Information Literacy: a learning-focussed approach

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Information Literacy a learning-focussed approach

• Sharon Markless
• Kings College London
• Senior Associate, Information Management
  Associates
• Independent Consultant

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• It makes no sense to decide how one is going to
  teach before one has made some study of how
  people learn.
• (Eric Sotto When Teaching becomes Learning 1994)
• and yet...
• much information literacy work is planned for
  teaching rather than for learning.

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Sessions I have seen

• Start from lists of skills and strategies that
  users need to know/use
• Content heavy we only get them for a short
  time
• Structured according to the logic of the content
  and in the image of the librarian
• Based on listen, watch, repeat the steps a
  transmission model of teaching librarians claim
  to support independence and activity but deliver
  passive learning
• Ignore students own conceptual frameworks and
  strategies expect them to graft on new
  information

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What are we trying to achieve?

• analytical and critical information users
• problem-solvers, applying strategies, skills and
  concepts appropriately
• Synthesisers, able to see connections
• Constructors of new understanding and meaning
• flexible thinkers
• Is all this possible using a transmission model?
• How do people learn to behave like this?

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• We teachers and others are in the grip of an
  astonishing delusion. We think we can take a
  picture, a structure, a working model of
  something constructed in our minds out of long
  experience and familiarity, and by turning it
  into a string of words or actions transplant it
  whole into the mind of someone else
• 
  
• (John Holt, in Sotto q.v.)

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The way forward?

• A shift in emphasis from teaching to learning
• understand the magnitude of the changes you want
  - what sort of learning?
• genuine curiosity about how learners think about
  and do things start with them
• understand that people learn new strategies/
  behaviours in different ways but there are some
  basic structures/principles
• interactions to reflect appropriate theories and
  principles (what is your role?)

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Some particular challenges in enhancing
Information Literacy

• learners interactions with information are
  complex and not fully understood
• the search process has cognitive and emotional,
  as well as behavioural, aspects
• confusion, hesitation and uncertainty must be
  acknowledged as part of the search process
• students need to own the search process it must
  fit into how they think and operate

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What we need to know about learning

• What factors support effective learning? How can
  we influence them?
• How does learning occur? (Key learning theories
  e.g. construction, problem-solving, building on
  experience, deep v surface)
• Different approaches to learning (styles,
  preferences)
• There is nothing so practical as good theory.
• (Michael Fullan 1991)

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Influences on effective learning

• Relevance
• real needs/ real consequences
• timeliness
• clear achievable goals
• active engagement/challenge
• feedback answers what can I do to improve?
• feeling valued and respected
• ownership/choices/responsibility

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Building on key factors

• engage students in discussion about their
  expectations of the library
• work to meet the information needs and problems
  that students have at the time
• involve students in looking at how they currently
  find things/use information
• focus on how students can become more effective
  and efficient

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Learning theories 1

• Behaviourist
• Focus on skills and behaviour
• Highly structured
• Small sequential steps
• Feedback/reinforcement
• Teacher control
• What is this theory useful for? What are we
  trying to achieve?

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Learning theories 2

• Cognitive
• Focus on meaning and understanding
• Active participation and enquiry
• Problem solving
• Constructing knowledge from
• information
• Resource rich
• Teacher sets up problems/tasks

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What theory underpins your sessions?

• Skinner fixed world of knowledge transmission
  to learners bolt-on
• Vygotsky/Piaget scaffolding zone of proximal
  intervention conceptual development built
  in/embedded
• Bruner construction of meaning discussion
  review and reflection integrated

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Implications of learning as construction for
session design

• Rich, problem-solving environment
• Authentic contexts and tasks rather than
  predetermined instructional sequences
• Reflective practice
• Focus on knowledge construction not reproduction
  (deep versus surface learning)

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Surface learning v deep learning

• Surface learning recall, recite, repeat
• structure based on content
• transmission of lots of knowledge
• didactic strategies
• Deep learning critical analysis,
  understanding/insight, application of knowledge,
  problem solving
• participation/ activity essential
• Recap, summarize, choose key learning points
• careful structuring to include reflection and
  analysis
• Different approaches for different ends.

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Experiential learning cycle
The experiential learning cycle
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Scaffolding

• The most important single factor influencing
  learning is what the learner already knows
  ascertain this then you can determine where the
  gaps are and teach him accordingly
  (Ausubel 1968)
• Establish what meanings and concepts the
  learner has already generated from their
  backgrounds, abilities and experiences and then
  find ways of helping them generate new meanings
  and concepts. This is where teaching starts.
  (Wittrock 1986)

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Problem solving

• Adults learn from problems rather than from
  subjects. (Daines 1992)
• A good teacher will be able to clarify the
  nature of the problem and have the generosity to
  give learners the opportunity to discover the
  solution for themselves. The only way of really
  learning something is to grapple actively with it
  a teachers task is to tell learners what to
  look for, without telling them what to see
  (Sotto, op.cit.)

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Setting Problems

• devise questions to which learners seek answers
  using their experience, existing strategies and
  extra high quality support material that you
  provide (e.g. instructions, worksheets, diagrams,
  information on search engines).
• encourage learners to discuss answers in order to
  clarify their ideas, analyse their strategies, or
  formulate questions to ask you
• choose questions/tasks carefully and monitor
• resist the urge to get in there and do something

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Learning approaches and preferences

• Research into learning styles
• cognitive styles
  
• A useful tool for reflection on ones own
  teaching practice and beliefs about good
  teaching and learning - how individuals prefer
  to learn can heavily influence how they teach.
• A framework to think about the range of teaching
  strategies used and why things might not be
  working a basis on which to introduce more
  variety into teaching.

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Learning preferences

• Activist
  Reflector
• Random learners open ended self-directed
• Pragmatist Theorist
• Logical sequential learners clear structure and
  direction

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Approaches to learning

• Abstract Concrete
• Diverger Converger
• Scanner . Focuser
• Holistic . Serialistic
• Reflective .. Impulsive

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Promoting the educational role of the librarian

• Planning for learning
• Real evaluation/reflection on how students have
  learned
• Action research
• Analysis of e-learning materials

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• Key principles of learning provide an exciting
  basis from which a library programme can be
  developed. They define the functions and roles of
  the library team they become the basis of
  criteria for the development of resources they
  shape the allocation of physical space
• Ross Todd, Virtual Paper at IASL conference,
  2001