My job at a 6th grade only middle school presented me with an interesting dilemma. I want my students to use Big6 to solve information problems, but since our school is made up of students from five different elementary schools I don’t know how much, if any, the students have learned previously about Big6. I also wanted to make the concept of information problem solving real to the students so that they could see how the concepts taught in the Big6 apply not only to research but to everyday life problem solving.

Scenario Development
Before I could create my information product, I needed to plan my scenario. First, I tried to think of an example that would be interesting to both boys and girls, something they could relate to. Next I observed that shoes have become an important component of 6th grade culture. I noticed that a number of the boys in my school are skateboarders – some of the boys and the girls wear skateboarding shoes, so I decided I would use the example of shopping for shoes.

Motivation: I Need Shoes Within My Budget
I figured most 6th grade students should be familiar with the process of shoe shopping, even if their experience was as simple as accompanying a parent to a department store to purchase shoes. To present this information, I wrote a scenario in which I am a 6th grader who has multiple shoe requirements for different interests such as skateboarding, tennis, a costume party, and a dress up party.

The budget constraint in my scenario requires me to research shoe choices because I can only spend $50. on shoes. I explain that I skateboard every day; I play tennis every couple of weeks; while I have a dress up party to go to once or twice a year and that I have an upcoming costume party for which I’ll need special shoes. Each of these interests or events requires shoes, but I only have $50. By setting up a need for multiple shoe types, I have an example in which I must research different shoe sources, types and prices in my search for shoes.

Big6 in Context of Shoe Shopping
To present the Big6 to the students, I developed a PowerPoint presentation titled, The Big6: An Information Problem-Solving Strategy. The presentation accomplishes two goals – it guides students though Big6 strategy, and shows them a real-world example of how to use Big6 in a practical situation. To apply each Big6 stage in the context of shoe shopping, I created one slide for each Big6 stage, then created a second slide to explain my shoe shopping problem related to that stage.

Big6 Relevance!
My students can really relate to the shoe example. I engage students by asking a lot of questions about how they shop, the costs of different types of shoes and what suggestions they have to solve the need for multiple shoes with so little money. The students are Big6ing before they know it! I also provide a relevant handout for each student based. Grades-3-6-organizer

Big6 is Transferable
My goal is to make sure that teachers in the school understand the importance of Big6 to overall student achievement and lifelong learning. The Science and Social Studies teachers bring their classes into the media center frequently to learn and reinforce Big6 skills because we’ve found that this strategy works best when it is integrated with a research assignment related to their curriculum. Students have a chance to immediately reinforce the Big6 stages they have just learned while completing a research assignment. While I teach them the Big6, I not only relate it to the shoe shopping scenario, but I can also tie in specifics about their assignment to each stage of the Big6.

In the next couple of weeks I will have completed the Big6 lessons – teaching 400 students the information problem solving strategy with a combination of the shoe shopping scenario and assignment lessons. I plan to provide copies of the Big6 Assignment Organizer in the library for future student research use. I really look forward to working with classes as they return to complete other research assignments!

In addition, I have been reaching out to all teachers in the school to tell them about the Big6 and how it can help their students perform research. I think that the teachers in my school have been very receptive to the idea and I am hoping that in the second half of the year I start to see some synergy form around everyone in the school using the same research methodology. I believe the initial roll out has been very successful and I hope to build on it in the coming months.

I hope that you find my Big6 presentation useful!