As a librarian, I used to think (and even wrote) that my primary responsibility in Big6 research projects was to facilitate seeking, accessing and using information (Big6 stages 2, 3 and 4). But when students come to the library looking for information, they often say, “I need a book about…” a topic that is so broad that we have a vast number of books from which to choose, or so narrow that no school library would have a whole book on that topic. More frequently, they go to a computer, enter one or two words on a topic in a search engine, and expect everything they need to magically appear. When pressed to describe the classroom teacher’s assignment, they are often unable to re-state it in their own words. That tells me that they haven’t really understood what they are to do. Classroom teachers and library media specialists can help student comprehension simply by requiring them to re-write the assignment in their own words. Learning to paraphrase is an essential skill that applies not only to Use of Information but to Task Definition as well.

I also like the strategy Mike and Bob suggest in Teaching Information & Technology Skills (secondary and elementary versions, Linworth, 2000): “to help the students assume responsibility for their own tasks” by deliberately providing a minimum of information about an assignment, thus encouraging the students to ask appropriate questions. Another way to encourage students to take responsibility is to give them meaningful choices in an assignment, not only in Task Definition but in Synthesis as well.

Since I’ve been teaching the Big6 online course (see related article), I’ve realized that I need to get involved with teachers’ research plans from the very beginning. I need to encourage them to define their research tasks in a way that will help students achieve content, information literacy and national technology standards. In order for students to develop higher order thinking skills, teachers (and their library media teacher colleagues) need to re-examine their traditional research projects in light of those standards; here are a few to stimulate your thinking:

From the National Information Literacy Standards:
1.1 recognizes the need for information
1.3 formulates a question based on information needs

From ISTE’s National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS-S):
6.1 Students use technology resources for solving problems and making informed decisions.

From ISTE’s compilation of content area standards:
English/Language Arts:
“Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems.”
Mathematics:
Students “apply a wide variety of strategies to solve problems and adapt the strategies to new situations;”
Science:
“Scientific investigations involve asking and answering a question and comparing the answer with what scientists already know about the world.”
Social Studies:
Students can “locate, access, organize, and apply information about an issue of public concern from multiple points of view.”

Assembling a collection of facts gleaned from a variety of resources does not necessarily improve students’ ability to apply information literacy skills to solve problems. Notice the emphasis on “generating ideas and questions” and “asking and answering a question.” We know we can apply the Big6 to information problems in life and work as well as in school, but how will the students learn to generate their own questions if we never give them the opportunity to do that in school? And how much more motivated will they be if the assignment is derived from a real question for which they want an answer? For example, Judy Greenfield (Information Specialist, The Dahlgren School, Dahlgren, VA) commented, “I used the Big6 last week with the third and fourth graders. We solved the ‘problem’ about how to select just the right book to read. They loved it! And it was a much better approach than the way I used to do things.”

One way to challenge classroom teachers designing research project assignments is to encourage them to ask essential questions that will result in enduring understandings. “In Mapping the Big Picture Integrating Curriculum & Assessment K-12, Heidi Hayes Jacobs defines an essential question as the essence of what your students will examine and learn in the course of their study (Jacobs, 1997). Essential questions promote deep and enduring understanding. They cannot be answered in one sentence.” The Web page Transforming Standards to Understandings gives examples of essential questions and relates them to a selection of California state standards.

Students in the Big6 online course have really struggled with this concept. As they begin to create a Big6 Unit Plan that incorporates standards, their task definitions are often phrased in traditional terms: “study a state” or “study an animal.” We challenge them to rephrase their Task Definition as an essential question. This is significantly more difficult if you’ve already decided on the activities you want to use, or are trying to impose an “essential question” on top of an existing unit. In a workshop where I was first exposed to the concept of “backward design,” I heard a teacher describe his students’ task as “collecting stamps from other countries.” That’s an activity-based Task Definition; it doesn’t require the students to ask and answer a question that will lead them to understand (and remember) the reasons why cultures are so different.

In Joyce Valenza’s article “For the Best Answers, Ask Tough Questions,” she observes that students can easily deduce that there’s no point to recompiling a bunch of facts that already appear in an encyclopedia. “With basic information so easy to access, shouldn’t we now focus our students’ attention on questions that will challenge them to use information meaningfully – to think, analyze, evaluate and invent?” She also refers her readers to other sites that illuminate the nature of essential questions.

How can we adapt the study of a state, a country or an animal (traditional content area topics) to help students develop higher order thinking skills and achieve standards like those listed in ISTE’s compilation of Social Studies standards for global connections?
a. give examples of conflict, cooperation, and interdependence among individuals, groups, and nations;
b. examine the effects of changing technologies on the global community;
c. explore causes, consequences, and possible solutions to persistent, contemporary, and emerging global issues, such as pollution and endangered species;
What do we want the students to understand about the topic and beyond the topic? At the elementary level, what if we asked them to choose the state or country they’d most like to live in or animal they’d most like to adopt as a pet? Asking why the state capitol is located where it is promotes some understanding about geography and history. At the secondary level, essential questions will be phrased in more global terms: Why are some states growing in population while others are declining? Why do people move from rural to urban areas? Why are some countries involved in conflicts with their neighbors? Why are some animals endangered? What can we do about it?

First, the students would need to explore their own values: what’s important to them about where they live? What animal they’d want to join their family or save from extinction? Now we’ve made an important connection to their prior knowledge and supplied some personal motivation. With high school students, I often use the example of choosing which college to attend.

What information would they need to make this type of decision? Where can they find the information? Where can they find the best information? Now we’re back in familiar territory: the Big6 Skills guide us to seek, access and use information efficiently and effectively.

Nearing the completion of the Big6 online course, Daurene Jerome (Librarian, Mount Ararat Middle School, Topsham, ME) observed that one “thing that has evolved in my thinking about Big6 is I now place much more importance on stage #1, Task Definition. I used to think that Task Definition was just a quick step before you went on to the ‘real’ steps. I now realize how important it is for students to have a clearly defined task, and to be part of the process of ‘defining the task’. I really like the sample exercise where students generate questions about their topics rather than having the questions spoon fed to them. ‘Task Definition’ is another opportunity for students to develop their questioning skills.”