Tuesday, May 18, 2010 Mind the Gap! An example is NoodleTools,
the powerful citation and note taking platform. Instead of
passing out style sheets teachers, with my assistance, have to
teach students how to create accounts, share them with the
teacher, and go through the process of evaluating a resource and
generating a citation. Then they must learn how to use the
(brilliant!) note card feature take notes on their resource.
After that there is the outline where they build the structure
of their paper. This takes a different type of planning and time
allocation, but the benefit is the teacher and I have access to
student work and can monitor progress and intervene when
necessary. This is about the teacher substituting "content time"
with some "skills time". Ultimately students complete the final
paper more successfully. The first time is a real leap of faith,
and not all are ready to hold my hand and jump. Dr. George
Loewenstein wrote a paper called The Information Gap in 1994
that neatly frames this dilemma,