Title: Research Skills – Natalya & Judy

1. Two Ways to Authentically Use/Develop Research Skills in the Classroom

• Guided Web Quests & Source Evaluation: Students investigate a real-world problem and use a structured framework (like the CRAAP test) to judge source reliability. They must explicitly justify why a source is credible before using it.

• The "I Wonder" Research Journal: Students maintain a ongoing digital or physical log during units of inquiry. They formulate their own secondary research questions, track their search terms, and document how their thinking evolves as they gather data.

2. Why Explicit Teaching of Skills is Critical to Student Success

• Prevents Assumption Gaps: We cannot assume students inherently know how to filter information, keyword search, or cite sources. Explicitly breaking down these steps turns overwhelming tasks into manageable actions.

• Builds Lifelong Media Literacy: In an era of AI and information overload, explicit training teaches students how to fact-check, identify bias, and look at data critically. This shifts them from passive consumers to ethical creators of knowledge.

Name: Natalya (Inclusion Group)

• Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS): The policy must outline clear, tiered intervention strategies for academic, behavioral, and social-emotional needs, ensuring all students receive differentiated learning pathways without needing an official external diagnosis first.

• Removal of Learning Barriers through UDL: It should mandate the integration of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles across all curricula, ensuring that teaching methods, assessment formats, and classroom environments are inherently flexible and accessible to diverse learners.

• Collaborative Student-Centered Planning: The policy must establish a formalized process for creating and reviewing Individual Education Plans (IEPs). This process must actively involve learning support specialists, classroom teachers, parents, and the students themselves to guarantee shared accountability.