I don't see the difference...

     Is teaching an art or a science? First off, by “teaching” I’m working under the assumption that we’re talking about effective teaching. We typically think of the art of teaching as something that one knows intuitively. It is an “organic” process by which the teacher responds to the ever changing needs of the students and delivers content appropriate to the skills, interests, and attention of the audience. The teacher is comfortable in this role. On the other hand, a scientific viewpoint of teaching would represent a much more formulaic approach. The teacher has a clear plan, within which there is not much room for improvisation, but it is a well thought out plan. The teacher actively tests her effectiveness as a teacher and adjusts accordingly.

     I have a hard time thinking teaching is one or the other—there is a lot of gray area in both of these descriptions. On the one hand, it is important that teachers are comfortable in their role as a teacher, and it is beneficial to be able to think quickly and adjust a lesson plan as needed. On the other hand, as a die-hard planner, I have a hard time believing teachers can be consistently effective operating without plans. Some teachers may say they don’t plan, but really, I think that their planning is simply a non-traditional format. Some teachers need very detailed plans, and others don’t require as many details, but they still usually have some type of plan.

     I looked up “art” and “science” in Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary and found the following definitions:

• Art - skill acquired by experience, study, or observation (Art, 2011)
• Science - something (as a sport or technique) that may be studied or learned like systematized knowledge (Science, 2011)

Frankly, looking at these two definitions, I’m not sure we’re talking about two different things when we discuss teaching as an art or a science. Both require acquired skills. Yes, some individuals may have a more natural knack for teaching, but I still think they need to work at it. Conversely, there may be some individuals who naturally lack so many of the skills required to be an effective teacher that it would be tremendously difficult, if not outright impossible, for them to become great teachers. But this is an extreme scenario. For the most part, I think teaching is like any other skill. Everyone has some natural tendencies based on their personality makeup and their life experiences. Through practice, study, collaboration, reflection, etc. they can improve, if that’s their goal.

     So what is my teaching style like? As I mentioned, I’m usually a big planner. I feel comfortable when I know I have a plan in place, and this goes for teaching as well. I like to be well prepared. At my internship this semester, I had the chance during my second week (!) to teach a workshop about using the online catalog. One of the reference librarians already had a basic outline of the lesson, but I went through it and made it my own. I had a fairly detailed plan because I was somewhat nervous about teaching the workshop so early during my internship, but when it came time to actually do the workshop, I found I didn’t have to rely on the plan as much as I thought I would need to. I still followed the plan, but I was also really flexible given the needs of the students in the class. I liked to know the plan was there, if I needed it, but because I was well prepared, I didn’t have to lean on it much—that’s the way I like to teach. Perhaps it’s a little science and a little art mixed together. It works for me, which is what I think is most important. There is not one right way to teach.

[LIBR250 Prompt: Is teaching an art or a science?]

References

Art. (2011). In Merriam-Webster online. Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/art?show=1&t=1304721233

Science. (2011). In Merriam-Webster online. Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/science

No Librarian Is an Island

     As an English major in my undergrad, I didn’t have the opportunity to work collaboratively often, or ever in my classes; I think I had one collaborative essay assignment in my Freshman English class. Despite enjoying working as part of a team in the corporate world, I was not excited by the idea of having group work in my MLIS courses, especially because of the virtual environment. I do admit, when choosing courses and teachers, part of my requirements was to have limited or no group work. Nonetheless, I have certainly had my fair share of group assignments, and they’ve actually all turned out well. Workload wasn’t always distributed evenly, and there were times I felt like group work was less efficient than individual work, but the ending products were all sufficient to earn acceptable grades. And that’s the thing, when I do group work in school, I’m concerned with learning (of course), but I’m also concerned about the grade. I know school group work is supposed to prepare us for the real world, but I think that school group work operates differently than real world group work because of the grade element.

     Nonetheless, as a learner, collaborative work has been valuable because it has brought me into contact with other individuals who have different backgrounds, different strengths, and different ideas. This has enriched my school experience. However, I actually think that the most important things I’ve learned from doing collaborative group work in school are not related to the subject matter of the assignments or courses, but rather the general skills required to successfully work with others—virtually or in person. And I think this is the most important part of school group work because it is highly transferable to the actual work place.

