Developing an IL course for teacher education

students in Greece

Evangelia Bougatzeli, Dept. of Primary Education, AUTh

Aspasia Togia, Dept. of Library Science & Information Systems, ATEI of Thessaloniki,

Foteini Papadimitriou,

Dept. of Primary Education, AUTh

Information literacy (IL) can be described as the knowledge of commonly

used research techniques, that is the set of abilities to:

identify what information is needed,

understand how the information is organized,

identify the best sources of information for a given need,

locate those sources,

evaluate the sources critically,

share that information.

Τhe Alexandria Proclamation of 2005 states that “IL empowers people in all

walks of life to seek, evaluate, use and create information effectively to achieve

their personal, social, occupational and educational goals. It is a basic

human right in a digital world and promotes social inclusion in all nations.”

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According to ancient Greeks, pedagogy implies children guidance. Μodern school theories also admit that teachers have to guide their students through various learning activities.

But how can teachers guide their students in the Information Age, if they themselves are not suitably prepared?

So, the question of how to be able to effectively and critically navigate through the current information labyrinth, becomes crucial especially for future teachers. Their IL competence is fundamental not only for their academic achievement but also for their everyday successful teaching that ultimately affect their future students.

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Yet, experience and research show that future teachers often enter teaching without the necessary IL skills and knowledge.

In an attempt to fill this gap and acknowledging the importance of IL competence, the Primary Education Department of the School of Education at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece has integrated into its curriculum an IL course for all students since academic year 2010-11.

Earlier in spring 2010, there was a pilot phase where IL elements were taught as introductory part of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) course for the 2nd year teacher students.

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Some remarks on the Greek educational context

Before we proceed, it is worthwhile to mention that elementary teacher education in Greece takes place at university level and consists of an 8-semester study programme.

In regards to primary and secondary education, we have to note that:

The curriculum is national, compulsory and uniform. It is designed, formulated and controlled by the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs. The curriculum is more like a syllabus, as subject matter and number of hours put into each content area are described in detail.

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There is a single compulsory textbook for each subject approved by the Ministry. Each textbook contains the topics and lessons to be taught, the questions to be posed and problems to be solved by the pupils, as well as assessment and evaluation sheets. Textbooks cover a great deal of subject matter in a –more or less- encyclopaedic way. Additionally, there is almost complete lack of school libraries which are considered the traditional information inquiry environments.

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As such, the teaching environment in primary and secondary education, is dominated by a reproductive, knowledge transmission-oriented philosophy and the teachers’ anxiety to cover the textbook material.

Within this context, it is realistic to argue, that students tend to enter teacher education university departments with a teacher-centered philosophy, which supports an information transmission and an examinations-oriented model of education.

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General characteristics of the course

The so called “IL and the sources’ use” course is:

compulsory for all students (they are advised to attend it during their first year of study), offered in both academic semesters, non credit / fail-pass system, fully electronic (it is hosted to the University’s Library web-based course management system, so that each student can review the material with his/her time any time).

The IL course consists of 5 two-hour weekly workshops in a computer lab plus one-hour visit to the School of Education Library.

Students are divided alphabetically in groups of about 25 persons. Since its beginning in 2010-11, totally 1064 students attended the course, which means an average number of about 350 students/year.

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The IL course design is based to ACRL1 Information Literacy Standards for Teacher Education (2011).

Still, it takes strongly into account the above mentioned characteristics of the Greek educational system which affect largely the students’ information inquiry attitudes and behaviour.

Due to lack of time and the big number of students enrolled, it is impossible to go in depth in topics like

organizing, analyzing, processing, synthesizing and presenting information.

These topics are better understood into the context of other courses like the ICT course and the various assignments that students submit during their study. 1. American College and Research Libraries

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As a result of the above, emphasis has been given to ACRL IL standards number one, two, five and six, namely to topics like:

Defining and articulating the need for information.

Selecting strategies to fulfill the information need.

Selecting tools to find information.

Locating and selecting information.

Evaluating individual pieces of information.

Evaluating and revising the overall information seeking process.

Ethically using and disseminating of information.

These topics constitute the content of the 5 workshops of the IL course.

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Description of the implementation of the IL course

The 1st workshop begins with a brief introduction on the concepts of

the information itself, the information flow and the information literacy.

Then, the students are required to form small groups of 2-3 persons and agree upon a main idea that interests them, so they can be adequately motivated.

From this main idea of interest, the task is to : end with a manageable research theme, formulate the title of their proposed research find out keywords/phrases, synonyms, alternatives etc.

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During the next workshops the students approach sources with the purpose of gathering information about their selected theme.

Finally they submit a report of their search steps in 6 sources chosen by the tutor plus any other source relevant to their search topic. Only few of them search any source of their choise in addition to the preselected ones. When they are asked, they claim that they find the 6 sources adequate for their information needs. Still the tutor believes that their behaviour can be explained partly by their overall lack of exploring mood concerning the information sources.

This written compulsory report gives them the opportunity to reflect to what they have learned during the IL course with the purpose of making justifiable decisions with regards to their initial information need.

