Week #3 Learning Theories and Motivation

After watching the videos and skimming the readings, I definitely feel that constructivism and cognitivism are the most relevant theories for my instructional scenario. Behaviorism requires some control over the "antecedents" and "consequences" of the learning environment, and in the one-shot setting, it's hard to imagine ways that I can really provide rewards that would be meaningful or create long-lasting change in student's behaviors.

Constructivism for Intro to Political Inquiry

I like the constructivist idea of having the student "transfer their knowledge to new and different situations" (from the YouTube video). While I can't provide students with an in-depth hands on experience, I can hopefully make the activities within the one-shot oriented around "social interaction" and "authentic tasks," as Cooperstein and Kocevar-Weidinger describe. (2004, p. 142).

Since students in the Political Inquiry need to understand both the qualities/attributes of different information formats (books, articles, position papers, datasets, etc.) and how they might best be used in Political Science research, I'll need to develop an activity where they can both search for and assess information in different formats. Given the time constraints of a single, 75-minute session, it might work best to have students work in groups and give each group a single format/information type to focus on. The groups will become the "experts" on their assigned information type.

Possible Class Activity

Here's how I'm thinking a class activity might go: Students would be divided into small groups (3-ish students) and be handed a group activity worksheet.  The worksheet would tell them:

• Their sample research scenario
• What type of resource they'll be looking for
• Where they'll be looking for that resource (i.e. the name of a database, website, the catalog, etc) 

The worksheet would direct them on how to locate the search tool, but as a group they'll have to use their research scenario to come up with search terms, etc.  After they work through those searching tasks, there would be questions on evaluating their search results, locating a selected item (e.g. full text for journal articles, call numbers for books, etc.) and other questions about identifying what exactly they've found.

After selecting an item they think best suits the information need, the students would have time in their groups to answer more reflective questions that will help them understand the value and application of their particular information type. I don't know what these questions would look like yet, but hopefully they'd get at the "knowledge practices" and "dispositions" found in the Information Creation as a Process" frame of the ACRL Framework. I'd want this activity to be open enough that there's no "right answer" students are being guided towards, but I feel like it'll need some structure in order to assure they meet the learning outcomes that I'm developing.  Because I'll be deliberately presenting some of the content in segments via the worksheets, I think cognitivism is also represented in my approach

Finally, there will need to be a time for each small group to share with the larger class about the information type that they explored. They're the "experts" on their format now, so they can demonstrate for the class the relative merits and characteristics of a book, dataset, journal article, etc. I could see this happening in two ways:

1. I invite each group to come up and demo their searching and characteristics of their assigned information type for the rest of the class; or,
2. The groups break up and we form new small groups that contain one "expert" on each of the resource types. Then, each student goes around the table in their new small groups and talks about their resource, how they searched, etc. 

Both of these would expose every student in the class to each of the information types, but perhaps the second option does a better job of modeling constructivism's peer-to-peer learning idea.

ARCS Model incorporation

Attention
 I think my proposed lesson plan would do a good job of giving students 'variability' and 'inquiry arousal' by providing them with a problem to solve in a group. As opposed to just working on the computers or watching me demonstrate searches, they'll be doing it themselves and talking to each other about what they're learning.

Relevance
In the past, my strength has usually been 'motive matching': I always try to tell students in very specific terms how their library instruction will help with a given assignment. The more information a professor can provide ahead of time, the more detailed I can be in matching what motivates them. 'Familiarity' and the notion of building on what students already know is very important in constructivism, so I'll need to be sure to draw on what (I perceive) they bring with them to the instruction session.

Confidence
Here, I think that my plan will incorporate 'success opportunities' in the form of multi-stage group work and 'personal responsibility.' I like the idea of having students learn something and then teach others, and I think they'll feel a sense of ownership over the portion of the learning they're assigned to cover.

Satisfaction
I try to encourage students in their exploration of library resources and provide verbal reinforcement/feedback ('extrinsic rewards'). Affirming the frustrations they might have with library databases can also be a part of helping students ultimately feel successful.