     There are many opportunities to collaborate as a librarian, either with other librarians, staff, faculty members, administrators, IT departments, or other interested parties. I’d argue it’s likely impossible to be a librarian and not be engaged in some level of collaborative work. No librarian is an island. To do our job, we need to work together with many other people. In terms of instruction design, an ideal scenario is that librarians can work together with faculty members to incorporate information literacy lessons and assignments within the course curriculum. It’s also very valuable to collaborate with other librarians regarding lesson design. My experiences with the Lesson Review and Online Module assignments have confirmed this. Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development also supports the idea that a more capable peer and/or a group can encourage student—and teacher/librarian—development.

     Stigler and Hiebert state the following:

Another important benefit of the collaborative nature of lesson study is that it provides a benchmarking process that teachers can use to gauge their own skills…. At the same time, the collaborative nature of lesson study balances the self-critiquing…with the idea that improved teaching is a joint process…. Problems that emerge are generally attributed to the lesson as designed by the group…. It thus becomes possible for teachers to be critical. (as cited by Wiggins & McTighe, 2005, pp. 317-318)

It can be difficult to be self critical, and it can also be difficult to be directly critical of someone else. The beauty of truly collaborative lesson design is, as stated in the quote, that the problems in the lesson are not directly attributed to any one individual; therefore, the goal is that teachers, or in our case librarians, are freer to be critical, with the purpose of making improvements.

     So, we wouldn’t necessarily be lesson planning together, but if any of you are finished with your final project and want to take this collaboration/socializing from the virtual world to the physical world, I’m planning on going to the California Conference on Library Instruction in Santa Cruz, California, May 13th. Appropriately, the workshop is titled, “No Librarian Is an Island: Exploring in-person and virtual instruction, as we work towards innovative, collaborative, and engaging teaching techniques”—I swear I decided on the title for this post before I actually looked this up!

[LIBR250 Prompt: What is the role of collaboration in understanding?]

References

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Go go Gadget anything!

Please approach quietly and do not tap on the glass--this can be a rather jumpy species. Here we see an online instructor. Notice the many fancy tools and gadgets this specimen has at his disposal. In some instances these tools help the instructor to present new information and motivate his students to great learning; at other times, the tools seem to turn on the instructor and the end is most unfortunate.

Image courtesy of Blogs.English4Today.com

     Obviously our Inspector Gadget “online teacher” doesn’t actually have legitimate elearning tools in his overstuffed coat, but nonetheless, I do think that one of the main differences between online learning and face-to-face learning, not surprisingly, are the types of technologies used. Technology is becoming ever more common even in the traditional classroom; however, the distance learning environment is obviously more reliant on technology to present and share information/content, to communicate teacher-student and student-student, to work collaboratively, to create a sense of community, to give feedback, etc.

     This abundant use of technology can be a blessing and a curse to the online teacher and the distance learner. On the one hand, students who are less likely to speak up in class, or who prefer nontraditional methods of expression (audio, video, visual, etc.), may be more active in participating in distance education classes where there is more flexibility in terms of class participation. Similarly, classes that do not have synchronous components to them attract students who have other obligations, such as family or work (Sorensen & Baylen, 2009, pp. 72-73).

     However, students and teachers can also feel isolated in a distance learning environment. As a result, students often seek frequent and immediate feedback (Sorensen & Baylen, 2009, p. 78). With distance learning, students and teachers are also required to learn the application used to present the course content, which is known as the learning management system (LMS). The LMS may be seen as a barrier to learning if the teacher struggles to use it to set up the course site, and/or if students have a difficult time navigating within it and interacting with the course content. Also, some teachers may get so caught up in using the latest technology that they forget to remain focused on the learner. As McLaren states, “E-learning lessons that are jam-packed with all of the latest bells and whistles, but lack sound instructional design principles, will not maximize the effective[ness] of information processing or learning” (2009, p. 232). Online courses, just like any course, should be learner-centered, not content-centered.

