Tools to help students find good sources of information

In a context of abundance of information, it is often difficult to take a critical look at the reliability and relevance of accessible sources. How can we help students develop their skills in this regard? A professor from Laval University offers some ideas.

Within the framework of the congress of Association for the Teaching of Science and Technology in Quebec (AESTQ), Martine Mottet, professor of educational technology at the Faculty of Education at Laval University, gave a conference entitled “How to train students to find good sources of information? ". This conference aimed to respond to several concerns shared by stakeholders in the education sector relating to the way in which students document themselves in a school setting.

Among these concerns, it is possible to mention the sometimes questionable reliability and quality of information found on the Internet, the possibilities of plagiarism, the abundance of information sources and selective and surface reading.

The conference enabled stakeholders from different levels of education to discuss their concerns. Although the challenges posed by sources of information and academic work remain numerous, the participants left this workshop with relevant tools and advice.

In recent years, Ms. Mottet has worked in particular to produce material aimed at guiding teachers in supporting students in terms of information retrieval. The material also aims to educate and train students on the different facets of documentary research. Remember that Ms. Mottet is known for her work which gave birth to the website " Doing research can be learned »On which many tools are available. These cover, among other things, the different stages of a research process and present a checklist for evaluating a website.

The slide show of the conference given on October 22 is available in full here.