Street art, homework and Covid: honing skills with The Research Institute

By Belinda Liu and Cheryl Ng

Throughout 2020-2021, the hardworking Year Seven and Year Eight students of the Research Institute have been honing their research and communication skills.

The Research Institute is a REAL class dedicated to teaching peers new researching techniques and learning how to collect and analyse data. The Institute recognises that research skills are essential for every student to learn for everyday use: for academic purposes, such as surveying data, and leisure uses, like finding cooking recipes, entertainment and travelling information.

The Research Institute’s recent class activity was to create a collage of three selected topics: Street Art; People’s Attitudes Towards Homework; and People’s Attitudes Towards Covid Vaccines. Throughout the REAL deep dive days of May 31 and June 1, they justified the purpose, the reason and the inspiration behind their chosen topics.

Institute members explained their reasoning..

Dilara Ozgur from 8.1, one of the Street Art group members, shared that their original idea was to ask, “Is art a valid form of communication?” Although art, in general, is a fascinating subject, this initial concept was too broad and needed clarification. After discussing with their teachers, the group eventually came up with the topic for their final research: “The teacher gave us more ideas, and we chose to do street art instead because it’s more focused on one topic.”

Dev Heera from 7.1, explained that curiosity about the purpose of homework was her group’s focus: “We wanted to find answers about how people thought about homework.” He said finding the answer to the question, “What was the most complicated homework?” was his favourite part.

Research on people’s attitudes towards Covid vaccines.

World situations such as the ongoing pandemic also inspired. A member of the group for finding out about Covid vaccinations, Matthew Ho from 8.1 explained: “It’s an important issue in the world right now and I think everyone should know more about it.” Ho suggested that the reason for researching people’s opinion towards the Covid vaccine could also show the characteristics of someone, based on their choices: “Well, like I think when you research about Covid vaccines, it also reveals a lot about a person in general, like [if] they’re selfish or kind-hearted.”

Both teacher supervisors of the Institute emphasised that this activity was student-based. Secondary Science teacher, Sharon Wong said that students were encouraged to lead their lessons through their inquiry and interviews, while the teachers were present as facilitators. She pointed out that the main focus of this REAL class was to train and improve members’ research and communication skills.

However, the teachers also furthered their understanding. Elizabeth Turai-Kiss noted: “As a teacher, I’ve learned a lot about the stages of academic research because I’m an English teacher, and this subject is new to me.”

Turai-Kiss praised the work of the Institute members: “Especially since face-to-face lessons resumed. Zoom made that more challenging for them.” Collaboration and problem-solving were a feature: “It’s been wonderful to watch them work in teams and get to know each other. It's been very rewarding to see them work through obstacles and challenges.”