     Though somewhat outdated, Moore (1998) determined that students’ level of satisfaction is not influenced as much by distance learning technologies, as by “the attention they receive from the teachers and from the system they work in to meet their needs” (as cited by Simonson & Schlosser, 2009, p. 10). I think this is really important to remember. I think there’s a common misconception that teaching a course online is “easier” for teachers because they don’t have to be so “present” in the classroom. Sure, some teachers may check out and do little to maintain communication with students, but just because they do it doesn’t mean it works. There are poor teachers online just like there are in traditional classrooms. We can’t compare the best teachers from one environment to the worst teachers in another environment.

     In my own experience as a distance learner, the classes that were most effective had consistent and quality input from the instructor. The instructor maintained a “presence” throughout the semester, even in courses where we never met synchronously or did audio lectures. I do strongly believe that distance learning can be as effective and productive as face-to-face learning; however, I also certainly recognize that the success of any course relies on many factors including but not limited to teacher personality and preferences, student personality and preferences, subject, course content, course format and materials, etc.

     Finally, I believe online learning offers great potential for flexibility in providing learning activities that are appropriate to a variety of learners, as well as encouraging the transfer of skills and knowledge learned within a course to a real-world application. I have not had the experience of taking an online course that was designed in such a way that I, as the student, could choose and control to some extent the type of course activities I completed. I have read about such customizable courses (Boyer, 2009), but have not experienced it myself. I wonder, from a teacher perspective, if these are much more labor and/or time intensive. As for the second point of transferring knowledge gained in a course to the real-world, this is one of the things I have enjoyed most about distance learning. Not only do I feel that the instructors make more effort to design assignments that get me to work with actual libraries on relevant problems, but I have also learned a lot by simply interacting with fellow students who, because of the flexibility of online learning, are often already working in libraries and can share their experiences with the class.

 [LIBR250 Prompt: In what qualitative ways is online education different than face to face learning?]

References

Boyer, N. R. (2009). The learning contract process: Scaffolds for building social, self-directed learning. In A. Orellana, T. Hudgins & M. Simonson (Eds.), The perfect online course: Best practices for designing and teaching, (pp. 401-422). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

McLaren, A. C. (2009). Designing effective e-learning: Guidelines for practitioners. In Orellana, A., Hudgins, T. L., & Simonson, M. (Eds.), The perfect online course: Best practices for designing and teaching (pp. 229-243). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Simonson, M. & Schlosser, C. (2009). We need a plan: An instructional design approach for distance education courses. In Orellana, A., Hudgins, T. L., & Simonson, M. (Eds.), The perfect online course: Best practices for designing and teaching (pp. 3-21). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Sorensen, C. K. & Baylen, D. M. (2009). Learning online: Adapting the seven principles of good practice to a Web-based instructional environment. In Orellana, A., Hudgins, T. L., & Simonson, M. (Eds.), The perfect online course: Best practices for designing and teaching (pp. 69-86). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

Submit Feedback for this Topic

D2L Screenshot: Submit Feedback Tool

Library budgets are getting slashed left and right. A practical means of justifying their existence is to consistently evaluate the programs and services libraries offer, thereby quantifying the value to the customers and justifying the expenditures of the library. Many universities have programs to support teaching information literacy skills to students. Interestingly, Matthews (2007) explains

Teaching information literacy skills is generally viewed as affecting student outcomes because these skills support such educational outcomes as critical thinking, problem solving, and lifelong learning. Unfortunately, this view is an assumption that has yet to be proven in a series of studies that can be replicated. (p. 238)

In general, we think of an assessment as being for the benefit of the student, so that students can consider and reflect on their performance and be provided with suggestions for ways to improve and learn. Beyond the benefit to the student, an assessment for an information literacy class is also beneficial to the teacher, as it is potentially a measurement of the effectiveness of the lesson. Furthermore, the assessment is of value to the stakeholders of the library at large, as it can be used to justify the continued funding of information literacy instruction—that is, so long as the assessment is positive.

Matthews (2007) points out that it is a common assumption that information literacy classes provide valuable skills to students; however, this assumption is not consistently supported by data. When discussing a common method of information literacy instruction, namely skills testing, our own former SJSU SLIS Director Ken Haycock is quoted as saying, “We have years of study to indicate that isolated skills lessons are not effective, not even when they are related to a topic of study” (as cited in Matthews, 2007, p. 239). This is a problem.

