Research as Inquiry

 How Has Culture/ Religion influenced  Gender Roles in South African Society?
Learning Outcomes
At end learners are expected to be able to :

1. Formulate research questions based on information gaps of an existing information expressed. e.g academic papers / articles.
2. To determine an appropriate scope of investigationgoing. 
3. To use various researth methods based on the need of the study. 

Activities 

1. Learners are expected to search for different sources to discuss the topic. 

2.They will use the key words they have found to structure what the study is investigating. 

3.Learners are expected to come up with the suitable methods and tools for the study. 

Dispositioned

• Learners will start to consider research as open ended exploration of information.
• Develop questions and learning new investigative methods while keeping an open mind and critical stance.
• They will seek multiple perspective  during information gathering and assessment. 
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Scholarship as a conversation lesson plan.

Topic: How Media influences our lifestyle
Learning outcomes :

• At the end learners should be able to contribute to scholars conversation with others at an appropriate level and ethical manner like in academic sessions and online communities 
• Identify the contribution that other sources of information make to disciplinary knowledge. 
• To critically evaluate contributions made by others in participatory information platforms.

Activities:

• They should engage and debate  on information platforms like Twitter, Facebook and blogs to hear what others think about the topic given.
• The should engage in classroom debates and academic sessions by making reference of the sources of information 
• Make criticall analysis of the information sources and make a positive contribution by making good recommendations. 

1. Firstly learners should be able to recognise that they are often entering into anew ongoing scholary conversation therefore they need to engage deeply. 
2. They should recognise that scholary conversation takes place in various places that they need to visit more often for new information.
3. Lastly they must see themselves as contributors to scholarships rather than nconsumers of information. 

Blog homework    09Sept 2017

1. How  Media influences our lifestyle

• At the the learner should be able to identify different types of media 
• Learners should be able to list different roles played by media in our lives. 
• Learners should  be able to differentiate between good and bad media influences. 

2. The group brainstorm the topic to ensure that every one is on par and to recognise prior learning. Then in smaller groups they list different forms of media and people that have influence in their lives. E.g Music and Sports. 

• In groups of 4 learners discuss the influence of TV,Magazines , radios and websites and commercials in our daily lives . They will share their favorite advertisements &give reasons why they like to watch or listen to them. 
• In groups of two learners cut pictures or articles from magazines/newspapers then they anall seem and discuss the goodd and the bad about thosebenza pictures or articles.  They will tell the whole class why they think it's good or bad.
•  It ralates to knowledge practice thru:
• Recognition of prior learning 
• Discussions
• Discussions and reports 
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Scholarship as a Conversation



It is a conversation because scholars discuss a concept and come up with different ideas about the same concept just like in literature review. They agree to disagree by analyzing the text as they develop knowledge in the process. for example the three theorists Vygotsky, Piaget and Bandura, they all believe in learning as a social practice,even though they believe in that they have different ideas of practicing it.

There is a belief by scholars that learners learn through play.  I would come up with the game that will teach language using other  languages for everyone to understand because language can be a barrier to learning. If everyone is engaged learning will take place because it will be focusing on different perspective and abilities.

I will give them a song or game that in one of SA languages the i will ask them  to  transform it or sing it i different languages to enhance understanding and to learn each other's languages. They can critique and transform the song to ensure that it is ethical. They can discuss the topic like can language be a barrier to learning?

Thresholds
Learning about threshold made me to think about the theories like behaviourism whereby a learner is seen and treated as an empty vessel that needs to be filled with information. In that process the learner feel like is in the darkness and is unsure  whether it's going forward or backward because there's too much information that puts a learner in a liminal space. Constructive theory takes the learner out of that darkness through transformation and intergration because you begin to change the way of doing things and you link what you have learned with your past experiences because constructivism is based on buildings from the known to the unknown. Therefore threshold can be defined as enlightenment, a stage where your mind is filled with counterintuitive ideas , then  you move from the darkness to the light as you learn in the process. According to Meyer and Land there's no simple way in learning, because learning  start from easy to difficult mastery of the threshold concept.They argue that threshold concept is a concept that often involves messy journeys of back, forth and across the conceptual terrain. The good thing is that ,as you learn along you transform from the stage of darkness you have a better idea of what you have learned. Once you begin to understand you make connection of the new knowledge with your past experiences, that could be either text to text, world to world connection or life experiences you become well rounded. Once you have mastered that knowledge then it becomes irreversible it's bounded.  This shows that if learning is not understood learners will remain in the darkness and in the liminal space. As a teacher you should strive to bring light to learners by acknowledging they go through different stages of learning and they are individuals with mixed abilities.

Information literacy

1. Th difference between Bibliographic instructions and Information literacy is that; Bibliographic instruction is a term that mostly reference to the use of information resources available from the library. Information literacy is a broad concept that refer to a user's ability to acquire information,  tor identify, locate,evaluate, organise and create new knowledge that can be used to address certain issues. It is also a skill that needs to be enhanced inorder to deal with critical issues of competence in any field. 
2. Factors that led to evaluation of  teacher librarian: 

• Evolving needs of learners
• Developing knowledge building environments 
• Evolving spaceso for learning 
• Evolving learning devices or hardware
• Evolving pedagogy 
• National and international trends that has an impact on all aspects of education. 

Because of the above listed factors teacher librarian play a major role in the design and delivery of a digital literacy information and literacy programmes. 

3.Changes that have occurred in academic library instruction mainly focus on the organisation with understanding environmental demands and constraints on an organisation is essential to understanding organisational functioning even though the environment doesn't affect the organisational designs.

Information literacy theories.
I like the fact that information literacy also focuses on multiple literacies that are based on different schools of thoughts. Schools of thought are learning theories that are validated and tested by the theoriest who wanted to address ways of teaching and learning. These theories are behaviourism, cognitivism and constructivism. I believe that all the three can work well depending on the individual's learning styles. The reason why I say that they can all be considered is that people have different ways of learning and these theories are here to prove that one size fits all style can not address all the learning styles. For example, some learners learn by listening and talking,others by doing/ touching and observing while others learn by doing all. According to Piaget learners learn by exploring the environment which helps them discover new knowledge. Therefore, context and learning cannot be separated because for learning to be meaningful it has to start with what is known then move to the unknown. In South Africa education is in crisis because some of these theories are not applied. From primary school to tertiary institutions learning is more teacher centred than learner centred. If we  we implement Australian or USA curriculum without considering the context learning cannot happen the way it should because we are a diverse nation, and we are different in so many ways. For example in South Africa we have anglonormotive education,  education that does not accormodate non- English speaking learners fully. For example according to Vygotsky for learner's prior knowledge need to be recognised in inorder to take them to the zone of proximal development.In SA contex to know the language they need tof be immersed in that particular language, teachers assume that learners know nothing when they first arrive at school not knowing how to speak English. Language become a barrier to learning if learners are thought in a language they do not understand.Social learning play a major role in this context. Constructivism is a good theory that could work well in learning. In SA it is not yet applied properly because of diversity in backgrounds and the implementation of the curriculum. Our curriculum is pace centred now and it makes it difficult to accormodate all the learning styles, as a result some learners suffer. Our education system is stillmore teacher centred than learner centred.