Part C- Critical reflection

This subject has helped me recognise the complexity of the role of the TL, particularly during the latter part of the subject. One of the most important roles that the TL plays is highlighted in Modules 5 and 6. The modules emphasise the need for TLs to develop the skills students need to fully participate and function in a society driven by an everchanging information landscape (FitzGerald, 2015). As a teacher “information literacy” was always a skill I assumed students already possessed. Looking back at my time as a classroom teacher, informative text types were often the most difficult and tedious texts for me to teach as I remember students simply using the first link in a “Google” search to copy, paste and present information. I never truly felt that students were engaged in an authentic learning experience, rather, it felt shallow as students often had little understanding of the topic or issue. I just assumed that eventually as students got older, they would “magically” become more competent in seeking and using information.

It is through scouring the modules and conducting research for this assessment, that I realised the key to successfully building students’ information literacy skills is through collaboration. In this blog post, I mentioned the need for the TLs to be active member of the school community and make themselves visible to all staff (Al Muti, 2021, August 9) . This will ensure that the TL is approachable and able to assist classroom teachers in building a curriculum that encompasses Information literacy skills underpinned by an Information Literacy (IL) model to suit the needs of the school community (Landoy et al., 2020). Further, by facilitating and promoting an IL model, TLs ensure that teachers are able to witness the full benefits and advantages of the process on student learning (Lance & Maniotes, 2020).

My changing view of the role of the TL has certainly expanded since starting this subject. In fact, I have listed “collaborating with teachers to embed a guided inquiry model in my teaching” as one of my Performance and Development process (PDP) goals.  In this blog post, I note that my school is in need of an information literacy policy (Al Muti, 2021, September 20). This subject has empowered me to believe that I can be an educational leader in collaborating with colleagues to push for a school wide implementation of an IL model that caters to the context and needs of my school. I realised through this subject how I would like to focus less on the tedious administrative tasks such as cataloguing and borrowing, and more time on searching and learning about different IL models.

Assessment 3 has certainly given me a taste of how a guided inquiry (GI) model would look like in my school. I have gained a lot of insight on how the GI model can help students become proficient at deriving information and using their Critical and Creative Thinking skills to tweak and refine information to meet the success criteria. The constructivist nature of GI allows students to take responsibility for their own learning, make connections and transfer knowledge to new subjects and scenarios (Maniotes & Kuhlthau, 2014). In addition, the use of the Information Search Process which lies at the core of the GI model allows students to prepare themselves for the emotions they are likely to encounter and the challenges this may pose in their GI journey.  Anticipating student behaviours and attitudes is one of the major benefits of the GIDP model in my opinion as it allows the teaching team to prepare and intervene accordingly. I am very excited to implement this unit of work in my school and believe that this will be the start of my GI journey.

References

Fitzgerald, L. (2015). Guided inquiry in practice. Scan, 34(4), 16-27. https://education.nsw.gov.au/content/dam/main-education/teaching-and-learning/professional-learning/scan/media/documents/vol-34/Research-Guided-inquiry-in-practice.pdf

Lance, K. C., & Maniotes, L. K. (2020). Linking librarians, inquiry learning, and information literacy. Phi Delta Kappan. https://kappanonline.org/linking-librarians-inquiry-learning-information-literacy-lance-maniotes/

Landoy, A., Popa, D., & Repanovici, A. (2020). Collaboration in designing a pedagogical approach in information literacy. Springer Texts in Education.

Maniotes, L. K., & Kuhlthau, C. C. (2014). Making the shift. Knowledge quest, 43(2), 8-17. https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/docview/1620878836?accountid=10344&pq-origsite=primo