Introduction to the Learning/Evaluation Component

Evaluation of information is not a stand-alone process, although it often has been treated as a separate subject. In order to evaluate information critically, it is important to repeatedly go through the cycle of searching, organizing, reflecting, and reasoning. Such repetition in itself is a learning process, because you learn as you evaluate. The rationale is simple: you need information to evaluate information, but you need to understand the information before you can use it as a tool for evaluation. The more you learn, the more resourceful you become, and more holistic your evaluation will be.

This component proposes a sequenced combination of learning strategies (concept mapping, mental imagery and narrative (talking aloud)) to accommodate different learning styles. These combinations of learning strategies are intended to help learners engage intuitively in their own unique forms of intelligence.

Not all learners learn the same way; some may not prefer to use the learning strategies or the sequences proposed in this tutorial. However, it is beneficial to become familiar with different ways to extract meaning, to organize and to evaluate the retrieved information. Such experience may help learners gain more insight about the ways they deal with information. This sequenced combination of learning strategies allows learners to tell stories constructed from retrieved information at least three times. Repetition may prompt learners to look more deeply into how they deal with information and to re-evaluate their information processing methods.