Hal Loewen (Librarian): PT 6250 Desired Results

What are the big ideas? What specific understandings about the big ideas are desired? What prior knowledge, misconceptions, or misunderstandings might students bring/encounter?

Students will understand:

• Research is iterative and depends on asking increasingly complex or new questions whose answers in turn develop additional questions or lines of inquiry in any field. (Research as Inquiry)
• Searching for information is often nonlinear and iterative, requires evaluation of a range of information, and requires mental flexibility to understand that searching can be complex (Searching as Strategic Exploration)

Student's prior knowledge, misconceptions or misunderstandings may include:

• may or may not understand that knowledge of how to do complex searching, including the ability to search using Boolean logic and how to string together different concepts

• may or may not understand that knowledge of resources available to them, including databases specific to a specific topic
• may or may not understand have knowledge of various and complex search strategies
• may or may not understand what constitutes "free" information and what is not free
• may or may not understand the level of question needed to answer the range of information required, simple questions for basic knowledge needs to sophisticated questions for deeper inquiry
• may or may not need a reminder on how to find specific articles

On what, if any, Knowledge Practices (knowledge and skills) and Dispositions (values) from the Frame(s) will the instruction focus? What other key knowledge, skills, and values will students acquire as a result of the this lesson/unit?

• determine an appropriate scope of investigation (Research as Inquiry)
• use various research methods, based on need, circumstance, and type of inquiry (Research as Inquiry)
• synthesize ideas gathered from multiple sources (Research as Inquiry)
• determine the initial scope of the task required to meet their information needs (Searching as Strategic Exploration)
• match information needs and search strategies to appropriate search tools (Searching as Strategic Exploration)
• design and refine needs and search strategies as necessary, based on search results (Searching as Strategic Exploration)
• understand how information systems (i.e., collections of recorded information) are organized in order to access relevant information (Searching as Strategic Exploration)
• use different types of searching language (e.g., controlled vocabulary, keywords, natural language) appropriately (Searching as Strategic Exploration)
• manage searching processes and results effectively (Searching as Strategic Exploration)

What captivating questions will foster inquiry, understanding and transfer of learning

• What is the best resource to use to find specific articles?
• What is the most straight forward strategy to use to quickly find articles on a specific topic?
• What articles are freely available on the Internet and which ones require a subscription?

Students will know...

• that finding articles can be easy and quick when using the appropriate resource and strategy

Students will be able to...

• find articles using the variety of resources available to them

Students will value...

• that using the right resource and strategy can make finding the information needed easy and fast