Gather, Organise, Communicate

Gather, organise, and communicate. As a process, we use it more than we realise. And we use it without thinking about it. 

Think weekly shopping–gather a list of items needed at the supermarket.

Organise it into groups, so the trip around the store is as efficient as possible.

Communicate? That happens when you buy the stuff. Or when you ask a worker where to find something. Or, the self-serve checkout acts up, and you need assistance. 

When you arrive home with the groceries, you repeat the process. 

It made sense to me to use the process in my teaching practice. Student-led research was where it came into its own. 

How many of us have set an assignment to find kids jumping straight to the chart/laptop/tablet and spending half a day adding a pretty title?

I got around that issue by reminding them they had to gather their information first. The organising part was, by far, the most rigorous. As well as being a robust action, it hits the critical thinking and deep knowledge aspects of our most recent curricula.

Questioning data and fact-checking are two of the most valuable things we can lead students through. And it all occurs during the organising phase.  

Finally, communication is where the fancy title comes in. I’ll share some recording devices I used with kids in later blogs. Before getting access to the communication tools, they had to prove that they’d spent time gathering and organising. 

As my career developed, I discovered this wasn’t a new process. Like most of the stuff we do as teachers, I re-purposed it and adapted it to suit. Each new class brought a change or a more efficient way of implementation.