Chapter 5: Exploring ISTE Standards for Students “Knowledge Constructor” - Part 5
Date/Time: 6th March 2024 Wednesday 6:31 pm /26th March 24 Tuesday 3:57 pm
This is my fifth blog post on the ISTE Standards for students, this post explores a different standard “Knowledge Constructor”. It was a great dive into this module of the course, it helped build clarity about the Knowledge Constructor standard. The post will share my key learning about the standards and how this could be implemented in schools in Pakistan.
ISTE Standard Knowledge Constructor 1.3 says
Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others.
This standard focuses on teaching students how to search effectively online, how to evaluate the accuracy of data online and how to collect meaningful relevant data. Further it teaches them how to apply the data to solve real world problems or actual problems outside their classroom boundaries. We all know that there is tons of data and information present online, and we also know that not all data or information is real or fake. Students need to be prepared to surf the online world cautiously and responsibly.
This standard has four indicators and I will try to explain each with examples and how these could be embedded in the curriculum in schools.
ISTE Standard Knowledge Constructor 1.3a focuses on enhancing understanding about research strategies and making search more relevant and appropriate. The standard also requires students to find other resources including audio, video, images or text to enhance learning & understanding about a topic being taught in class, a thought , a concept or an idea. Students could search different search engines and streamline the ones that help search more effectively and give results that are more specific and appropriate. Students could try out the Ask Jeeves search engine to ask questions about a topic , they could search for more authentic and relevant articles, research papers using Google Scholar. You could also use Google search engine to search for information but with the right search operators. An idea that I liked in the course was senior students teaching effective research strategies to younger students , the younger students were working on writing persuasive essays. The senior students helped them differentiate between real and fake online.
While exploring for ideas on how to differentiate between fake and real online, I came across a wonderful video and lesson idea which explains with examples the difference between a fake video and a real video. It is an interesting activity to show students some images of real and fake things, followed by a discussion on what makes them real or fake. Students could right click on the image and click on image location, paste it on tinseye.com , this will show you the number of times the image has appeared on different known or unknown sites. Another way to check the reliability of a source is to ask your teacher or an adult you trust. What is important is that teachers discuss these with students and empower them to find more relevant content online.
ISTE Standard Knowledge Constructor 1.3b Students evaluate the accuracy, perspective, credibility and relevance of information , media , data or other sources.
This standard focuses on teaching students the ways to search effectively and cautiously using reliable resources. There is an interesting example shared in the online course where a biology teacher asks her students to research different perspectives about an issue. They meet the school library media specialist who shows them the school library database and explains how to use it. So the students now know well that this is the place for accessing credible information.It is a great way to teach students about bias and how to avoid bias by looking at information from different angles.
The standard also focuses on teaching students how to differentiate between relevant and irrelevant information, what strategies to use to look for credible, authentic and reliable information online and how to evaluate an author or a website or an edtech resource. Accuracy means that students should check the site URL , is it .com. , .edu, .org etc. They could also check when the site was last updated, what are sources of information on the site, are there any contact us details on the site, are the facts correct , are there any links to valid resources to compare information on site?
I like the idea of checking bias by looking at who is the target audience, what is the tone and objective of the site, and does it show any bias?. In order to ensure credibility, always check the author's credentials, his objectivity and publication source. And it is easy to check whether it is relevant or not, by checking whether it meets your objective or not, does it add value to your work or not? A good activity could be to gather a list of websites fake, real, authentic, relevant and irrelevant. Teachers could share a criteria to evaluate with students , and ask them to evaluate the given site. This would prove to be a really good exercise for students in primary and secondary grades.
ISTE Standard Knowledge Constructor 1.3c focuses on teaching students about how to gather information about an issue, topic etc, which tools to use to gather information, how to save that information as a collection or artifact, how to share with other people. It sounds interesting and I really liked the idea shared in the online course where a teacher asks her early years children to research and find about different types of dances in the world. After the information about the dances was gathered, students created digital story books for book creators. Then they presented their stories in front of their parents. And all this helped extend knowledge about a topic or issue and build clarity, while collecting sufficient resources.
Students could be taught how to save information they find online, where to save it, and how to save it. They could save information in Google Keep (site URLS, images, videos etc), they could also keep information in the form of a notepad in Google docs or Google Jamboard (information or key ideas on sticky notes), they could curate a YouTube video list of a topic and share the link with students, or make a poster in Google Slides or Google Docs or Slides with image and video links about the topic or issue taught in class. They could also keep information in folders in drive that are easy to access. Students could also create a digital portfolio in Google Sites and share with parents in a conference or meeting. Students could also record themselves in Flipgrid and share about their digital portfolios, share key learning experiences in class, reflect on their learning etc.
This may seem challenging but will actually help students organize information. They can access this information as and when needed. Even other learners can learn and use these resources.
ISTE Standard Knowledge Constructor 1.3d This standard focuses on teaching students about how and where to look for real life problems and solutions, how to identify them, and find and create innovative solutions to solve those problems. The standard also focuses on empowering students , helping establish links of theory to practice. This helps them understand how the content taught in class can be made relevant by connecting with real life issues and challenges. While I am writing this post, I remember my MHIL ELM program at LUMS. We were given research articles and papers to read, we had a chance to visit schools in different areas and work on various projects. The projects were based on areas of development identified by the people in charge, for example school heads. We had a great chance to bridge the gap between theory and practice. We had thorough discussions in class connecting our work in schools to literature. It was quite a challenging task but always worth it and I remember learning a lot. I remember my final term paper on Politics of Change, I had to reflect on my professional experience in the light of literature. It was tough but surely enhanced my learning, and helped analyze my practices using a wide lens.
The same could be done in schools with primary and secondary students. They could be asked to identify issues or real life issues around them. They could research, link to the course content and develop solutions to eradicate the problems. Students could attend online or face to face conferences to identify issues and challenges, they could participate in twitter chats with experts online, they could go to visits in different cities and gather information, they could survey people about issues and challenges in a particular area or city etc a lot could be done, needs a through planning. Students could also participate in whole class discussions about a topic.
A number of ideas that I can think of now. But I do agree as a teacher and trainer that when the content taught in class has no connections to the outside world, it hardly makes any sense to the students, because they don't find it relevant. No one remembers algorithms in Math that we memorize because they don't seem useful or relevant anymore. But people work with numbers almost several times a day buying, selling, time, exercise, cooking etc so knowing how to add or subtract makes some sense.
To be honest , I think this module was worth skimming through, it helped clarify misconceptions about the Knowledge Constructor standard, it helped build a lot of clarity about the standard through very relevant and easy to understand examples and links to relevant resources. I really liked the question part, where I had to consider the questions to understand how to implement the standard. It was worth it and I hope people reading my blog post will get tons of ideas of how and where to apply the ISTE Knowledge Constructor standard for students.
Enjoy Reading till my next blog post soon InnshaaAllah.
Regards and prayers
Sheeba Ajmal
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