TECHNOS

September 8, 2008

Information Literacy and Student Debate: Hot Button Issues for Student Discussion, Part I—Organizing the Discussion

By Dennis Adams, Ph.D.

As a general rule, everyone has to realize that there is too much data on the Web and not enough quality information. Choices are one thing, good choices quite another.

In this age of Google, computers and the Internet accelerate all kinds of positive and negative possibilities. As far as the schools are concerned, students now must learn to swim in a sea of online information. And staying afloat has a lot to do with how effectively information literacy has strands embedded in courses across the curriculum. Of course, the term “literacy” covers everything from reading and writing to competence in science and mathematics (“numeracy”). Here, the focus is on today’s plugged-in world and using discussion to learn about information technology-related dilemmas.

Even fairly sophisticated students tend to judge the credibility of Web sites more on the basis of appearance than on the reliability of the person or group that put it up. Some of the same students also fail to remember that anyone anywhere can publish anything they want on the Web. Books, newspapers, and articles are different. Most traditional publications have been screened and filtered at least twice; the publisher and the librarian (or bookstore distributor) have decided that there is something in a book that is worth reading. The difference between newspapers/books and Web sites/blogs is but one example of an issue that is worthy of student discussion.

Generating Student Discussion

To be fully literate today requires some understanding of the dilemmas and the controversial issues surrounding information technology. Issues that can spark student debate are all around us. They might involve social norms, personal conscience, marketing, privacy, authority, civil liberties, truth, life, sex, punishment, property, truth, etc. If a teacher can get two or three such factors clustered around a particular issue, a good small-group or whole-class discussion is relatively easy. You build on what students already know about a topic. But it sometimes helps if individuals, pairs, or small groups of students start by doing a little research or homework on the subject that they are going to debate.

After some initial thought or investigation, students can form small groups that develop a good argument on one or both sides of a controversial issue. Based on their initial positions, students marshal their best arguments. Each small group or partnership can then explain (to everyone) a few of the points that they have developed. After the whole class considers opposing arguments, the teacher can move on to the next group’s point of view. The idea is not to get anyone to change sides; rather, it is to help students gain a better understanding of IT by discussing both sides of hot button issues. Like good literature, technology presents all kinds of potential dilemmas for student debate.

Organizing the Classroom for Discussion

It’s best not to get too bogged down in the research before the discussion. As teachers soon found out when they encouraged students to use the Internet, having too many choices changes the way students think, learn, and make decisions. It’s far too easy to use superficial cues for finding and evaluating information online. Although it’s debatable, knowledge may be off the Internet chart altogether. As a general rule, everyone has to realize that there is too much data on the Web and not enough quality information. Choices are one thing, good choices quite another.

There are many ways that teachers can help their students to continue thinking and learning in a world overgrown with information, ads, options, and demands. Discussions and collaborative projects are one proven method for helping students explore and understand a number of technology-related issues. Exemplary teachers have learned how to reflect, problem solve, and empower students with motivating discussions. It is equally important to hold out such a vision for novice teachers by helping them understand what their classrooms can be and figure out how to make it happen.

Teachers often guide discussions by setting the topic and the group goal. There is frequently an element of student choice and responsibility. It helps if the students know how the end products will be shared with the whole class. It’s the job of the teacher to organize the group interaction and keep it cooperative, on topic, and generally productive. Classroom discussions also require efficiently moving students into small groups and smoothly bringing the whole class back together at the end, for whole-group discussion. The teacher has to give up some control, so keeping students on task and collaborative is sometimes a little difficult. But everything becomes easier once students get used to it.

If everyone in the class is going to cover the same issue, then each group may choose one side or the other to argue. Just be sure to have at least two groups on either side. If there isn’t something approaching a split in the class, it’s best to change the conditions so that you get a fair number of students on both sides. If changes to the dilemma still don’t get enough on opposite sides, you might go on to another dilemma.

Once a group of two, three, or four is formed, students build a good set of arguments to support their group’s point of view. The idea is not to change opinions but to learn about the subject by supporting the position that the group has chosen. After the group gets the best points to support their position, the whole class comes together to hear their ideas and briefly debate the issue.

Roles and Responsibilities for Students

Students who have trouble working with others sometimes do better when they and other group members have a specific group responsibility: “reader,” “explainer,” “encourager,” or “reporter.” The reader reads or verbally gives the problem to the group. The explainer explains the activity and how the goal is to be accomplished. The encourager has a special responsibility to keep it animated and on task. The reporter tells the whole class what the group has done during the wrap-up. If the group only has three members, then everyone shares the “encourager” role.