As librarians/teachers, I think we generally focus on whether or not students learn and understand the content of our lessons, and we use assessments to gauge the students’ skills, as well as our own effectiveness as teachers; however, if we want the continued support (i.e. funding) to provide such programs, we also need to assess our choice of content and measure the overall appropriateness of the content for our audience. It seems to me that there are three areas of instruction that need to be assessed: 1) the value of the chosen content to the audience; 2) the method and effectiveness of presenting the content; and 3) the increase (if any) in knowledge, understanding, and/or skills of the audience as a result of the instruction.

As many of you know, SLIS is transitioning from ANGEL to Desire2Learn (D2L). Starting Summer term, all SLIS courses will be conducted in D2L. Although this only covers one of the three areas of assessment that I mentioned, one of the things I like about D2L is that it has a built in tool for students to give feedback to instructors. Students can give feedback and/or rate a course item, and they can do so anonymously (I tested this and can assure you it is anonymous). I like the concept of “ongoing formative assessments” as described by Wiggins and McTighe (2005, p. 169). Wiggins and McTighe give the example of the “one-minute essay” used at Harvard University, in which students respond at the end of each class to two questions: “1) What is the big point you learned in class today? and 2) What is the main unanswered question you leave class with today?” (p. 169). The feedback feature in D2L has the potential to fulfill a similar role in a virtual environment. I am particularly excited about this feature in D2L and I’m curious to see if students and teachers will use it.

D2L Screenshot: Submit Feedback Interface

 [LIBR250 Prompt: What is the role of assessment in learning?  Is assessment a tool for the teacher or student? How can assessment be both?]

References

Matthews, J. R. (2007). The evaluation and measurement of library services. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Teaching about Information

In an effort to identify key/essential understandings of teaching about information, I decided to experiment by using the prompts in Figure 6.3, “Identifying Essential Questions and Understandings” (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005, p. 137). In the interest of space, I focused on five of the nine questions.

Topics and Big Ideas:

Everyone has to access and use information. There are more effective and less effective ways of doing so. Likewise, there is more valuable and less valuable information when applied to fulfilling a specific need.

Why study about information use? So what?

Anytime we are presented with a problem in life, we will seek out information to solve that problem. We might as well consider how we will go about getting the information we need, so as to not waste our time, money, energy, etc. repeatedly by ignoring the skills related to accessing and using information well.

What makes the study of using information universal?

By nature, information use is universal because it will play a role in every aspect of our lives. In education, we learn information from teachers and textbooks, and are expected to find and evaluate information on our own to fulfill our assignments. In our careers, we have specific tasks to accomplish, which will require us to access information. In our personal lives, we will have daily decisions, some requiring substantial thought, research, and evaluation.

What’s the Big Idea implied in the skill or process of information use?

The implied Big Idea is that we are not all inherently good at accessing, evaluating and using information. We have to make a conscience decision to improve in this area and work toward developing pertinent skills.

What larger concept, issue, or problem underlies information use?

One of the main problems of information use is the overwhelming nature of accessing information. There is so much irrelevant information through which one must sift in order to find what is needed. There are also many different avenues for accessing information (different types of books, different websites on the internet, friends/family, personal experiences, etc.). It can be difficult to decide which avenue to choose for a specific information need.

What couldn’t we do if we didn’t understand how to use information?

If we didn’t understand how to use information, we might make uninformed choices and miss out on opportunities. We might have misunderstandings or misinformation if we get our information from inappropriate sources. We may not be able to solve a problem if we cannot find the information we need on which to base our decision.

Essential Questions:

- How do you know if the information you found is accurate and appropriate to answer your question?

- Are there more efficient and less efficient ways of searching for information?

- How do you determine where you should search for information in order to answer a specific problem?

Understandings:

- The decisions we make daily require us to use information, and our ability to make decisions is improved when we are skilled at finding, evaluating, and putting information to use.

- Some sources of information are unreliable, so we should consider the validity of the information we encounter and the sources providing it.

Reflection: I think I need more practice with this. It was somewhat difficult because the topic was so general. It may have been better to have chosen a particular setting or context for a lesson on information use and then to answer the questions related to that. Nonetheless, I think it was a valuable exercise to try.

