of information, the majority of the synthesis occurs at a later date, when students use the annotated bibliography to create a paper and presentation for the entire class. However, the task at hand is authentic, as the students are practicing real-world skills (developing research questions and creating an annotated bibliography) and discussing course content in relation to current world events.

Approaching – 4

Students individually create research questions on the role of Islam and current events and complete their research independently; however Padlet allows the students and teacher to collaboratively critique and edit research questions as students develop and revise their ideas. Additionally, the Padlet boards are saved after each class ends and the links to the boards are preserved and provided to the students. This allows the students to revisit the board and look for examples of effective research questions on their own time while completing the annotated bibliography.

Approaching – 5

The students use Padlet to generate and respond to purposeful and real-world research questions. Students use each other’s examples and the class discussions to edit and revise their own research questions, which allows the students an opportunity to explain their choices and justify the final research question that they create. The students use Padlet to address authentic, real-world topics and find news articles that help to answer those same questions. In completing this process, students are applying, analyzing, and evaluating information, which are all higher order thinking skills.