Welcome

Hello. Ready for an overview? Let’s start with the goals of these learning experiences: 

1. This age of information is bizarre and hard to navigate. We want to help you be a disciple of learning. We want you to be a seeker of truth and a compassionate, informed human being. Because planet earth needs more of that. 

2. We hope to change the way you view research because the way you view research has everything to do with the ease of completing your assignment as well as the suit you will gain from doing it. We want to make the process pain free and rewarding. 

3. Our final goal is that you finish these experiences with concrete skills to help you in your college career and future learning pursuits. Upon completion you’ll know how to evaluate sources, navigate databases, find interesting and cutting edge information, and more. 

So how will this happen? We’ll look at best practices. There will be some stuff to read, some stuff to watch, and some stuff to do. Mix it all together with your conscious participation and you’ll  finish as a changed human. – Okay, maybe that was a little cheesy, but we do hope you gain something from this. We’re not here to make you busy. 

In fact, everything we ask you to do will be directly related to making progress on your paper. If we ask you to type something, it’s because we know you can use it on your paper. We’re here to help. (At least that’s the hope. If we fail, give us feedback.) Anyways, enough delay: let’s get started. 

1. Get an overview for these learning experiences

2. Be humble

Intellectual Humility

Ready for a game? Complete this quiz, and then we’ll chat. (This quiz was created by the News Literacy Project.)

So how'd you do? 100%?

This quiz highlights that our assumptions are often incorrect. Even things we think we know—like really, really know—are incorrect.

So, in our search for wisdom, learning, and truth (see D&C 109:7), it’s important to practice humility. Consider this verse from the Book of Mormon: 

“O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not” (2 Nephi 9:28, emphasis ours).

In the words of Elizabeth Mancuso, a psychology professor, “Learning requires the humility to realize one has something to learn.” (TA, AG).

We want to share a few ideas with you that we’ve taken from Adam Grant’s book Think Again. In this book, Grant has a proposition or thesis. He wants us to shift the way we think about learning. Here’s a quote: “Intelligence is traditionally viewed as the ability to think and learn. Yet in a turbulent world, there’s another set of skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn” (2, emphasis ours).

Grant points out the irony that we so readily update trivial things like our clothes and phones, but we rarely update things as significant as our beliefs and world views. One of the problems with our current information climate is that people stubbornly stick to their beliefs. This leads to divisions, closed minds, and tensions. Wouldn’t it be healthy for us all to eat some humble pie and realize that we still have a lot to learn? “After all, the purpose of learning isn’t to affirm our beliefs; it’s to evolve our beliefs” (26).

Modes

Assignment

Next