Thinking about the process of research

For the past 10 days I’ve been reading, viewing, listening and participating in presentations and discussions for the YSL Online Conference 2, putting so many new ideas into my brain that I hardly know where to begin to sort out my own thoughts and responses.

One thing that just occurred to me is an analogy for how efficiently students work through the research process. As I was in my kitchen making a cup of tea at the time, the image that presented itself to me was a diagram of the workflow triangle used to help design useful kitchens. That triangle represents the arrangement of and distance between the fridge, stove and preparation areas. The easier it is to move between these areas the more efficient the ‘workflow’ in that kitchen.

Students need an environment that supports the development of an efficient workflow in their research tasks. They need easy access to information storage (the fridge), to select and organise information (preparation) and to put it all together to present a new product (stove). Each of these requires a combination of knowledge, skills and tools, and the way to ensure that our students have all three is by designing a learning environment that supports the acquisition of knowledge, the development of skills, and the application of tools.

I now want to think about my library and my library programs in terms of this analogy:

(Click image for better image of published Webspiration document)

Each group of knowledge, skills and tools needs to be considered in the learning environment I create; all will be more successfully taught in combination with each other, with a minimum of steps between each area.

I hope that this analogy was not too laboured – I’m thinking aloud here, working my way through the idea to see whether it gives insight or confusion…