Teacher Research

Scholarly Web Searching

2-2-98: Search the VCCS's VIVA resources (library databases) for a term in your field and then search the World Wide Web for the same term. For instance, a search for the word "icebreaker" in Britannica Online (a VIVA database at some colleges) turned up only one article--about service vessels. Searching for the same term in Infoseek (a Web search engine that pops up when you click the "flashlight" icon in your Web browser) led to boats, ice hockey, ideas for starting groups, services for bringing people together, and more.

[To make this a real "teacher research" or "classroom research" idea instead of a notion for teachers who are doing online reading, have your students do the same exercise on VIVA vs. the Web with a term they select from the essentials of your course--and compare results to determine relevance, quality, and scholarly value of the sources found. Weigh these values against the serendipity and flexibility that the Web search may turn up vs. the higher number of irrelevant listings. If students compare in groups of 3 - 5, compiling a report across groups should reveal the pattern in students' experiences.]

Doing Online Surveys

5-30-99: Here are a few examples of online surveys for various purposes. From these you can infer ways to ask questions for which you would like to find information, perhaps from your students or your colleagues.

The University of Hawaii will make a survey for you, but you need to decide the content and the form of questions beforehand.

Samples

	Two Australian teachers did a survey in 1997 to research one chapter of a book. The survey focused on uses of 3 products for making online courses. Smart features include links to explanations of the reason for the survey. Question types are either open-ended or have respondents choose an answer from a brief list.
	This Word document student information form asks students enrolled in a writng course questions about the computers they will be using and their previous experience with computers and course content, as well as complicating logistics, e.g. major, job, etc.
	A guestbook is another kind of survey form that can be used to greet users of a website.

For Further Reading

Here's a link to Virginia Hartmann's introduction of annotated teaching portfolios.

Wendy Weiner's annotated bibliography on teacher research highlights almost a dozen books about teacher research from the '80s and '90s.

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