Month: September 2023

TLs can use the specialisation skills of Information Literacy and Guided Inquiry to help students find their ‘lightbulb’ moment.

The Guided Inquiry Design Framework is a process that helps students reach that lighbulb moment. It helps them formulate their own research task and develop a focus question. It is a way to immerse students in a topic by responding to curiosity and individual interest to develop background knowledge in order to create meaning, but the individualised question will discourage a simple ‘cut and paste’ approach to learning. The final evaluation allows students to participate in a meta-cognitive activity to reflect and evaluate how they learned rather than what they learned.

Guided Inquiry is an amazing learning tool with many steps: starting from Open (wonder and curiosity); Immerse (background knowledge); Explore (an explosion of information); Identify (develop inquiry question); Gather (deeper reflection); Create (Communicate meaning); Share (Discussion) and; Evaluate (Self-Reflection) (Teachthought, 2020). The TL can be particularly helpful in the Explore, Identify and Gather sections of this task.

Another tool to use when formulating a Guided Inquiry unit is the development of student Information Literacy (IL). One Information Literacy system is the SCONUL Seven Pillars of Information Literacy (2011). This  creates a seven pillar process that is both circular and interconnected as students can often be working on several aspects at the same time, or not at all. The processes correspond to the GI process in that they encourage students to start broadly and then dig deeper. The circular process begins with: Identify; Scope (assess current knowledge and information gaps); Plan (be more specific in information gathering); Gather (collection of material); Evaluate (reliability and usefulness of material); Manage (bibliography); Present (summarise and synthesise).

My understanding of the vital importance of Information Literacy in the 21st Century has been reinforced by the following readings. The Garrison and Fitzgerald article (2017) discusses Kuhlthau’s Information Search Process which helped the students chunk information into subheadings to be able to make better meaning of the material, and also to find the best inquiry question. For example, ‘Tinkerbell commented that she learnt to “make it broad and then specify as you go along”‘ while Iggy noted, ‘it kind of trains your brain to do research properly’.  While the embedded reflection activity helped them to consistently readjust their thought processes by making their thinking visible.

Josephine Larative (2019) gives some IL advice:

1.      Writing search terms and queries, being aware of the web address and type of website, use of quotation marks for exact phrase searching, and use of ‘find’;
2.      Spelling and comprehension focus;
3.      Additional skills required extended to multimodal literacy such as inferring differing fonts, colours, styles of text and use of hyperlinks;
4.      Knowledge of the type of website and navigation within a website.

The TL can obviously be a co-collaborator in many stages of this continuum by accessing a variety of types of information that is best suited to the year level of students; ranging from academic articles for senior students and information picture books for junior students as well as a variety of digital resource links.

SCONUL Working Group (2011). Seven Principles of Information Literacy. https://www.sconul.ac.uk/sites/default/files/documents/coremodel.pdf

Teachthought, 2020, July 8. 6 Strategies For Creating An Inquiry-Driven Classroom. TeachThought. https://www.teachthought.com/learning/inquiry-driven/

Teaching is a lonely profession. This might seem like a paradoxical statement because teachers spend every day with up to 25 children in a primary classoom and up to 150 students in a high school and see up to 100 other staff members a day. But still, it is lonely when it is just you and the students during the day and you and planning or marking at night.

The key to avoid this is collaboration, genuine and active collaboration within subjects helps ease the load and create more inspiring learning experience.  However, taken a step further and include collaboration between subjects and you have a ‘best practice’ approach for the whole school. This is where the TL can really shine.

The TL can actively lead collaboration through working hroughout faculties to help build ACARA cross-curricula priorities and general capabilities (Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority [ACARA], n.d.). This can be done through developing Inquiry units that excite and engage students to persue their own interests while developing a real-world end product (Youth Learn, 2016).

The benefits of Inquiry Learning for student outcomes are enormous. It can embolden the 21st Century learner and the model is flexible and matches all curriculum areas, it promotes deep thinking, it encourages student collaboration, creativity and critical thinking and it encourages students to the reflect on their learning through metacognition strategies. (Together for Learning, n.d.)

This is a challenge for me as a new TL in a new school as I will have to create trusting and professionally respectful relationships across all curriculum area so tht I can encourage staff to take advantage of the skills and the resources that I have to offer. I also have to convince them to spend time and energy into something that can add value add to their course when they have been managing quite well on their own. I do not think that this type of collaboration can relieve the time management for teachers, I do believe that it can create enriched learning opportunities and more directed outcomes for students.

And when that happens, the TL and teacher can embolden students to create new learning, personal skills and a positive outlook.