When I think of the word ‘information’ I think of the knowledge, understanding and skills that are presented to me in a variety of formats. These formats can be visual, text, aural. Increasingly the information we have access to is multimodal.

I hadn’t thought about approaches to information. Though I dare say we consume information with these approaches but on a sub-conscious level.

What are those approaches I hear you ask?
Behaviourist, sociocultural, phenomenography approaches.

The behaviourist approach lends itself to a fairly self explanatory definition. The behaviour in which one approaches and uses information to build on their skills from a range of sources. It is interesting to see how the Australian and New Zealand Information Literacy framework clearly illustrates how the information gained is used and built on which lends itself to the concept of lifelong learning.

The sociocultural approach deals with the aquisition of information. How do I aquire information? I mentioned earlier that information can be found and consumed in many different ways. Listening to audio podcasts, reading text in papers or books, viewing a multimodal webpage, immersing oneself in an interactive experience are all forms of knowledge attainment. This is a valid illustration of the sociocultural approach.

Phenomonography. Such an interesting word. My understanding of phenomenography is that it is the method whith which one interprets and understands information. By interpreting, analysing and reflecting on the information gained, one has gone through a process that spurs on further investigative projects.

With these approaches in mind, I then begin to think which of these approaches are my students using? Are there gaps in their aquisition of information? What can I do to ensure all students are not only gaining information, but interpreting and being critical in their analysis to apply new information and skills to other areas of their learning. Now I am understanding the bigger picture of information literacy and the importance for the TL to scaffold and provide learning and immersive opportunities for students to build on their skills.

I’ve always used the term ‘lifelong learning’. And I like to think I understood that term. But understanding these approaches has shown me that there are aspects to learning that come together to form an overarching idea. A process of development that occurs over a period of time and should be facilitated correctly throughout a students journey in education.