WikiInfoLit Sequencing
Sequencing
- Lifelong objectives: After this course, participants will continue to explore ways to teaching critical thinking and information literacy skills in ways that are not bounded by traditional concepts of authority and reliability based on the traditional scholarly publishing system, and that instead expand these concepts into contemporary modes of communication that are extremely participatory and dynamic.
- End of course objectives: By the end of this course, participants will show their understanding of critical thinking and information literacy as it applies not only to traditional academic publishing models, but also to an exemplar of a contemporary participatory, dynamic one: Wikipedia.
- Unit objectives
- Specific performance objectives (listed under the unit objectives)
- Enabling objectives (listed under the unit objectives)
Unit 1 - Information Literacy, Critical Thinking, and Wikipedia
The participant will gain an understanding of what information literacy and critical thinking are, why they are important for students, and how they apply in the contemporary research and information problem solving context. They will also gain some background knowledge about how Wikipedia is actually used, and can best be used for research and information problem solving.
The participant will come to understand how Wikipedia embodies many of the features of the contemporary research and information problem solving context, and embrace it as a tool for engaging students in learning critical thinking and information literacy skills. They will also gain an appreciation for Wikipedia's strengths as an information source as well as a wariness for its weaknesses.
Performance Objectives
- The participant will explain the concept of information literacy.
- The participant will explain the concept of critical thinking.
- The participant will choose to teach critical thinking and information literacy skills using Wikipedia rather than not using it at all, or using it only as a negative example.
- The participant will state basic facts about Wikipedia, including that volunteers contribute content; those same volunteers collaboratively vet and revise content; all facts must be cited to "reliable, verifiable" sources; neutral point of view is mandatory.
Enabling Objectives
Unit 2 - Authority
The participant will gain a multidimensional understanding of the traditional concept of authority and authoritative information sources, including what sources have traditionally been considered authoritative, and what qualifications have traditionally conferred authority. They will learn to relate this to concepts of power, privilege, and marginalization. They will learn about how the web and participatory culture undermine traditional notions of authority and authoritative sources, and how this can be advantageous in a constructivist, critical thinking-oriented learning environment. Regarding Wikipedia, they will discover both how based in traditional notions of authority it can be (in terms of what kinds of sources can be cited) as well as how it subverts traditional notions of authority by allowing any anonymous internet user to be a Wikieditor. They will understand the importance of evaluating information on its own merits when it can't be judged on the reputation of the information creator/provider.
Performance Objectives
- The participant will generate a strategy of evaluating the authority of Wikipedia articles and other information sources by presenting a written or media assessment of the expertise, experience, and reputation of their creators and/or of the creators of the information sources they cite.
Enabling Objectives
Unit 3 - Genealogy of Knowledge and Citations
The participant will gain an understanding of how the scholarly communication cycle works and how knowledge is constructed in the context of a scholarly community. In that context, the learner will realize the importance of citing sources. With regard to Wikipedia, the learner will discover that all facts and ideas in a Wikipedia article must be cited, and the criteria for sources that may be cited in Wikipedia. They will learn to trace the citations in Wikipedia back to original, supposedly authoritative sources.
Performance Objectives
- The participant will state the reasons for citing sources, by writing a paragraph.
- The participant will explain the concept of genealogy or provenance of knowledge by explaining it in a written paragraph.
Enabling Objectives
== Unit 5 - The Social Creation of Knowledge and Peer Review ==
The learner will gain detailed knowledge of the scholarly communication cycle, including how peer and editorial review work. They will compare and contrast this with the kinds of quality control and review that can take place in popular information sources, and will know that the existence of peer/editorial review are key features that make scholarly information sources scholarly. They will understand the scholarly communication cycle as a way that information is discovered/created/negotiated in a community. They will compare and contrast this with the way information is discovered/created/negotiated in non-scholarly communities, such as exist online, and of which Wikipedia is an example. They will learn to examine Wikipedia article Talk pages to analyze the knowledge creation/negotiation that takes place and as a way of evaluating the reliability of the page's content.
Performance Objectives
- The learner will state the advantages and disadvantages of the peer review system, by writing or creating a media presentation.
- The learner will explain the concept of scholarly communication or the conversation among scholars that takes place in journal articles and monographs, and also compare it to the less formal generation and negotiation of knowledge that takes place inside and outside of the scholarly community (eg in Wikipedia), by writing or creating a media presentation.
Enabling Objectives
Unit 4 - Neutrality
The participant will understand that a neutral point of view is one that is not influenced by any opinions, beliefs, emotions, or biases of the person reporting. Instead, it relates all points of view without preference and allows the audience to form their own opinion or belief. They will learn to question the possibility of absolute objectivity or neutrality, and to identify compromises to objectivity and neutrality. In Wikipedia, they will analyze articles for failures of neutrality and for instances when an objective point of view would conflict with Wikipedia's neutral point of view.
Performance Objectives
- The participant will generate a strategy of evaluating the neutrality of Wikipedia articles and other information sources by presenting a written or media summary of the different points of view presented, which also assesses how much weight each point of view is given, and questions whether other points of view have been excluded.
Enabling Objectives
Unit 5 - Objectivity
The participant will understand that objectivity is based on observation, experimentation, and deduction in order to find out the truth value of a testable statement (as opposed to subjective opinions.) They will learn that objectivity is a key value in scholarly communication. They will gain an understanding that neutrality is an important value in journalism and also in Wikipedia articles.
Performance Objectives
- The participant will generate a strategy of evaluating the objectivity of Wikipedia articles and other information sources by presenting a written or media examination of them for logical fallacies, conflict of interest, agenda, selection bias, confirmation bias, positive results bias.
Enabling Objectives
Unit 6 - Putting It All Together
The participant will put together what they have learned in the first five units in order to create lesson plans for teaching the information literacy/critical thinking skills of evaluating sources to high school or college students, with Wikipedia as a focus of those lessons.
Performance Objectives
- The participant will generate a strategy for evaluating the trustworthiness of information from a particular Wikipedia page.
- The participant will generate lesson plans to teach critical thinking and information literacy skills using Wikipedia, to high school and college students. (This ended up being done throughout the units as a set of thematically unifying, cumulative learning activities.)
Enabling Objectives
- The participant will explain constructivist learning theory and practices, and distinguish it from instructivist theory and practices.
- The participant will create learning activities that are authentic, whole-tasks.
- The participant will create lesson plans.
- The participant will write learning objectives (ABCD or Gagne style is ok).
- The participant will create rubrics for authentic assessment.
- The participant will sequence learning activities logically.