May 2019 archive

The light bulb moment

Image: Pixabay

As educators, we often talk about light bulb moments. They are the moments when we can see a fundamental shift in our student’s understanding and at that moment, we can see that they understand whatever it is they are trying to master. That bright smile that moves across the face of a student when they realise that they finally understand…that smile always makes me smile, even now as I type I can’t help but smile. I love those moments. Those moments are why I entered the teaching profession and they are why I stay. As a mother, I also get to see these moments in my children and I know that I am blessed to be able to see an abundance of these moments…and often the frustration that comes before it too.

It’s easy to forget how powerful these moments can be to a child who has struggled with a concept for a while and then finally gets it, or who even makes a new discovery on their own. I was reminded this week of that feeling when I too had my own light bulb moment. My TL journey has been an interesting one and one of a mixed bag of emotions. From that feeling of elation upon being accepted into the course, to frustration and stress during the assignment writing stage. But as I’ve begun to ‘re-calibrate’ (in my lecturer’s words) and have figured out how to fit study into my already busy life, I have begun to embrace my learning with a sense of calm and purpose. It’s here in this calm that I have begun to make connections between readings, modules and subjects. These connections are allowing me to see the bigger picture instead of small, fragmented pieces that don’t fit together, like in the early stages of my study. For me, it was as simple as recognizing the name of an important document in an e-mail and instinctively knowing what that document was without having to ‘Google’ it. It’s hearing a term or a process and finally understanding what it means and how it fits into the context of the TL role. It’s reading an article and being able to resonate with it, and then wanting to read more because now I finally understand.

Despite being at the very beginning of this journey, its comforting to know that those links are finally beginning to form. The future is looking bright!

Information literacy – an overview

If one searches for a definition for ‘information literacy’, they might be surprised to find that there are many different definitions of the term. It would appear that the way in which one defines the term differs depending on the context and purpose of the information. Furthermore, as the information environment changes and evolves, so too will the way in which we determine what constitutes information literacy.

The Behaviourist Approach to information literacy is concerned with the acquisition of skills and competencies required to be information literate. These skills include:

  • Recognise a need for information
  • Locate and evaluate the information
  • The ability to retrieve information and store it
  • The ability to use the information in an ethical manner
  • Use the information to create new knowledge and communicate this knowledge with others (Catts & Lau, 2008, p. 12)

On the other hand, the Sociocultural Approach focuses on the construction of knowledge through the interaction with the information environment and a shared experience (Lloyd, 2007). Collaboration and shared ways of interacting are communicating are considered paramount in the development of literacy within this approach (Talja & Lloyd, 2010). This approach challenges the traditional school of thought which assumes that learning is highly individual process.

Perhaps one of the challenges for educators is to use a combination of both approaches to developing informational literacy that will enable their students to become life-long learners and responsible and ethical users of information.

References

Catts, R., & Lau, J. (2008). Towards Information Literacy Indicators, UNESCO: Paris.

Lloyd, A. (2007).  Recasting information literacy as sociocultural practice: Implications for library and information science researchers. Information Research, 12(4).

Talja, S. & Lloyd, A. (2010). Integrating theories of learning, literacies and information practices. In Talja, S. & Lloyd, A. (2010). Practising information literacy: Bringing theories of learning, practice and information literacy together. WaggaWagga, NSW: Centre for Information Studies. pp. ix-xviii.