     As for information literacy, I sometimes get hung up on the idea of how pervasive information use is in society, and yet how foreign the concept of developing information literacy skills is to the general population. On the other hand, is the concept of information literacy foreign, or is it actually so deeply ingrained in daily activities that people don’t consider it to be a topic worth exploring (i.e. because they feel like they find the information they need on a daily basis and get by fine without giving it much thought)? I wonder…

[LIBR250 Prompt: What are the key understandings in teaching about information? Include thoughts on the nature of information and the nature of literacy.]

References

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

"What's information literacy?" - "Go look it up in the encyclopedia."

husband - age 8

He admits it, my husband was one of those somewhat irritating, but wonderfully curious children who constantly peppers their parents with questions about the world. You know, the kids who endlessly ask, “Why?” His parents often responded with, “Go look it up in the encyclopedia.” And believe it or not, but he did. A. J. Jacobs may have become famous from his idea to read the Encyclopædia Britannica cover to cover, but my husband swears he did it first. And in so doing, he essentially learned how to learn. Now, when he has a question or a problem, he feels confident in his ability to find appropriate resources, understand the information that is presented, and then apply what he has learned to his question or problem—this, in a nutshell, is information literacy.

The American Library Association (ALA) states, “Information literacy is a set of abilities requiring individuals to ‘recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information’” (1989, para. 3). The example I gave about my husband represents a more traditional concept of literacy, specifically one that is related to books; however, information literacy skills need to be appropriate to the activity at hand, and books are not always the answer. In school, information literacy often has to do with finding, evaluating, and using written information. When driving a car, information literacy is based on one’s ability to recognize, evaluate, and react to road signs, other drivers, weather, etc. In a dance class, one demonstrates information literacy by observing an instructor, interpreting the movements of the instructor, interpreting the music, and moving one’s body appropriately. It is valuable to consider that information literacy means something different in different environments, and we shouldn’t assume that there is only one definition. So before I go any further with this discussion, I will specify that for the remainder of this post, I will be focusing on information literacy as it relates to academic work (explicitly that at the collegiate level).

Information literacy seems to be a particularly hot topic given the rise in resources now available via the internet. Many are asking, what part do blogs, internet videos, wikis, online articles, online news stories, etc. play in scholarly research? Do students know how to identify and use appropriate resources for their research? It seems like many librarians do not believe students are very information literate. Some librarians groan that students look things up on Wikipedia, and they groan louder when student cite Wikipedia in their college papers. We often focus on a student’s ability to locate appropriate information, but information literacy doesn’t end with simply finding appropriate resources.

For this reason, I found the results of Rosenblatt’s (2010) study particularly interesting. In her study, she reviewed papers prepared by undergraduates, about half of whom had attended a workshop geared toward increasing information literacy, and half of whom did not attend any workshop. She found that 85 percent of the students were able to “meet or exceed the professor’s bibliographic requirements” for their assignment (p. 56). Even those students who had not attended the workshop were able to identify appropriate, scholarly sources for their papers (p. 56). On the other hand, only 50 percent of all of the students “showed evidence of the ability to integrate the scholarly information they discovered into the arguments they made in their papers” (p. 57). This is a good reminder that information literacy goes beyond simply teaching students to find appropriate resources; students must also be able to use the information effectively.

As librarians, we do a disservice to students if we merely teach them to locate information. I would argue this is why it is important that faculty and librarians work together to encourage information literacy: librarians may focus on helping students to locate and evaluate resources, and professors can support the process by teaching students how to use the information they find. Information literacy certainly isn’t something students learn once in a workshop and that’s it. One of the outcomes of information literacy is for students to develop into lifelong learners (ALA, 2000, Information Literacy Defined section, para. 2)—which is good, because becoming information literate is a lifelong process.

[LIBR 250 Prompt: What are the "big ideas" and unspoken assumptions in information literacy?]

References

American Library Association. (1989, January 10). Presidential committee on information literacy. Final Report. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/publications/whitepapers/presidential.cfm

American Library Association. (2000). Information literacy competency standards for higher education. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/standards/informationliteracycompetency.cfm

Rosenblatt, S. (2010). They can find it, but they don't know what to do with it: Describing the use of scholarly literature by undergraduate students. Journal of Information Literacy, 4(2), 50-61.

