An Introduction: Big6™ Information Problem-Solving With Technology
Big6(tm) is a systematic approach to information problem-solving developed by Michael B. Eisenberg and Robert E. Berkowitz in the mid-1980’s. During the 90’s Big6TM curriculum ideas have been applied to learning with technology. The following slides will explain each of the Big6TM steps and demonstrate technology tools for each step. This overview was written as a guide for library media specialists and classroom teachers interested in the curriculum integration of information literacy.
The Big6TM describes the six thinking steps a person goes through any time there is an information problem to solve. The classic bookworm has been transformed into InfoWorm: a symbol for Knowledge with a capital K. InfoWorm combines information literacy with technology to go beyond traditional print resources in the search for knowledge.
Step #1: Task Definition
Let’s look at a real life situation: You and your partner are being interviewed for a summer job by Pizza International, a company with a plan to create a global chain of pizza franchise stores. To test your global and culinary skills, you are asked to create a pizza recipe that will reflect the regional resources and cultural tastes of a country other than your own.
What is the task? What is the final product? In this task you are expected to create a pizza recipe using the natural resources and cultural tastes of a non-western country.
What types of information will you require to accomplish this task? At this point in the Big6TM process, teaching gives way to learning and students start to ask their own questions in order to learn how to learn.
Step #1: Defining The Task With Technology. In a classroom setting, a teacher-designed assignment or problem statement may be posted on a web page or in an online class discussion area. To clarify this assignment, students may reply to the class bulletin board, send a private e-mail message, or discuss the assignment in a chat session with peers or teacher.
An example of an information problem teacher-made assignment is the Pizza Recipe Lesson found at
http://dewey.cc.duq.edu/Workshops/GlobalPizza/pizzarecipe.html
The Big6TM Step #2 Information Seeking Strategies. After you identify what you need to know, you can make a decision about how you will search for the information. Questions to ask yourself at this stage are:
What are possible sources available to me? Textbook? Encyclopedia? Library Reference Books? CD-ROM Databases? Experts? The Internet? Among these available resources, which ones are the best?
The Big6TM Step #2 Information Seeking Strategies expands radically if your available resources includes subscription database and an internet connection. The vast amount of information now accessible online can be overwhelming. You MUST have a plan or a search strategy before you start or you will quickly get lost. In the Pizza Recipe Lesson Plan, a pre-search worksheet is provided which requires students to formulate a search strategy before going to the keyboard. They are asked to list keywords and synonyms, a general subject, a phrase, and a combination of words and phrases using the Boolean logic terms AND, OR, and NOT.
The Big6TM Step #3 Location and Access will follow easily if you have carefully completed steps #1 and #2. Where is each source? Now you will access each source either in person or electronically. You will also need to ask: “Where is the relevant information within each source?” If you carried out Step #1 well, it should be easy to judge what is relevant and what is not in Step #3.
The Big6TM Step #3 Location and Access has changed radically as schools, libraries and homes have connected to the Internet. If you use keyword and Boolean Search strategies, quantity will not be a problem with technology resources. Now you must narrow your search to find the most relevant sources.
Use Internet General References such as dictionaries and encyclopedias to find an overview of a concept. In the Pizza Recipe Lesson Plan, for example, students are directed first to the World Fact Book web site as a general reference starting point.
Subscription databases such as EBSCOhost, ProQuest, and H.W. Wilson now bring full text scholarly journal articles to our desktops at home and at school.
Students may use e-mail to contact experts and others interested in a topic by using the Ask an Expert web site, listservs, or Newsgroups.
Each Internet Search Engine has a different purpose and a different way of searching. The Pizza Recipe Lesson recommends that students use Yahoo for indexed subject searching, Excite for Concept Searching, Altavista for phrase searching and DogPile for metasearching.