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In the 2nd and 3rd workshops the students become familiar with :

the different types and formats of information sources,

the structure of a written research paper,

the sources that the Aristotle University Library website (www.lib.auth.gr), makes available to them, especially those specific to the field of education.

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During these workshops the students discuss with peers and the tutor about the appropriateness of their initial concepts and terms, their search strategies and the potential of the given sources (advanced search strategies, peer review, thesauri etc.).

The purpose here is to : inform the students about the available sources and their usefulness for their academic work, make them reflect on their information gathering process, as in each step they are forced to justify their decisions and refine and/or review their initial information need.

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During the 4th workshop the students learn about :

the evaluation criteria for information sources (reliability, validity, accuracy, authority, timeliness and point of view or bias etc.) Emphasis is given on the evaluation criteria of web sources and how we can recognize and determine them.

The groups choose 1 from a list of 15 websites chosen by the tutor, and work together and with the tutor to evaluate it by answering an evaluation questionnaire online. Then they briefly present their chosen website to the others according to the above mentioned evaluation criteria.

A second compulsory task assigned to students in the framework of the course is the completion of this evaluation questionnaire for a website of students groups’ choice. The vast majority of them admits that it is the first time they consider a website in a way like this.

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During the 5th workshop the students learn about : citing the sources, plagiarism, ethical use and dissemination of information.

They do relevant exercises, navigate through a website about plagiarism and discuss about ethical uses of information by putting themselves on the side of the author.

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Participants, measure and evaluation of the IL course

After 3 years of implementation, the tutor attempted to capture learners’ perspectives and reactions to the course. During spring semester of 2013 and before the end of the 5th workshop, an evaluation of 13 questions, was conducted. These questions were part of a relevant questionnaire, which was produced by the Ministry of Education attempting to assess the quality of the academic studies.

The 130 students participated in the course were asked to give considerable thought to all the questions before answering. They responded to a 5-point Likert type scale ranging from “totally disagree”=1 to “totally agree”=5. The responses were anonymous

In total 115 participants responded.

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Results

1st Question:

Were the purpose and the goals of the course explicit and comprehensible?

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2nd Question:

Does the material covered meet the objectives of the course?

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3rd Question:

Was the material taught well organized?

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4th Question:

Did the material used help in better understanding?

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5th Question:

Do the knowledge acquired in the course associate with other courses in the curriculum?

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6th Question:

Is the knowledge acquired in the course useful for you?

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7th Question:

Does the tutor organize the presentation of matter well?

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8th Question:

Does she initiate the interest about the object of the course?

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9th Question:

Does she analyze and present the concepts in a simple and interesting way through the use of examples?

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10th Question:

Does she encourage students to express queries and questions in order to develop their critical thinking?

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11th Question:

Is she consistent with her obligations (e.g. presence in classes, hours working with students)?

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12th Question:

Is she generally accessible to students;

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13th Question:

Is the equipment of the classroom where the course takes place sufficient?

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Discussion and conclusion

According to the evaluation results, students realize that the IL course is not an end in itself but an introductory stage in which students learn to utilize IL tools within a context and build on their IL confidence.

The necessity of including this preparatory course into the teacher education program has been repeatedly stressed by the students themselves.

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At the beginning students have difficulties to conceptualize their information seeking process as a cyclic one and to critical justify every step they do. They consider difficult to:build focused and manageable search plans,find and select appropriate search terms and phrases,formulate and reformulate keyword strings & statements, evaluate the relevance & value of the sources retrieved.

For developing students’ analytical, reflective and conceptual capabilities in relation to the process of information retrieval, the tutor employs IL tools never before, but always after the identification of informational needs as these arise.

Gradually students realize that searching entails all actions and decisions involved in solving a search problem. The first of the two final tasks forces them to reflect on and appreciate the whole process of their searching.

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In addition, students’ experience and familiarity with the overall process of information retrieval and library use seem to affect crucially their information-searching behavior of electronic sources, as well.

Coming from an educational context that appreciates the one and only information source, the student teachers of the IL course have little experience in terms of seeking and retrieving information from printed or ‘traditional’ sources, which were meant to help them in getting basic information about their specific study topics.

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The whole IL course philosophy focuses on the process of teaching and learning rather than the provision of instruction and the delivery of pre-specified content. Therefore, it is mainly project-based, has a problem-solving nature and involves resource-based learning approaches.

Concerning the assessment method, the two compulsory group tasks at the end of the course are concentrated on the improvement of practice and justifiable argument rather than the evaluation of the outcome. Although students find it difficult at the beginning, the tutor insists on keeping asking them “why” in every step of information gathering in order to force them to reflect on the process of searching more than on the final results.

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Students report that the learning environment is supportive, free and non-threatening. Help, support and guidance from peers and tutor, and above all discussion between groups and tutor, are greatly valued.

Trainees are encouraged to work collaboratively in the pursuit of common learning aims, to share ideas, have discussions and most importantly, enjoy themselves.

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In conclusion it seems realistic to argue that in today’s information labyrinth we have to work towards initiatives that make IL visible and admittable to every step of our life as workers, citizens and life long learners.

After all IL is tied closely with thinking and arguing in a critical way, therefore it is tied closely not only with critical thinking but also with critical pedagogy, as well…

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