Tuesday, November 4, 2025
Monday, November 3, 2025
Sunday, November 2, 2025
The Lighthouse Diary #80: Inquiry and the Library
The 2nd term is the shortest of the four terms in a school year. It also has the most number of school-wide activities and holidays. With midyear exams in December, it is a packed calendar that tests everyone's mettle. We take this in stride in the Academy, but we are fully aware of the timetable and how to make the most of class days amid class suspensions. In light of the tight schedule, teachers still find time to bring their students to the library. It's been a busy term and we're not complaining!
As we move toward the end-of-term exams in three weeks, I'm sharing two stories of our library engagement that made us smile and realize we are doing our part.
PEEL – Point, Evidence, Exploration, Link
Our Grade 8 students explored the structure of an academic essay at the beginning of the term. The English teacher gave them two periods to do research in the library. Prior to this library session, the teacher had explained the task: each student would develop a topic to write about using the PEEL (Point, Evidence, Exploration, Link) framework. To do this, students had to read three printed sources and two online or digital sources.
Armed with their knowledge of using the library’s OPAC, the students worked through the task as my staff and I assisted and supervised. It was interesting to see how they worked, each at his or her own pace and approach. Some were faster than others, while a few needed guidance in searching and selecting sources. The bottom line is, students made full use of the library, from the OPAC to the collection and the staff.
To Smoke or To Vape
A few weeks later, the same class came to the library to develop their PEEL paragraphs. One student was looking for sources on vaping and vapers: what influences them to keep the habit despite its harmful effects on health. Sadly, we had none.
Leading the student to the World Book Encyclopedia and the books we have on smoking, he wondered how these could help him. Our conversation went like this:
Me: What is the difference between smoking and vaping?
Student: They are the same, Miss. The tools are different though, and so is the environment a smoker or vaper builds around himself or herself.
Me: What is the focus of your inquiry?
Student: I want to explore how and why vapers refuse to change.
Me: So it is the nature of addiction that you want to explore.
He nodded. I opened one of the books on smoking and showed him the table of contents.
Me: Can you check and read a chapter that tells you about addiction, behavior, and the habits of smokers? Because if the tools are the only difference between vaping and smoking, you may establish a similarity between the two. And in research, that’s close to what we call a correlation.
It was an aha! moment for the student as he found two chapters on the subtopic in question.
The next Lighthouse Diary entry will be about our AI journey!
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