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Behavioural or Sociocultural approach? Skillset or concept? Information literacy is a complicated and has a diversity of definitions and understanding. What has become apparent to me through reading the literature in this module is the importance of perspective and context. These two factors determine our view of information literacy. If our job as teacher librarians is to prepare students for the workforce or further study, we need to focus on the metacognitive skills that will allow students to be adaptive in the changing information landscape that is determined by the context they will be engaging with it. This will give students a broad skillset that is applicable to them in whatever context they find themselves in.
Information literacy instruction needs to instruct students using a behaviourist approach engaging them in contextual applications of the skills required to engage, but include sociocultural aspects of the world we now live in. Context and purpose of information literacy needs to be visible to our students if we want them to transfer their school based information literacy skills into their wider life.
The aspects of skill transfer or lack of it really interested me. Herring (2010) found that although both teachers and teacher librarians recognised the importance of information literacy skills, there was not a collective understanding of what they were, how they should be taught and reinforced with students (p294). If a school as a whole cannot define what it is they want their students to achieve, how can we ask students to be information literate? As teacher librarians I believe that we can be instrumental in initiating and pursuing that our schools have a whole school approach to information literacy as we are specialist who see the across all curriculum covered in the school. Only when students are getting the same instructions and similar experiences across all classes will they understand that the skills they are learning can be transferable not only across subjects but into their personal lives.
Herring, J. (2010). Year seven students, information literacy skills and transfer: a grounded theory (Doctoral dissertation, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga). Retrieved from http://bilby.unilinc.edu.au:1801/webclient/StreamGate?folder_id=0&dvs=1491002155919~448&usePid1=true&usePid2=true