Monday, August 9, 2010

The Big 6 Framework




The Big 6 is a problem solving framework and a life skill that can be used to assess, present and reflect on information.
There are six stages within the information processing:

1, Task Definition – this involves sourcing types of information
- Defining the information problem
- Identify information needed

2, Information Seeking Strategies – this may involve brainstorming, narrowing and refining the information
- Determine all possible sources
- Select the best sources

3, Location and Access – this may involving indexing the information
- locate sources (intellectually and physically)
- Find information within sources

4, Use of Information – identify the relevance of the content
- Engage (e.g. read, hear, view, touch)
- Extract relevant information

5, Synthesis – merge the medium and the message
- Organise from multiple sources
- Present the information

6, Evaluation – assess the effectiveness and the efficiency
- Judge the product
- Judge the process
(Eisenberg & Berkowitz, 2010)

Teaching students the Big 6 arms them with the explicit steps to analyse information and develops a mega language that students can use to identify and explain their reasoning for decisions they have made. This common language would be important when teaching students to use ICTs as it would allow a teacher to clearly deconstruct the steps of a task.

This model is particularly relevant in the teaching of, and through, ICTs as many of the stages may involve different technologies: creating Bubbl.us concept maps of the topic, researching on the internet, creating a presentation (PowerPoint, Movie Maker etc) and when writing a word document reflection on the process.

The Big 6 website has a large amount to teaching resources, graphic organisers and information if you want more in-depth information.


I think this is a very useful framework and in future posting I will aim to view the ICT tools through this model.
References
Eisenberg, M. & Berkowitz, B. (2010). The big 6. Retrieved from http://www.big6.com/

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