After finding potentially useful resources, students are ready for the Big6TM Step #4 Use of Information. This is the stage in the research process that students often say “Aha” or “Eureka”! A theme or focus emerges out of the initial confusion, and they are able to answer the question, “How can I best use each source I have found?” To answer the second question for Step #4 “ What information in each source is useful?” students need to look at both relevancy and validity. What information fits the selected focus and what information comes from a valid and documented source?
The Big6TM Step #4 Use of Information is now much easier with technology. It is imperative that students understand the concept of plagiarism, copyright, and citation guidelines as they relate to electronic resources since it is so easy to “copy” or download graphics from the Internet or to cut and paste text from an electronic source. Students and teachers in the information age will need to use the appropriate software to record, organize, and analyze data.
Big6TM Step #5 Synthesis is a creative step. It is the time for students to organize all the information they have collected and integrate it with their prior knowledge and experiences. This is the time to decide how to present the result. How will the final product look? Who will be the audience? What medium should be used?
Step #5 Synthesis with technology gives students the opportunity to publish their ideas electronically. PowerPoint, Hyperstudio, and KidPix are some commonly used multi-media presentation software programs. Technology formats such as HTML, E-Mail Attachments, and FTP allow students to publish artwork, text, and audio files on the Internet.
In the Pizza Recipe Problem students were asked to submit their original recipe to a database stored at the University of California at Berkeley through an interactive web page.
The Big6TM step #6 Evaluation focuses on effectiveness or how well the final product matches the original task. Evaluation also looks at efficiency in the information problem solving process. Students need to ask themselves, “How can I do better?” At this stage in the process, there is still time to examine and refine. In fact in real life, we often have a second chance. Each time we refine a solution we modify it to meet slightly different needs.
Step #6 Evaluation With Technology requires the student to apply the same high standards to his/her own work that were applied to the resources used. Both format and content should be critiqued. Kathy Schrock has an excellent web site evaluation survey that may be used by students for self-evaluation of technical/visual aspects and content. The URL for Kathy Schrock’s evaluation survey is http://discoveryschool.com/schrockguide/evalhigh.html
Students should use Spell Check and Grammar Check software tools in the final editing stage to evaluate his or her product.
You will find an evaluation rubric at the following link: http://dewey.cc.duq.edu/Workshops/GlobalPizza/rubric.html Teachers and students may use this assessment rubric to score information literacy skills.
Big6 +1 Step #7 Social Responsibility is implied throughout the Big6TM process but not singled out as a separate step. It was one of the three categories in the American Association of School Librarians Information Literacy Standards published in 1998. The ILT21 project participants decided that Social Responsibility was so important that it should be highlighted and given the status of a separate step in the information problem solving process. To qualify for the “good citizen medal” which you see on the InfoWorms in this slide, a student will understand the importance of information in a democratic society. He or she will answer “yes” to the questions, “Did I seek information from diverse sources?” “Did I practice ethical behavior and respect the intellectual property rights of others?” “Did I collaborate effectively with others to pursue and generate information?” If the answers are “yes” the student is well on his or her way to becoming an information literate person who is both a consumer and a producer of information in the 21st century.
When social responsibility is applied to technology, the rules are new and unclear. Schools need to create a positive model by establishing an acceptable use policy that prohibits students from using networked computers for pornography, spamming or other illegal activities. It is so simple and so tempting to plagiarize with technology that our students need to develop a deep understanding of what plagiarism is and what the copyright and fair use laws are as they apply to electronic sources.
The telecomputing rules of etiquette known as netiquette are important for effective communication online. Behavior that is acceptable online may not be acceptable offline. Lurking for example is encouraged when joining a new listserv. Online lurking means waiting on the sidelines, reading messages but not responding. A new subscriber needs to lurk until he or she gets a sense of acceptable topics for discussion on that particular listserv. Lurking offline could be called eavesdropping.
Online collaboration can improve information problem solving by generating ideas from diverse and expert sources. InfoWorm can certainly bore through the information literacy apple alone but the knowledge he or she will gain will be broader and deeper if there are two or more InfoWorms communicating online.
Acknowledgements
