Writing Commons Teaching Adolescents How to Evaluate the Quality of Online Information An essential part of online research is the ability to critically evaluate information. This includes the ability to assess its level of accuracy, reliability, and bias. In 2012, my colleagues and I assessed 770 seventh graders in two states to study these areas, and the results definitely got our attention. Unfortunately, over 70 percent of the students’ responses suggested that: Middle school students are more concerned with content relevance than with credibility They rarely attend to source features such as author, venue, or publication type to evaluate reliability and author perspective When they do refer to source features in their explanations, their judgments are often vague, superficial, and lacking in reasoned justification Other studies highlight similar shortcomings of high school and college students in these areas (see, for example, a 2016 study from Stanford). Start of newsletter promotion. Subscribe now End of newsletter promotion. Dimensions of Critical Evaluation Prompting
21st-Century Libraries: The Learning Commons Libraries have existed since approximately 2600 BCE as an archive of recorded knowledge. From tablets and scrolls to bound books, they have cataloged resources and served as a locus of knowledge. Today, with the digitization of content and the ubiquity of the internet, information is no longer confined to printed materials accessible only in a single, physical location. Consider this: Project Gutenberg and its affiliates make over 100,000 public domain works available digitally, and Google has scanned over 30 million books through its library project. Libraries are reinventing themselves as content becomes more accessible online and their role becomes less about housing tomes and more about connecting learners and constructing knowledge. From Library to Learning Commons Printed books still play a critical role in supporting learners, but digital technologies offer additional pathways to learning and content acquisition. Photo credit: Francis W. Transparent Learning Hubs
How Can Your Librarian Help Bolster Brain-Based Teaching Practices? Flickr/Kevin Harber Inquiry-based learning has been around in education circles for a long time, but many teachers and schools gradually moved away from it during the heyday of No Child Left Behind. The pendulum is beginning to swing back towards an inquiry-based approach to instruction thanks to standards such as Common Core State Standards for math and English Language Arts, the Next Generation Science Standards and the College, Career and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards. Transitioning to this style of teaching requires students to take a more active role and asks teachers to step back into a supportive position. “This is so new for teachers, whereas librarians have been doing this for ten years,” said Paige Jaeger, a school librarian turned administrator and co-author of Think Tank Library: Brain-Based Learning Plans for New Standards. “If your brain could talk it would say, ‘I’m lazy and I delete what’s not important,’” Ratzen said. Related
Teaching Information/Research Skills in Elementary School | Langwitches Blog This post title is “Teaching Information/Research Skills in Elementary School”, but this post is as much for adults and older students. Many adults are overwhelmed with the quantity and new kind of media that is available and accessible through technology. Older students in High School and College might not feel overwhelmed, but have never been taught how to navigate, evaluate, save and retrieve the information that they are seeking. How and what kind of information skills do we need to start teaching in elementary school, that will grow and expand with our students as their grow older? What do teachers need to know in order to introduce and guide their students in a criticalefficienteffectivelysafeethical way as they navigating through the sea of information available? We need to help students develop these kind of information skills: locating informationevaluating informationlearning from informationusing (remix) information All About Explorers is well thought through. Reactions tend to vary.
What Does the Next-Generation School Library Look Like? At a time when public libraries are starting to offer everything from community gardening plots to opportunities to check out humans for conversations, some school libraries are similarly re-evaluating their roles and expanding their offerings. Case in point: Monticello High School in Charlottesville, Virginia. When librarian Joan Ackroyd arrived there four years ago, she found an environment very different from the “engaging, creative, fun” elementary and middle school libraries to which she was accustomed. “Its library was none of those things,” she recalls. “It was a traditional, quiet research space.” Ackroyd decided this wasn’t optimal. As her first step, she and her co-librarian at the time (music teacher Dave Glover), converted a storeroom into a technology lab. Teachers balked because the library was no longer quiet, but students liked it, and many at-risk students became frequent visitors. “Students work more productively in that kind of environment,” Ackroyd says.
Washington International School: A DC independent school with a global curriculum Academics » Libraries The WIS library program supports the educational goals of the School, and encourages the love of reading and learning. In our facilities classes meet for research and academic pursuits, and members of the school community come to browse, read, study, and explore. Our unified library catalog combines two unique collections: one for Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 5 on the Primary School campus, and one for Grades 6 to 12 at Tregaron Campus. The library collection includes 35,000 volumes in English, French, Spanish and Dutch. These materials are selected to support the curricula at all levels, as well as to promote pleasure reading for all ages. Online research is possible through 12 proprietary databases in three languages, in addition to the Internet. Library teaching staff work closely with classroom and information technology teachers to plan and offer content-based classes to all students in our library instructional program.
Make Space: 4 Learning | Enhancing Collaboration and Innovation Through Better Design Learning Spaces Malcolm Brown Dartmouth College © Malcolm Brown New ideas about learning spaces represent a significant opportunity for higher education to make learners—and learning—more successful. Through the application of information technology, today's learning spaces have the potential to serve the new learning paradigm and at the same time meet the needs and expectations of the most recent generation of students: the Net Generation. Since education is the core mission of higher education, learning and the space in which it takes place are of the utmost importance. In order to best serve the educational enterprise, we must design leaning spaces that optimize the convergence of the Net Generation, current learning theory, and information technology. This chapter establishes the links between Net Gen students, learning theory, and IT, showing their relevance to the concept of learning spaces. What Are Learning Spaces? What does the term learning space mean? Since then, a great deal has changed.
inquiry learning & information literacy | ideas & musings from mandy lupton Tech project changed how we view our librarians Public education is embarking on a digital transformation. We are shifting from consumption-based learning to creation-based learning. These are moves in the right direction, but they require us to provide our students with access to the tools and devices needed to connect them to all the available resources. Enter “Project Connect”—a panel of school leaders working to connect the library, classroom and administration through information technologies. It has changed the way Lincoln Public Schools in Nebraska views its librarians. Think about the vast resources available on the internet: primary sources, e-books and applications accessible with a click or tap. Gail Dickinson, associate dean for the Darden College of Education at Old Dominion University and fellow Project Connect team member, says, “The use of digital tools enables the teacher/student interaction to happen in a more engaging way.” Instructional leaders The changes take time and require everyone to be “all in.”
The 8 Pillars of Digital Literacies May 21, 2014 Edudemic has recently published this wonderful visual that outlines the eight elements of digital literacy. I am posting below for those of you who haven't seen it yet. Essential Elements of Digital Literacy "Cultural – Look at the context in which the literacy is situatedCognitive – How do we think when we are using a device (vs when we are not)? Not So Distant Future — technology, libraries, and schools