The Big 6

In this module we learned about the Big 6, a scheme for problem-solving. As an educational tool the Big 6 is a helpful organizing scheme for lesson planning. First, it forces you as a teacher to think through what you want your students to do. Second, it teaches the students a process for handling and processing information to produce a desired result. It is very similar to the McCain model (4Ds), but McCain deals a lot with setting up learning situations as problems. The Big6 assumes you already have a problem. The Big6 model deals more with finding and evaluating the sources of information, which is one of the most important steps for our google-prone students.
I will use the Big6 to organize and plan projects. I probably will not convert to this structure at this point in the year, as I have already begun using the 4D model, but in the future I can see using it. Definitely I will use the lesson plan model as a tool, and share it with other colleagues.
One concern I had doing the Big6 lesson plan was the amount of comment and explanation I had for the first to and last of the steps. There has been so much discussion in this module about the need to help students evaluate sources, find good sources, etc. Yet I look at mine and it seems like a very non-descript part of the process. Perhaps this is because I haven’t walked through it with my students. I have always provided them great detail on what I expect from them, evaluation criteria, and project details. I have not worked as much with this class on where to find information and how to evaluate it. Perhaps that is the missing piece for me.