What teachers can do.
So now we know that students are not like us, but what can we do as teachers to help them become critically thinking researchers who are able to distinguish fact from fiction? This page provides two suggestions:
1. Help students manage their information.
2. Encourage students to ask questions.
1. Help students manage their information.
2. Encourage students to ask questions.
1. In her article, "Integrating Computer Technologies into Secondary Social Studies" Susan Gibson realizes that the internet brings a lot of benefits but also poses many challenges for the classroom. The internet provides quick, independent and relevant research that covers all genres and all times. The sheer volume of information is the greatest asset of the internet, but Gibson realizes that it is also one of its drawbacks. Because there is so much content on the internet, it can be difficult for students to locate useful, accurate and reliable information. There is no problem finding information - the problem lies in finding quality information. As Gibson argues, "Information gathering can easily become a mindless exercise in which quantity overrides quality" (152).
Gibson argues that teachers can address this issue by helping students become information managers. Students need to acquire critical information literacy skills where they begin to select and record relevant information, locate appropriate sources, and organize their findings effectively. Promoting these skills will increase the information literacy of the students and can begin to tackle this problem.
Gibson suggests three specific sites that teachers should encourage students to use to help them organize and synthesize their research:
1. www.zoomerang.com - allows students to design, conduct, and interpret the results of online surveys.
2. www.inspiration.com - a concept mapping tool that can be used to help students brainstorm ideas.
3. www.graphic.org - similar to Inspiration, allows students to create mind maps and various graphic organizers.
There are a number of other sites out there that can also help. Students can join a ning, where likeminded individuals share information on a particular topic. Alternatively when conducting research, students can use Instapaper which allows you to bookmark an article to read later. This is actually a feature that is already built-in to the new Safari on the latest Apple OS. What makes this particularly convenient, is that these tools download the articles which allows you to read them even when you are not connected to the internet.
Gibson argues that teachers can address this issue by helping students become information managers. Students need to acquire critical information literacy skills where they begin to select and record relevant information, locate appropriate sources, and organize their findings effectively. Promoting these skills will increase the information literacy of the students and can begin to tackle this problem.
Gibson suggests three specific sites that teachers should encourage students to use to help them organize and synthesize their research:
1. www.zoomerang.com - allows students to design, conduct, and interpret the results of online surveys.
2. www.inspiration.com - a concept mapping tool that can be used to help students brainstorm ideas.
3. www.graphic.org - similar to Inspiration, allows students to create mind maps and various graphic organizers.
There are a number of other sites out there that can also help. Students can join a ning, where likeminded individuals share information on a particular topic. Alternatively when conducting research, students can use Instapaper which allows you to bookmark an article to read later. This is actually a feature that is already built-in to the new Safari on the latest Apple OS. What makes this particularly convenient, is that these tools download the articles which allows you to read them even when you are not connected to the internet.
2. Teachers should also encourage students to ask questions. Not just ask questions for the sake of asking questions, but ask thoughtful and critical questions. Former English teacher Jim Burke believes, "The moment we stop asking them to wonder, to ask, to think, is the moment we cease to be teachers" (264). Burke encourages his students to embrace complexity - to admit and accept that some things are complicated, to ask questions, and to accept it when these issues lack a simple answer.
I would recommend all teachers read two books by Dan Gardner that cover the importance of asking questions.
-Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail - and Why We Believe Them Anyway.
-Risk: Why We Fear the Things We Shouldn't - and Put Ourselves in Greater Danger.
A central tenet to both of his books is that we as individuals rarely think for ourselves. We follow the herd, we are too trusting in everything that we read and hear, and as a result, we put ourselves in unfavourable positions. Essentially, we tend to not ask enough questions. Take for example how we interpret statistics. We often hear numbers thrown out there like "X number of people killed... or X number of people diagnosed with cancer." While these stats may be true, what we never seem to hear (or care about) is what these numbers are out of. In other words, we don't get the proportion or percentage. We know the X, but we need to know the Y (in these examples, the population). Gardner refers to this as "Denominator Blindness." X is the numerator, Y is the denominator - we always get X, but rarely ask for Y.
Teachers need to lead by example. They need to help students become critical viewers of information by constantly asking questions and encouraging their students to do the same. If that doesn't work, teachers could also give this sweet lesson plan a shot.
I would recommend all teachers read two books by Dan Gardner that cover the importance of asking questions.
-Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail - and Why We Believe Them Anyway.
-Risk: Why We Fear the Things We Shouldn't - and Put Ourselves in Greater Danger.
A central tenet to both of his books is that we as individuals rarely think for ourselves. We follow the herd, we are too trusting in everything that we read and hear, and as a result, we put ourselves in unfavourable positions. Essentially, we tend to not ask enough questions. Take for example how we interpret statistics. We often hear numbers thrown out there like "X number of people killed... or X number of people diagnosed with cancer." While these stats may be true, what we never seem to hear (or care about) is what these numbers are out of. In other words, we don't get the proportion or percentage. We know the X, but we need to know the Y (in these examples, the population). Gardner refers to this as "Denominator Blindness." X is the numerator, Y is the denominator - we always get X, but rarely ask for Y.
Teachers need to lead by example. They need to help students become critical viewers of information by constantly asking questions and encouraging their students to do the same. If that doesn't work, teachers could also give this sweet lesson plan a shot.