Session 10

Searching as strategic exploration

This framework is the last frame in the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.

This framework focuses and relays that one’s search strategy is never a straight-forward proves. It often is repetitive and involves a range of inquiry, discovery and serendipity. Students should be able to know basic and advanced search strategies. They should be familiar with interview techniques and the ethical use of these sources. They should know the problem they are investigating well and already know how to search to find that information they are looking for.

This blog will focus on creating a lesson plan for the above frame.

Topic: The long-term effects of being sexually molested as child

Target audience: This topic is directed at first year psychology students studying at the University of Utah.

Learning outcomes:

At the end of the session students should be able to:

1. Students will be able to identify which organisations, or academic institutions that they can approach that will be able to impart to them information on this topic

2. Students will be able to know how to conduct different search methods to find the information that they are looking for.

3. Students will be able to discern from a variety of different sources the appropriate sources that they require, based on the relevancy, accuracy and dependability of the information source.

Activities to achieve the learning outcomes are stated below:

1.    

         1. Students will be informed that they will be required to, conduct research on this topic by searching for 3-5, suitable information sources on this topic. They will have to approach different organisation, academic institutions, and experts in the field that has produced information on this topic.

2.    2.   Students will have to identify which sources they will use that will assist them in finding the information that they are looking for. In doing so, they will have identify how they will find this information either, via a Boolean search or keyword search on the university catalogue, or on the online database or searching for a book on the shelves in their academic library. Their search strategy used will indicate how successful their research skills are.

3.      3.  Students will be asked to gather information from 3 different and reputable sources based on the topic. This could be from encyclopaedias, textbooks, journal articles, books and newspaper articles. From this, the students must be able to critically evaluate the information displayed by the different formats by conducting a power point presentation where they, highlight what they feel, which information format they consider to be reliable and congruent information and others not.

Disposition

Activity 1:

This activity allows the students to exercise their mental flexibility by thinking for themselves whom they consider to be producers of knowledge. In this manner they learn to critically evaluate where to start searching for the required information.

Activity 2:

This activity allows students to understand that their first attempt at searching for information might not always bring them success but that they must push through their feelings of anxiety and continue to search for the information that they are looking for and to know when they can stop searching as they have found enough information on the topic. Here they will learn the value of browsing and other serendipitous methods for gathering the identified information that they were looking for.

Activity 3:

This activity allows students to learn that different information sources vary in content, accuracy and value across different formats. Each format brings in itself a different audience and therefore one has to decipher the real meaning of what is being said and not take everything as being the honest truth/face value. This is where their critical thinking skills comes into play.