“A long shot, Watson, a very long shot!” (- Sr. Arthur Conan Doyle)

     Have you heard about Watson, the IBM computer that is going to be on “Jeopardy!” this week? Watson is a super computer that has been programmed to play “Jeopardy!” against two of the game show’s greatest champions, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Watson can answer trivia questions remarkably well, but did it actually learn the information, and does it understand the questions and answers? It’s certainly got me thinking.
     My first thought was, no, Watson did not actually learn anything. It has been programmed to perform, but it can only perform within the parameters the programmers established. To me, the strongest element of learning is the ability to take new information from one situation and apply it to another. However, after looking in the dictionary, I realize my definition may be off.
     In fact, Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary lists the first definition of the verb “to learn” as follows: “to gain knowledge or understanding of or skill in by study, instruction, or experience” (Learn, 2011). This definition doesn’t include the ability to transfer the information to new a context, like I had original thought. It also states that one learns by instruction, which is conceivably equivalent to programming, in the case of Watson. So, perhaps Watson has learned the information it relies upon to answer trivia questions.
     Beyond learning, there are the concepts of knowledge and understanding. Wiggins and McTighe (2005), in Understanding by Design, make it pretty clear that there is a difference between knowledge and understanding. Wiggins and McTighe state, “An understanding is a mental construct, an abstraction made by the human mind to make sense of many distinct pieces of knowledge” (p. 37). From this description, we see that understanding is on a higher level of cognition—a level that is attained by applying “distinct pieces of knowledge.” Therefore, knowledge is a building block that leads to understanding. This concept is also apparent in Bloom’s Taxonomy, which places Comprehension (understanding) above Knowledge (Page, 2010, p. 56).
     One can argue that Watson learned a variety of facts, which is the knowledge Watson relies on to answer the trivia questions on “Jeopardy!”, but does Watson understand? Again I’ll rely on Wiggins and McTighe, who state, “Understanding thus involves meeting a challenge for thought. We encounter a mental problem, and experience with puzzling or no meaning. We use judgment to draw upon our repertoire of skill and knowledge to solve it” (p. 39). By this definition, one could even argue that Watson understands the game show prompts, at least some of the time, as evidenced by the computer’s ability to sort through its “repertoire of skill and knowledge” to answer the prompt correctly. Of course the computer can make mistakes, but, then again, so do humans and animals, so why not computers.
     However, as we delve deeper into the layers of understanding, it seems less and less likely that a computer, even one as well programmed as Watson, can be said to truly understand. Wiggins and McTighe present six facets of mature understanding:
     When we truly understand, we,

1. Can explain
2. Can interpret
3. Can apply
4. Have perspective
5. Can empathize
6. Have self-knowledge (p. 85)

It’s possible that Watson exhibits the first three points (explaining, interpreting, and applying); however, I suspect the computer would not be able to demonstrate the ability to have perspective, empathize, or have self-knowledge. Thus, Watson does not have the ability of mature understanding (back to the drawing board IBM!).
     While it may be silly to look at learning, knowledge, and understanding as it applies to a computer, I believe it to have been a valuable exercise nonetheless. As humans, we perhaps take for granted the fine differences between these three concepts—in fact, we often use these terms interchangeably—but, by applying them to an inanimate object, we have to really examine our definitions of these concepts and determine how they might be applied to something outside our normal frame of reference. For that matter, this was an exercise in understanding the concepts of learning, knowledge, and understanding by transferring what I’ve learned in one context (the typical teacher-student relationship) to that of a different context (the programmer-computer relationship).

If you’d like to read more about Watson’s big match, here is an article from the New York Times, and one from the Washington Post.

[LIBR250 Prompt: What does it mean to learn?  Include thoughts and definitions regarding knowing and understanding?]

References

Learn. (2011). In Merriam-Webster online. Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/learning?show=10&t=1297730018

Page, B. (2010). 12 things teachers must know about learning. Education Digest, 75(8), 54-56.

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Weclome!

Hi, my name is Kimberly and I am an academic librarian in training. As part of my MLIS coursework through SJSU, I've created this blog, primarily to fulfill the requirements of my LIBR 250 course in instruction design for distance learners. I'll be posting periodically over the next few months per the prompts for my course. Beyond that...well, who knows. Thanks for visiting!