This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Having worked in libraries for 30 years, I have a very good understanding of information literacy. And a pretty good idea about how school leaders and teachers generally have very little understanding about Information Literacy and how it can empower the learners that they teacher every day.
The modules on Information Literacy added a little bit to my understanding, introducing me to a few different models. In my opinion, the model is way less important than consistent and enthusiastic support from leadership and engagement with teachers and teaching teams. The key to improving information literacy is a whole school approach, and without the support and time to collaborate with colleagues it can be like rolling a brick uphill with a toothpick. Not just can be. It IS like rolling a brick uphill. With a broken toothpick.
The infinite loop of the six-step ‘The Information Process (ISP)’ is the model that seemed most useful to me way back when I was completing my teacher-librarianship degree in the late 1980s and early 90s, and I still think it’s the most comprehensive whilst also being easy to understand and develop over time with students. Simple steps with complex permutations. I like that combination of simplicity for learners and complexity for students who think they seen it allllllll before.
It’s hard for me to comment on an ’emerging’ understanding when it’s not ’emerging’. What I can comment on is the reinvigoration that I feel for Information Literacy, and this is partly driven by working in a school where the research process is explicitly and uncompromisingly embraced and mandated. I highly recommend working in an International Baccalaureate school if you really want to change students’ relationship with information and change the ways you collaborate with teachers to embed skills that will encourage communicators who are thinkers and inquirers, who search for knowledge in an open-minded, principled and balanced manner, who take risks, who have empathy for the views of others, and who can present information after reflecting on their perspective and how that might effect their understanding of those presented by other people.
The most important aspect of Information Literacy for students and teachers (this is key – I’ll explain later) is having Information Integrity and Honesty. Whose information or work have I used? Where did I find that work? How has that work shaped my thinking – both positively and negatively? How do I acknowledge its affect on my thinking? An understanding of the ethical ramifications of information use is essential for students and teachers (see? I’m mentioning it again! Important). Not just copyright, but reuse of peer work, purchasing essays, and intellectual property theft. Did you know that if you create a new plant the plant is copyrighted? True story!
Now, here’s the important bit. Growing and maintaining an information literacy relationship with teachers and teaching teams is key. Because young people look up to old people. Always. Sure, they sass you in the classroom, refuse to hand work in, talk when you are trying to explain things.
And they are watching. They watch us navigate the information landscape. They see us reuse images without attribution. They note it when we don’t include citations and reference lists in our rubrics and assessment criteria. They see us skim over their poorly paraphrased passage, or the completely out-of-character prose. They’re not stupid. It behoves us as educators to provide students with good information literacy and integrity role-modelling.
In my submission for Assessment 2 I posited this conundrum: why is it that teachers, who have been students in tertiary education and required to submit assignments that follow strict rules about academic honesty, why is it that they don’t insist on the same for their students? I think the answer is that, previously, it was a chore that seemed to have no other purpose than to make a students life a misery! As evidenced by the Academic Integrity unit that we now all have to complete, citation has become not just a chore. It’s an ethical response to developing our knowledge.
And that can only be a good thing.