Elementary Algebra and Boolean Logic – Making the Old Framework New Again!
Keeping it Together - Algebra and Keywords, It's All The Same!
As a part of my role as member of the Information Literacy team, I created a presentation with a colleague Sarah Coysh on instructional theory. We decided to talk about humanist, constructivist, behaviorist, social situational, and transformational theories. Although it was a bit of a whirlwind experience, 5 theories in 1 hour, the feedback was fantastic.
The most successful part of my section of the session (which covered the constructivist and social situational theory) was the examples of how I incorporate these models of instruction into my own lessons. Theory in practice… sometimes a difficult transition. We can understand that knowledge in constructivist theory is socially created, but how do we do this in the classroom? To illustrate the transition I talked about Boolean Logic and elementary algebra.
The scenario is as follows: I am teaching first year undergraduate students about the use of AND and OR to narrow and broaden a search and to create a search string. I have them place the entire search string in the keyword search field and attempt the search. They receive an error message. I question why. After some conversation, which rarely comes to the correct conclusion but is important to the co-construction of knowledge as it asks the students to be engaged in the learning process, I take them back in time. Well … not literally. I create a framework that is familiar to them. I state:
I want to take you back to grade 8 math class. You are learning some basic algebra and the concept of like concepts. Your teacher is at the board and states “When like concepts have to stay together, we have to put them inside what?”
The lights suddenly go off for the students. There is a moment where there is a mental connection between like concepts in a keyword search and like concepts in algebra. The same action but in a different context. An old mental framework incorporated into a new mental model.
This type of example of theory in practice is of key importance in discussing instruction for librarians. Many librarians do not have training in instruction. As such the comfort in knowing that what they are doing has some root in sound instructional practice is limited. By sharing practices that connect to pedagogy we can create instruction that is more successful.
Tags: Educational Theory, Information Literacy, Mental Frameworks
Uncategorized | Erin May 28, 2009
