1. Knowing How Your Students Know (And Helping Them Know Better)
Learning College Day, 2006
Troy Swanson

2. Session 6, 3:45 p.m.
Oh, Man!

3. Info Economy & Necessary Skills
Peter Drucker (Post-Capitalist Society 1993) indicates that the knowledge economy needs individuals that can think across disciplines.
This would require “a methodology for problem definition—even more urgently perhaps than it requires the currently fashionable methodology for ‘problem solving. It requires systematic analysis of the kind of knowledge and information a given problem requires...”(p.193)

4. Basic Problem
The Amount of “Information” is doubling less than every 18 months.
The Internet is more than 17 times the size of the library of Congress.
Students need to make judgments about information
Are we preparing them to do this?

5. Range of Information Tools
Average Moraine Student
MVCC Library Catalog
75 suburban libraries
100+ Academic libraries
40 Databases
Google, Yahoo, Ask.com
Google Print, Google Scholar
Government research tools, etc
Wikipedia

6. Novice vs. Expert Novice Knows comparably little about topic
Unaware of existing sources, experts, or search tools
Has little to no experience interpreting metadata (publication, type of information, etc)
Does not make Predictive Judgments
Expert
Internal Knowledge-base
Has expectation for existing knowledge
Collects Most Information from colleague or citations
When searching, evaluates results with past knowledge using metadata (publication, type of information, etc)
Makes Predictive Judgments

7. Novice & Expert Expert can more clearly articulate an Information Need
Expectation for level of credibility for desired information
Recognition of possible points-of-view to consider
Definition of various topics that might be relevant to the topic
Consideration of timeliness of needed sources
Use this understanding to select tools to use to search for desired information

8. Two Key Areas to Consider
Knowledge Orientation of Students
“...what individuals believe about how knowing occurs, what counts as knowledge and where it resides, and how knowledge is constructed and evaluated” (Barbara Hofer, 2004)
A conceptual understanding
Information Literacy Skills
MVCC General Education Objective: locate, use, and evaluate information
An observable skills set

9. Knowledge Orientation
Nature of Beliefs
Self Reinforcing
Established Early in Life
Classroom Setting Not Conducive to Change
Lisa Bendixen (UNLV)
Simple Knowledge
Certain Knowledge
Omniscient Authority
Quick Learning
Fixed Ability

10. Information Literacy Skills That Tell Us About Information
Value Information: how do we choose between sources?
Purpose of Information: do we recognize different types of information?
Evaluate Information: can we judge the usefulness of a source once we have it?

11. So, Let’s take a test
No pressure

12. Score Your Test Strongly Agree = 5 Agree = 4 Neither = 3 Disagree = 2
Strong Disagree = 1
We will go over the IL questions

13. Knowledge Orientation Scores
Structure 2.313
Certainty 3.202
Source 2.601

14. Info Lit Scores Value 1.568 out of 3 Purpose 1.25 out of 3
Evaluate out of 3

15. Students who have a more complex knowledge orientation are more likely
To spend more time on school work
To not dodge difficult problems
To stand on their own opinions
To recognize who their own beliefs impact their learning
To understand different types of evidence in sources

16. What can we do? Problem Structure Well structured vs Ill-structured
Low vs High levels on Bloom’s taxonomy (challenges of No Child Left Behind)
Create assignments that challenge students to examine their own beliefs.

17. Works Cited
Bates, M., (1989). The design of browsing and berrypicking techniques for the online research interface. Online Review 13, (5): 409–10.
Bell, D. (1973). The coming of post-industrial society: a venture in social forecasting. New York: basic books.
Bendixen, L. and Rule, D. (2004). An integrative approach to personal epistemology: Educational Psychologist. 39, 1,
Drucker P. (1993). Post-Capitalist society. Harpercollins.
Hofer, B. (2004). Introduction: paradigmatic approaches to personal epistemology. Educational Psychologist 39, 1-3.
Kuhlthau, C. (1993). Seeking meaning: a process approach to library and information science. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing.
Rieh, S. (2002). Judgment of information quality and cognitive authority in the Web. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. 53(2):
Schommer-Aikins, M. (2004). Explaining the epistemological belief system: introducing the embedded systemic model and coordinated research approach. Educational Psychologist. 39,
Wilson, P. (1983). Second-hand knowledge. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press.