eJournal Entry 4

After researching each step in the analysis section, I believe my Instructional Design model should address visual, auditory and tactile learners.  The auditory aspect will help the students will poor reading skills, the visuals will give students a mental picture to make connections with written material and the tactile activities will give students a chance to explore the new information they have learned. 

My overall goal or the Instructional Design model is:

                   Students will show understanding of the use online tutorials, consisting of
             presentations, instructions and activities, in order to gain the necessary

                   library skills needed to successfully use the resources in the school library.

However I need to address each section in the model separately with its own goal. For each lesson in the Instructional Design Model the sub-goals are:

• Students will demonstrate an understanding of the organization of the library and the major informational using the Dewey Decimal System.  

• Students will employ the features of the Destiny Card Catalog to locate materials in the Library Media Center.

• Students will utilize the applications in Ebsco’s Research Center in order for them to identify, organize, evaluate and communicate information for educational and real-world applications.

Right now I feel like I help the majority of students search for books and materials.  I want them to be more independent, not for my sake but to help themselves.  I don’t think they have any idea of what is expected in high school or college and I want them to be prepared. The type of thinking I want to promote in my library will be one that will lead students to search for materials and experiences that will empower students to be lifelong learners.  I want them to correctly utilize the resources we have to actively seek out knowledge and be able to locate, retrieve, evaluate, and productively use information from a wide variety of sources.

After a little research on “disciplinary understanding”, I understand what types of thinking will produce this understanding. To review quickly I found this website I felt was along the same lines as Ritchhart, Morrison and Church. The article “Educating for Global Competence: Preparing Our Youth to Engage the World” stated “Rigorous disciplinary understanding requires that students come to view the disciplines as the knowledge and thinking tools that our societies construct and revise to make sense of the world, explain phenomena, solve problems, create products, and ask novel questions in informed ways. Understanding a discipline thus involves understanding not only key disciplinary concepts, but also understanding how such concepts are produced with the aid of disciplinary methods, how they can be applied, and how knowledge in the discipline is best communicated”.  The types of thinking to cultivate in students which will help achieve this understanding are

Critical Thinkers - this is convergent thinking where learners assess the worth and validity of something. It involves precise, persistent and objective analysis.  Learner can work together to develop a common understanding.
Creative or Innovative Thinking - this involves divergent thinking.  Learners work to generate something new or different.  They test new ideas or work as well or better than previous ideas. These learners also have new ways of approaching things that lead to new possibilities.
Conceptual Thinking - allows you to find connections or patterns between abstract ideas and put them together.
Intuitive Thinking - taking what you perceive or sense to be true and use it in the final decision.

Since I have been in education all of my administrators have asked for our lesson plans focus in this area.  They want our students to think past just the facts and use the information they learn to make other connections and develop a deeper understanding of the subject.