By Rebecca Moore and Connor Middleton

I have been fortunate to work with many, many social studies teachers who put together thoughtful research projects for their students. I love helping teachers find resources to give the students a good, reliable start to their research, and I love that teachers then let me work with the students on citations for the project. Assessing citations through NoodleTools lets me help the students asynchronously one on one, and I can also spot unreliable sources and help the students understand why they need to find better sources—and help them find those sources if necessary.

              One grade I work with throughout the year is 7th grade social studies, as those students complete several yearly research activities. Past undertakings include studying endangered languages and researching Middle-Eastern locations and professions to create a Moth-inspired story “from” a fictional resident. The 7^th grade’s current teacher, Connor Middleton, is no exception in creating interesting, thoughtful, and thought-provoking projects; projects that not only improve students’ research skills, but improve their understanding of how the world works and why they should care about it. Because I so admire his research activities, I thought I would interview Connor about them. With the help of Flint AI, I turned my interests into focused questions for him. Connor’s reflective answers are below, with minor edits from me.

Topic: Coming Up With Projects

Question: What’s your process for designing a new research project? Where do you start?

Connor:I usually start with a concept or question that I want students to delve into. For African Geography I ask students: “How do we justify buying products that we know come from exploitation?” The related concepts include globalization, economic interdependence, and geographical based exploitation. This leads me to building an assignment in which students learn about the history of the rubber trade in the Congo under King Leopold, and compare it to modern companies’ involvement in the country as they seek the cobalt needed for smart phones and electric cars. We engage in research, discussions, and projects from there. The starting point is always asking: “What is the bigger meaning? Why does this matter?” I always aim to make my projects feel meaningful in that way. I want them to be the kind of lessons you remember as mind-blowing moments during your growing up that helped you see the world in a new light. 

Question: How do you know when a topic will work well as a research project versus other types of assignments?

Connor: Research projects usually lend themselves to topics with multiple viewpoints. Finding quotes, reviewing claims, evaluating sources for credibility, and seeing multiple perspectives to an issue are often key in researching these topics. While sometimes a topic does not produce as great a project as I’d hoped, when it does, it usually contains one or more essential questions that lend themselves to finding the answer, rather than being told the answer through lecture. 

Topic: Research Topic Selection

Question: What criteria do you use when choosing research topics for 7th graders?

Connor: Personally, I see most global issues as suitable for 7th grade. This is a time of life when students test boundaries, explore new freedoms, and want to share their opinions on the world and be heard. So my usual criteria involve finding topics that are somewhat high level and hold high expectations for students to meet. My criteria is often: “Is this something I would have been interested to learn about in 7th grade?” 

Question: How do you incorporate current events or relevant issues into your research projects?

Connor: As we complete regional studies, we often study the current issues of each place covered. In some shorter research assignments students evaluate a current event, with our most recent being the bombing of boats outside Venezuela, as part of our South America unit. We always take some time in each regional unit to explore events happening in the area today, and do research to better understand particular issues. On the other side, I usually identify some key concepts for each region that serve as the spine of each unit. For example, European key concepts include expansion and supranational organizations with the EU, and Latin American key concepts highlight globalization and economic interdependence. 

Topic: Essential Research Skills

Question: What are the most important research skills you want 7th graders to walk away with?

Connor: Identifying AI, identifying bias, evaluating multiple perspectives, and finding reliable sources they can use for their own continued learning of the world.

Question: What do you see as the biggest challenges students face when learning to research, and how do you address them?

Connor: AI and mis/disinformation. This is a monumental challenge, one that I as their single social studies teacher in one lone school year cannot entirely fix. The world is only worsening with the flood of ever-increasing content and misleading “news,” to the point at which I worry how students will grow into their adult lives with a sense of common truth or reality. While this is all a little doom and gloom, the true effects of what is currently happening are hard to accurately gauge in terms of potential negative impacts. I try to address this by showing students the inaccuracies of AI, the business models of news corporations, and the bias of algorithms. 

Topic: Balancing Process and Content

Question: How do you balance teaching research methodology with ensuring students learn the historical/social studies content? Do you find that one reinforces the other, or do you sometimes have to make trade-offs?

Connor: I often feel they serve one another. Students tend to dislike “stand and deliver” instruction. Giving them the task of taking on their own learning often provides a good step in increasing their knowledge of historical or social studies content, within the guidelines, expectations, and skills we give them regarding research. I also would rank research skills, or skills in general, in a higher category of importance than content knowledge. Especially with middle school, students can forget much of the content we teach, but repeated skills and habits stick much more strongly. It is there I want to invest more of my time. 

Topic: Reflection and Impact

Question: What’s been your most successful research project, and what made it work so well?

Connor: The Human Rights Portfolio. I partner with my English 7 colleague and we have students pick a particular human rights issue and compile multiple projects in a portfolio to end the year. We combine skills in each class and work together to help our students actively choose a topic and become an expert (of sorts) on it. It works so well because we collaborate on the different skills we want students to exhibit, and the extra class time and student choice allows for more buy-in and less stress. 

Question: How have your research projects evolved over the years?

Connor: They have mostly evolved in the ways I try to limit unnecessary work for students, such as work that overvalues product over process. Students have different amounts of time, help, resources, etc. available to them, and I want to help make it a more equitable process; a process in which students focus more on learning and less on producing a product to achieve a high grade. This can be somewhat difficult. Creating awesome projects is part of the fun, but I also try to balance that with my rubrics, to focus more deeply on the real skills at hand and less the on the “flashy project.”

Question: How do you see these research skills serving students beyond 7th grade?

Connor: I hope students take their research skills and feel confident moving into the world with their own claims and opinions. I want students to be open minded, to learn from others and not jump to judgement, but also to hold the line on what they value. I want them to use their skills to question what they hear, and get to know the world around them through their own work and process, instead of simply accepting what others tell them.

Conclusion

Many thanks to Connor for taking the time to write such detailed, well-thought-out responses!