Once students are good at working together—or if there are only two students in a group—specific roles may be unnecessary. But no matter how you set it up, it helps if students have the opportunity to talk about how well their group discussions went. A little “social processing” at the end can help improve teamwork skills. From start to finish, teachers can encourage questions that are aimed at clarifying, elaborating, and qualifying information.

During their small-group work, students can use felt pens and paper to create a large chart to show everybody later. After about a half hour or more of small-group discussion, the teacher can bring the class together so that each group can briefly share their thoughts with the entire class. A graphic organizer (map) on a large piece of paper or a PowerPoint® slide are examples of ways that the small group can report back to the whole class. Of course, it might be as simple as having the recorder stand up and tell everybody what the group came up with. Some teachers like to end it there. Others like to conclude with journal writing (for ten minutes or so).

Note: By making sure that two of the students are on the opposite side in a small-group debate, you can start and finish the discussion in the small group. Just make sure that it’s never one student against everyone else. If a student is right in the middle, assign him to the side that needs him the most; ask him to argue the case like a good lawyer.

Students don’t have to be assigned to argue the side that they support. If it’s a difficult class, student groups could be asked to take the side they disagree with. Remember, in formal debate the side to be taken is usually assigned; students learn about communication skills and the subject by building a case, whether they agree with it or not.

Only a little about a topic should be explained in advance. This encourages students to search for more information on their own. The basic idea is to give students just enough information to get started on investigating and discussing something that they may not have been aware of. It’s a little like newspapers online — providing excerpts (or “teasers”) to get the reader more interested. Even with the full paper version, if you really want to know about a subject, you have to go beyond the paper and do more research.

Information Literacy and Collaborative Discussion

To one degree or another, information literacy is becoming part of the curriculum in many school districts. The topic has also been recognized in a national context. The Educational Testing Service, for example, has developed a test that measures a number of information literacy concepts, including a student’s ability to evaluate online information.

Traditional modes of face-to-face discussion and debate can amplify logical, rational, and linear habits of thought in ways superior to technology-mediated communication. But information technology offers additional possibilities and patterns for understanding. To succeed in the Information Age, students must be able to make the best of available technology—and the best of each other.

As the theory of Constructivism suggests, learning is amplified when students actively collaborate in the construction of knowledge. Connecting new information to what is already known is part of the process, and face-to-face communication is usually the best way to go about constructing knowledge and understanding. But when you can’t interact directly with others, e-mail and the Web can be vast help lines. Students can select people online to provide answers to their questions. (See, for instance, Wikipedia.) Of course, students’ level of information literacy has a lot to do with how effective they are in choosing whom to ask and checking on the validity of answers.

In the classroom, the quality of student discussion and interaction has a lot to do with how much students learn about any subject. It’s more than rearranging the chairs—success depends on students knowing how to work in groups, identifying the nature of the task, demonstrating familiarity with subject matter, and having interest in the topic. After the other factors are in place, have the small group assign a recorder who takes notes. The recorder-reporter talks and participates like everyone else; but after the group work is over, he or she reports back to the whole class.

At each stage of the discussion, the teacher’s enthusiasm and experience play a major role. It is the teacher who suggests many of the topics, sets the procedural guidelines, facilitates group work, and pulls the whole class together for a final wrap-up report from each group. Through such collaborative thought and discussion, students can go a long way toward one of the major goals of information literacy: making sense of their technology-intensive environment.

Structuring debates around technology-related issues can help teachers and students develop a sense of ownership over the how, what, and why of information literacy instruction. The digitization of so much that used to seem tangible, real, and personally manageable makes face-to-face communication more important than ever. Information can be stored in databases, but knowledge resides in people. Additionally, information and knowledge are of most value when they can be shared in a social context. Collaborative human interaction still opens many doors to learning. And just because students learn something as a group doesn’t mean that they can’t do something alone when they have to. As Vygotsky has suggested, what students can do together today they can do alone tomorrow. Education, at its best, will always involve discussing issues, collaborating, and learning together.

In Part II of this article, slated for the September issue of Technos eZine, Dr. Adams suggests some hot topics for student debate.

References and Resources

Carr, N. (2004) Does it Matter: Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Gladwell, M. (2005) Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. New York: Little, Brown and Company.

Norton, P. and Wilburg, K. (2003) Teaching with Technology, second edition. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth Publishing.

O’Harrow, R. (2005) No Place to Hide: Behind the Scenes of Our Emerging Surveillance Society. NY: Free Press.

Solove, D. (2004) The Digital Person: Technology and Privacy in the Information Age, NY: NYU Press.

Stross, R. (2005) E-mail: ddomain@nytimes.com.

Vygotsky, L. (1934/1986) Thought and Language, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.