Project S-SOAR (Stepping Up to Strategies for Online Academic Research) is committed to helping all students, and especially students with learning disabilities, to efficiently conduct online research.
The project offers a free, Web-based Student Toolkit curriculum that incorporates text, images, videos, quizzes, and activities to show students how to use nine strategies for effective online academic research.
To prepare yourself to implement the nine strategies and the Student Toolkit in your classroom, complete the five eModules of the online professional development course. To get started follow these five easy steps.
Get Free Access for Your Students
Students access the Student Toolkit using iPads, laptops, or other electronic devices from the main page the S-SOAR website. Just click “Student Toolkit” on the left menu bar of the home page.
Click here to see how to get free log-ins for your students.
To complete the Student Toolkit, students can use their own devices or share devices; you can also project lessons for the whole classroom from your own electronic device.
Learn the Nine Strategies for Doing Online Research
The Web-based Student Toolkit teaches students nine strategies for conducting an academic research project online, ending with a complete outline with notes and references.
It is important to teach students all nine strategies. Click on each icon to review each strategy’s key purpose:
Starting a Web Search
This strategy teaches students how to create “Google ready” search questions that will guide them to appropriate and relevant information on the Internet. The term Google ready refers to a question that (a) starts with a questioning word, (b) has been checked for spelling and grammar, and (c) includes the most specific words the student knows about the topic.
Improving a Web Search
The second strategy teaches students to refine and test a new question when search results seem poorly matched to their research topic. In this strategy, students find new, more topic-specific vocabulary in their results list and “collect” these terms by copying and pasting them into their digital notebooks. By looking carefully at the vocabulary used in a results list, students understand their topic more thoroughly and learn to identify better descriptors for searching.
Choosing Three Good Sites to Open
The third strategy teaches students how to select websites from their results list for further investigation. Videos in the Student Toolkit prompt students to (a) look at URLs in the results list to find names of people and institutions they recognize and trust; (b) identify non-commercial websites by looking at domain names; and (c) open at least three websites they believe will have appropriate, relevant, and trustworthy information.
Weighing a Website
The fourth strategy teaches students how to evaluate a website they have opened. The strategy introduces students to important page elements that help in evaluating a website. Students are taught practical techniques for navigating a website to find answers to their search questions, and they are prompted to reflect on the appropriateness of the site’s reading level for their understanding.
Finding Information in a Website
Strategy 5 teaches students how to find information embedded in a website quickly and accurately. After students determine that a website is appropriate and trustworthy, they must find the place in the website that contains the specific information they need. Students start by reviewing questions in their digital notebooks to help them focus on the topics about which they are seeking information.
Reading Online
With the sixth strategy, students are taught to use text-to-speech to enhance their comprehension of unknown words and phrases by having them spoken out loud. Students are also taught to reflect on their reading and check for understanding by asking themselves questions.
Recording Notes
The seventh strategy teaches students how to “clip” information from a website and record it in their digital notebooks in a way that cites its original source. Students use this strategy when they decide that what they have read is important to save for later. Students copy and paste “clippings” from the website’s text, and “tag” the clippings so they can always find or cite the original source.
Creating Categories
The eighth strategy teaches students how to categorize information in their digital notebooks based on the meaning of the text they collected. Prior to implementing Strategy 8, information in students’ digital notebooks has been organized by URL, rather than by meaningful categories. Strategy 8 starts students on the process of creating a digital outline they will use to organize their information in relation to its significance rather than its source.
Combining Notes in an Outline
The ninth strategy helps students reorganize information into appropriate subtopics or categories. After using this strategy, students have digital outlines with clippings organized by meaningful headings. All clippings are tagged with capital letters that match tags in the reference list. Once the information has been reorganized into an outline, students can use it to complete assignments such as writing papers, preparing a presentation, or studying for a test.
See How the Student Toolkit is Structured
In the Student Toolkit, each strategy has its own page. The left menu bar makes navigation easy.
Strategies are broken down into three or four steps, each with a video, brief text, and a quiz. After learning each strategy, students complete an evaluation “Try It” activity for doing a research project online. Students watch videos to learn the strategies; videos may preferably be accessed through the Student Toolkit individually using Vimeo or with YouTube using this link when schools restrict access to Vimeo. If YouTube is also restricted, we can work with your school to make them accessible.
See What Students Can Do
Using the nine strategies, students learn to create a digital notebook of their online research. This is their final product. You can monitor progress by looking at students’ digital notebooks.
Click to see examples of student digital notebooks at four levels of mastery.
Create a System to Save Student Work
Create a system where students can make, save, and share their digital notebooks. For instance:
Teachers are encouraged to participate in Project S-SOAR research. Benefits include access to technology resources, possible stipends, support during implementation, and reports on pretest-posttest growth for students. The project is recruiting for a current study.
Click here to view requirements for the study. Contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for details.
