TRANSFER’S ROLE IN THE

‘BIG IDEAS’ OF INFORMATION

LITERACYM A RY B R O U SS A R D

LYC O M I N G C O L L E G E

WHAT IS ‘TRANSFER’?

• “The effective application of knowledge and skills gained in one context in a new and different context.”

-The Greenwood Dictionary of Education (pg. 361)

WHAT IS ‘TRANSFER’?

WHAT IS ‘TRANSFER’?

Near Transfer

vs.

Far Transfer

LIBRARIANS’ OBSESSION WITH LIFELONG LEARNING

“Information skills are vital to the success of lifelong learning, employment, and daily interpersonal communication of any citizen, such as when a person needs information about health services for someone in his/her care, or a student requires specific information to complete an assessment.”

-Lau, IFLA’s “Guidelines on Information Literacy for Lifelong Learning”

LIBRARIANS’ OBSESSION WITH LIFELONG LEARNING

“LIFELONG LEARNING”

TRANSFER

CONCEPTUAL TEACHING

Bibliographic Instruction

Information Literacy

CONCEPTUAL TEACHING AND ACRL’S FRAMEWORK

“At the heart of this Framework are conceptual understandings that organize many other concepts and ideas about information, research, and scholarship into a coherent whole. These conceptual understandings are informed by the work of Wiggins and McTighe,2 which focuses on essential concepts and questions in developing curricula, and also by threshold concepts3 which are those ideas in any discipline that are passageways or portals to enlarged understanding or ways of thinking and practicing within that discipline.”

-ACRL’s Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education

CONCEPTUAL TEACHING AND ACRL’S FRAMEWORK

“At the heart of this Framework are conceptual understandings that organize many other concepts and ideas about information, research, and scholarship into a coherent whole. These conceptual understandings are informed by the work of Wiggins and McTighe,2 which focuses on essential concepts and questions in developing curricula, and also by threshold concepts3 which are those ideas in any discipline that are passageways or portals to enlarged understanding or ways of thinking and practicing within that discipline.”

-ACRL’s Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education

BIG IDEAS

• Ideas at the heart of expert understanding

•A way to deal with too much information to cover

•Useful for both novices and experts

• Inherently transferable

RETHINKING INFORMATION LITERACY

“Information literacy is the set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information is produced and valued, and the use of information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning.”

-ACRL’s Framework for Information Literacy for Higher

Education

RETHINKING INFORMATION LITERACY

“Information literacy is the set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information is produced and valued, and the use of information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning.”

RETHINKING INFORMATION LITERACY

“Information literacy is the set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information is produced and valued, and the use of information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning.”

METACOGNITION

“The act of thinking about thinking [… including] the use of self-monitoring to adapt and apply strategies to solving new problems.”

-The Greenwood Dictionary of Education (pg. 219)

METACOGNITION

METACOGNITION

STRATEGIES

• Reading Strategies– Questioning

– Activating Background Knowledge

– Using sensory images

– Predicting

– Determining Main Ideas

– Using fix-up options

– Believing/Doubting Game

– Synthesizing

• Writing Strategies– Notecards– Drafts– Mind maps– Outlines– Freewriting– Journaling– Note taking– Annotated

bibliographies– Lists

DISPOSITIONS

•Generative–Curiosity–Goal pursuit

•Disruptive–Impulsiveness

–Distractibility

DISPOSITIONS: CURIOSITY

CUEING, SUPPORT, EXTENDED AND DELIBERATE PRACTICE

LIBRARIANS

• No more silos

LIBRARIANS

• Work in reflection

LIBRARIANS

• Do it ourselves

LIBRARIANS

• Collaborate:

– Embedded librarianship

– Tutorials

– Curriculum mapping

– Co-designing/assessing

LIBRARIANS

• Think strategically

FURTHER READING• Bean, John C. Engaging Ideas: The Professor's Guide to Integrating Writing,

Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996.

• Brent, D. "Transfer, Transformation, and Rhetorical Knowledge: Insights From Transfer Theory." Journal of Business and Technical Communication 25, no. 4 (2011): 396-420.

• Kuglitsch, Rebecca Z. "Teaching for Transfer: Reconciling the Framework with Disciplinary Information Literacy." Portal: Libraries & the Academy 15, no. 3 (July 2015): 457-70.

• Lloyd, Annemaree. "Information Literacy: The Meta-Competency of the Knowledge Economy? An Exploratory Paper." Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 35, no. 2 (2003): 87-92.

• Moreillon, Judi. Coteaching Reading Comprehension Strategies in Secondary School Libraries: Maximizing Your Impact. Chicago: American Library Association, 2012.

• Wiggins, Grant P., and Jay McTighe. Understanding by Design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2005.

OTHER READINGS MENTIONED• Hafer, Gary R. Embracing Writing: Ways to Teach Reluctant Writers in Any College

Course. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2014.

• Fiorella, Logan, and Richard E. Mayer. Learning as a Generative Activity: Eight Learning Strategies That Promote Understanding. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

• Flower, Linda et al. Reading-to-Write: Exploring a Cognitive and Social Process, 3-32. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.

• Fulwiler, Toby. College Writing: A Personal Approach to Academic Writing. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1997.

• Pacello, James. "Integrating Metacognition into a Developmental Reading and Writing Course to Promote Skill Transfer: An Examination of Student Perceptions and Experiences." Journal of College Reading & Learning (College Reading & Learning Association) 44, no. 2 (2014): 119.

• Maier, Johanna, and Tobias Richter. "Fostering Multiple Text Comprehension: How Metacognitive Strategies and Motivation Moderate the Text-belief Consistency Effect." Metacognition and Learning 9, no. 1 (2014): 51-74. doi:10.1007/s11409-013-9111-x.