Information Literacy Instruction: Reaching Beyond Our Walls

Rhodora Espiritu-Valdez, RL

Librarian, De La Salle Santiago Zobel

*Paper presented during the Philippine Association of School Librarians, Inc. (PASLI) National Conference on “Getting Your School Library Future Ready” on April 26, 2018 at Bayfront Hotel, Cebu City

What are Future Ready Skills?

Future Ready, or 21st Century Skills, are skills that people use to participate, engage, and enable people to thrive in the 21st century.

LITERACY

ability to "read, write, spell, listen, and speak"

NUMERACY

• Numeracy complements literacy and is sometimes called 'mathematical literacy’.

• Being numerate means being able to reason with numbers and other mathematical concepts and to apply these in a range of contexts and to solve a variety of problems.

SCIENTIFIC LITERACY

• Scientific literacy is the knowledge and understanding of scientific concepts and processes required for personal decision making, participation in civic and cultural affairs, and economic productivity.

• Understanding the physical and natural world around us requires a firm grasp of science literacy.

DIGITAL LITERACY

"Digital literacy is the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills.

FINANCIAL LITERACY

Financial literacy is the ability to understand how money works: how someone makes, manages and invests it, and also expends.

CULTURAL/CIVIC LITERACY

• Cultural Literacy. The ability to analyse and understand a particular society or culture.

• Civic Literacy is the knowledge of how to actively participate and initiate change in your community and the greater society

Unleashing the instructional leadership of librarians to foster Future Ready schools

Two guiding questions to Future Ready Librarians :

1. How can librarians and libraries support Future Ready schools?

2. How can librarians and libraries become more Future Ready?

Whose Job Is It To Teach Students

Information Literacy?

Collaboration between teachers and librarians is essential in ensuring that students gain access to physical and online resources and the skills needed to research correctly.

Benefits to Students By engaging in information literacy instruction students will:

• Conduct better research.

• Improve information discovery skills.

• Improve evaluation of information skills.

• Learn about plagiarism prevention.

• Develop critical thinking skills through deeper learning

Benefits to Faculty

By engaging in Information Literacy Program faculty:

• Will spend less time teaching research skills and more time teaching content.

• Develop more effective assignments (e.g., projects, research papers, etc.).

• Receive better, more developed research assignment from students.

Library Information Literacy Program

Faculty librarians collaborate with faculty to design assignments that are more effective in evaluating student learning than the traditional 20-page research paper.

Information literacy instruction is a thoughtfully planned learning activity.

Instruction is customized to the user’s way of finding, evaluating, and using information

Faculty and students can meet with faculty librarians one-on-one or in small groups to learn how to locate and analyze information.

Faculty librarians’ curriculum map information discovery skills to programs to reduce repetitiveness and increase understanding of higher level critical thinking skills.

Program Options

Instructional Design

Collaborate with faculty librarians on developing effective assignments and assessments.

Instructional Engagement Support

Develop online research guides.

Create online tutorials.

Integrate information literacy and library access into Blackboard.

Research Consultations

Faculty and students can schedule one-on-one and small group meetings with a faculty librarian to discuss assignments, research questions, relevant information resources, etc

Basics of Information Literacy Assessment

(Educational) Assessment

• Documenting knowledge

• Documenting skills

• Documenting attitudes

• Documenting beliefs

Start With Your Goals

• What do you hope your

students will learn?

• What would you like your students to do?

• What type of experience do you hope your students will have?

SMART Goals Make

Good Learning

Outcomes

Formative vs. Summative

Formative is done throughout the learning process and is diagnostic in nature.

For example: asking students to nod if they "get it"

For example: walking around during group work and commenting on progress

Summative is carried out at the end of a unit to measure learning; often tied to a grade.

o For example: final assignment

o For example: post-test/quiz

Objective vs. Subjective

Objective assessment is based in criteria that can be measured as right or wrong.

o For example: multiple choice

o For example: matching questions

Subjective assessment is more open ended and requires interpretation by the instructor.

o For example: open ended essays

o For example: pair/share activities during class

Examples of Assessment

• Post-test

• Rubrics

• Pair/Share

• In class worksheets

• Concept maps

• In class presentations

• Peer review

• Learning logs

• Muddiest Point

PAIR/SHARE Think-pair-share can be a great technique for facilitating discussion. It is a quick and simple technique to adopt. Faculty present a question or challenge, students reflect quietly and then partner with someone to discuss. A think-pair-share session could be 5 to 15 minutes.

IN CLASS WORKSHEETS

CONCEPT MAPS Concept maps are drawings or diagrams used to help students organize and represent knowledge of a subject. Concept maps begin with a main idea (or concept) and then branch out to show how that main idea can be broken down into specific topics.

LEARNING LOGS

Assessment vs. Evaluation

Assessment

• expected skills are stated explicitly prior to instruction

• ability of students to demonstrate these skills or knowledge is then measured following the instruction session to assess effectiveness.

Evaluation

• involves rating the effectiveness and general performance of services, programs, courses or instructors, in order to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement.

IL RESOURCES: ACRL

IL RESOURCES: UNESCO

IL Resources: IL website

IL RESOURCES: PROJECT INFORMATION LITERACY

CONCLUSION

• Information literacy is not just formal teaching, but usually supports some form of learning or development.

• School librarians can make a difference.

• An access to a good school library is a right of every child, and through information and digital literacy, school librarians have the skills and expertise to support students and teachers to become future ready.

• It is our job, as the “older” generation, to help, guide, empower, and inspire the young generations to use the information wisely.

References

A New Curriculum for Information Literacy (ANCIL) report and outputs: https://newcurriculum.wordpress.com/project-reportsand-outputs/ The Information Literacy website: https://infolit.org.uk/ Future Ready Librarians website: https://futureready.org/program-overview/librarians/ Viddsee (2014, October 28) Ripple - Inspirational Tear-jerking Short Film [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovj5dzMxzmc

@DangLibrarian

respirituvaldez

www.definitelylibrarian.blogspot.com

rhodora.valdez@dlszobel.edu.ph