“I don’t know, but let’s find out together.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And so, often kids come to me with questions that I don’t need to be an expert on… it could be anything, right? Like working with kids on how to fix a snowmobile. I don’t need to be an expert on that. What I can be an expert on is how to find the information you need to solve your problem.<\/p>\n

Margi:<\/strong> Right. And that’s what we’re hoping to guide them towards! We want them to develop their skills so they’re doing that more and more on their own.<\/p>\n

I was talking with some other teachers about citations the other day, MLA-style citations, and when exactly do we teach students? And the conclusion we came to is, it’s really important to make sure students understand why we use citations. The value of citations, what it demonstrates about the student.<\/p>\n

Let’s say they’re doing a typical research paper and if they have that source, that cited page, the bibliography. That shows how much work they’ve done, how much knowledge that they’ve incorporated.<\/p>\n

Of course, it also gives credit to the original people. But that style piece, the details with the hanging indent or the alphabetical order… Yes, that’s important. But they can find that out. And a lot of times, they’ll ask me a specific question and I’ll say I can’t remember.\u00a0But I know where to look!<\/p>\n

And who knows where they’re going to end up. They might be doing APA citations. But as long as they understand that framework, why we do it? The details they can pick up.<\/p>\n

Jeanie:<\/strong> And I love that appreciative approach. You’ve utilized all these sources to impact your thinking! Why wouldn’t you want credit for that? Yes, we want to give credit to where you’re getting your ideas from. We don’t want to plagiarize, right? But also like, you did the work of reading all that stuff, own it. Take ownership of it.<\/p>\n

Margi:<\/strong> Right. Now, *you’re* the authority, you know, for this piece of information. So, you should take credit for that by sharing your sources.<\/p>\n

Jeanie:<\/strong> It’s a source of pride as opposed to a way to protect yourself from copyright infringement or plagiarism. It turns that on its head a little bit. I love that approach. Yeah, I also know that you’ve said in the past that methods like this allow the learner to do the work.<\/p>\n

I think one of the other interesting things about teachers playing different roles when we’re focusing on inquiry, when we’re using inquiry to guide learning and personalized learning is that students play different roles too.<\/p>\n

It’s different than answering questions for a teacher, say. Or doing a project as defined by the teacher where you focus on inquiry. Do you want to think a little bit with me about the different role students play as they go through the inquiry process?<\/p>\n

Margi:<\/strong> You should’ve seen right before the break, I had a student come into the library *so* excited because I had been visiting his class when his teacher was out one day, and they were picking topics. They were able to choose their own topic to answer a broad question; he had a vague idea of something he wanted to do. And then since I saw him, he specifically decided it was Edward Snowden was what he wanted to focus on.<\/p>\n

He had gone deep into it. He was so proud. And this was one of the few times I think *he* would say that he got really excited about a project. The fact that he came running back into the library to tell me about it. And he had to do a speech that he was nervous about. But as he was standing in front of me, he rattled off all sorts of facts about Edward Snowden, and I was able to point out, you know what? You have it all. Here’s an example, you’re now an authority on Edward Snowden. Like, you can do this.<\/p>\n