New this year to ISP has been the research course -- required for all of our diploma programme juniors.  The new course addresses how to begin the research process, how to inquire, how to research deeply, and how to add to the academic discourse in their subject area.  Students are more engaged in this than I have ever seen anyone be in the research process! 
   
    Seniors are complaining that they didn't have a research course!
    A junior taking the class said, "I used to hate EBSCO [a da...
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IB Film students were just about to start on a series of research heavy final projects.  In order to support them in this endeavor, we had a research seminar specific to their task for class. 

Students were led to explore the features and materials in Ebrary and EBSCO, as well as how to broaden and narrow their search terms in order to get the best search results for film topics!

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After seeing the improvement that 10th graders made by doing this seminar and mini-research assignment, 9th grade history students also went through the same process!

Students were asked to use the library databases to research a list of information on food item.  They were to take this information and use it in a mini-research paper with proper MLA style in-text citation.  Students turned their assignment in  via email and after grading them each class met again to talk about what items i...
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9th grade History students came in to research the different phases of the Crusades.  I gave a presentation about how to use library databases to find good sources about the topic of the Crusades, how to narrow and broaden their search as needed, and how to quickly decide if a source is good or not. 

Students then used the library resources to research and create their group presentation and paper about their phase of the Crusades.

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10th grade Literature students participated in a research seminar.  This seminar covered the basics of researching, how to choose a research topic, how to find good sources, databases through the library, and source citation. 

Students then completed a research task for their upcoming written term paper about George Orwell's novel 1984.
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The IB Extended Essay!  This task asks students to do high quality and challenging research in order to pursue answers to a research question in a topic that interests them. 

The library supported 11th grade students on the start of their IB EE journey by giving a lunch research seminar, ordering EE books, obtaining Ebrary - an online database for non-fiction books, and helping individuals with research problems.

The library also supported 12th grade students as they brought their essays to a ...
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11th grade IB Film came in to the library in order to do research on an era of film of their choosing.  Students used the library databases, the collection of Film DVDs, and the collection of IB Film reference books, and were reminded about good sources for their research.
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The high school journalism class came to the library to learn how to use the Newsbank database for research.  Students were asked to look at an international news topic and see how it was reported differently depending on the location of the newspaper. 

Students examined the cultural differences in reporting styles and ideas of justice, as well as, looking at the different points of view on the same "factual" story.

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Students in the Health elective class came in for a tutorial on how to use the library's resources - including the databases and the online catalog.  They then did research for their project on the body's different systems.

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