Purposeful Research: Fostering Sound Informational Processing Strategies in First-Year College Students
Type of Presentation
Panel (1 hour and 15 minutes presentation total for two or more presenters)
Target Audience
Higher Education
Location
Room 1220 A/B
Abstract
Often students begin their college studies adept at moving information around, collating and accumulating sound bytes, or repeating talking points. Yet the thinking demanded in college classrooms, requires students to do more than locate and report information. Students need to be able to analyze their research and synthesize it with their own thinking. As teachers who teach general education requirements, we’ve found that many of today’s students don’t trust themselves to take the thinking risks or intuitive leaps it takes to synthesize information in order to master higher order learning competencies. What if early in their college careers students encountered assignments that asked them to manipulate texts in unfamiliar ways and asked them think both more broadly and more purposefully about now-standard ideas like research and sources? This session will delve into non-traditional research assignments that two instructors have created to help their students in required first-year composition courses and required introductory humanities courses to build the critical thinking, analysis, and synthesis skills that lead to true informational literacy
Presentation Description
This session will delve into non-traditional research assignments that two instructors have created to help their first-year students in required composition courses and required introductory humanities courses build the critical thinking, analysis, and synthesis skills that lead to true informational literacy.
Keywords
Research, assignments, synthesis, critical thinking
Publication Type and Release Option
Presentation (Open Access)
Recommended Citation
McLallen, Wendy and Yarnell, Lisa, "Purposeful Research: Fostering Sound Informational Processing Strategies in First-Year College Students" (2018). Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy. 96.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gaintlit/2018/2018/96
Purposeful Research: Fostering Sound Informational Processing Strategies in First-Year College Students
Room 1220 A/B
Often students begin their college studies adept at moving information around, collating and accumulating sound bytes, or repeating talking points. Yet the thinking demanded in college classrooms, requires students to do more than locate and report information. Students need to be able to analyze their research and synthesize it with their own thinking. As teachers who teach general education requirements, we’ve found that many of today’s students don’t trust themselves to take the thinking risks or intuitive leaps it takes to synthesize information in order to master higher order learning competencies. What if early in their college careers students encountered assignments that asked them to manipulate texts in unfamiliar ways and asked them think both more broadly and more purposefully about now-standard ideas like research and sources? This session will delve into non-traditional research assignments that two instructors have created to help their students in required first-year composition courses and required introductory humanities courses to build the critical thinking, analysis, and synthesis skills that lead to true informational literacy
