Informed Learning & the 6 Frames Workshop

Glynis Asu from Hamilton College and I had a great workshop introducing informed learning and the 6 frames to a group at Hamilton on Tuesday this week (3/22). I think it was made more interesting by the mix of librarians and instruction technologists that attended. Everyone was from Hamilton except for three librarians from other local institutions. I explained in an earlier post that the workshop was adapted from Hilary Hughes' workshop at Colgate. In the workshop, we asked folks to design learning scenarios that tie together learning to use information with learning new content (informed learning). The six frames then gave us a way of thinking about our own approaches to teaching as well as the pedagogic approaches of the teachers with whom we collaborate. We examined what the different approaches would mean for informed learning.

Best of all was the fantastic conversation we had at our working lunch during which people really started to delve into different ways of thinking about information, e.g., objective, scientific method, subjective, intersubjective, qualitative vs. quantitative, and so on. There seemed to be agreement that our students need to consider different ways that information can be understood. Another recurring theme was the need for students to use different sorts of information to more comprehensively understand and explain whatever they are examining.

At the end of the day, the group discussed the possibility of continuing to have meetings to discuss pedagogy and theory. I am really hoping we can make this happen! I think we do a lot of this kind of thing at Colgate, but I would relish the chance to continue building connections with my colleagues from Hamilton. They have this way of always making me think about things in a new way. My other Hamilton colleague & friend, Janet Simons, was for once not the first to say that we should have teachers at these events as well. I agree, of course - just like what we wish for our students, the more perspectives at the table the better chance we have of understanding things in new & better ways.

PS. I like the above photo one of my colleagues took at the workshop because of how it brings me, informed learning (the slide), and an ipad together in the same shot. A nice metaphor for what we talked about across the day, i.e., developing pedagogy that simultaneously focuses on people, ideas and technologies.