How do we help kids define and begin chasing their passions as researchers? How do we help them integrate what they love with what we want them to learn? These are the greater challenges, and often, when teachers throw the doors open and provide student choice, they find themselves confronted by levels of frustration that they didn’t expect.

“I don’t know what to study,” our students will tell us, and we’ll ask them to begin with what interests them.

“Nothing interests me,” a few will decide.

“Just give me a topic,” some will demand.

“Just tell me what you want,” they’ll say.

When kids move through a system that defines research as report writing around teacher-defined topics, their passions are quickly tucked away along with the critical thinking process necessary to any worthwhile journey. Inviting kids to define their passions and to carve a path for themselves as researchers may sound exciting and it is, but when kids haven’t been asked to do this before and they don’t have a frame of reference for what success might look like, the experience can be more than a bit daunting.

The following reflections, processes and tools have provided valuable support to many of the young researchers I’ve worked with recently and the teachers who inspire them. I’m wondering how you would enhance this list, as there is so much more that anyone could add. What are your thoughts about passion-driven inquiry? Which research processes and tools do you recommend? How do you help students begin defining and chasing their passions?

• Liz Allen’s article, Foundations for Independent Thinking: Looking to Bloom and Marzano provides examples of research tasks that allow for choice and avoid the potential for “data dumping.”
• Gary Stager’s piece, What Makes a Good Project can inspire teachers and students to begin defining what they want to accomplish as researchers…and why. It can also help teachers evaluate the quality of the projects they’ve asked students to complete in the past and consider potential points of improvement.
• These downloadable resources, shared by Sylvia Martinez at Generation YES, empower supporters of constructive teaching and innovative technology practices.
• Harvard Graduate School of Education sponsors Project Zero, an ongoing initiative dedicated to the processes and products of independent thinking and the creative arts.
• Find resources to support Dr. Mike Eisenberg’s Big6 Information Skills/Research Model here.
• Janet Murray integrated his work with the ISTE Nets and the AASL Standards on this matrix.
• Cornell offers this Website Evaluation site.
• Zotero is a Firefox extension that allows users to organize and cite their research.
• Searchcube is a neat visual search engine.
• Find Web Search Strategies in Plain English on Common Craft.
• Boolify can help students understand web-searching processes by eluminating the logic they use as they search.