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Learners can often struggle with these new essential understandings introduced in the Framework for Information Literacy because of previously formed simplistic information seeking habits. These habits may have been explicitly taught or learned implicitly through assignment design that can reinforce the simplistic approaches.
For example, if a learner is asked to write a paper and cite three scholarly sources, they could very well finish writing the paper and then search for the three sources to plug in at the end, rather than selecting sources, which inform their writing process. Depending on their previous instruction, they also may not have a clear definition of what a scholarly source is, where it comes from or who writes it.
Likewise, if a learner is instructed to not use Wikipedia or a similar source without an explanation of why it might be inappropriate in that context, they may forego valuable background information during their initial search processes, and also potentially reinforce their views of Wikipedia as an always bad source, rather than identifying its benefits and drawbacks in different contexts.
Gaps in understanding are very common to all faculty in all disciplines when students bring certain preconceived ideas or reductive ideas into their discipline. And this is also true in learning information literacy concepts. So students are learning or living actually in what we call liminal space when they’re learning an academic discipline or a way of thinking in that discipline, there’s a lot of uncertainty. They’re grappling with unknowns, they’re grappling with new vocabulary, they’re grappling with unfamiliar names, and there’s new ways of thinking that they have to learn about authorities, our schools of thought, our pathways in finding out things.
So there’s this liminal space is this zone of uncertainty that is very familiar actually to all of us as learners and particularly to undergraduate students. So what the framework aims to do is to build on what we know about student learning, about information sources and their lack of context, which we know from research. Assignments that students may previously have received may be reinforcing some ideas about going back to the tried and true resources of information that they’re familiar with and never exploring others, and they do not think of new possibilities. So they stay locked within the liminal space without some guidance and assignments themselves that are redesigned using information literacy concepts in the framework will help them do that.
The other familiar issues that many faculty will know is that students will be told to use only scholarly resources and students do not understand what a scholarly resource is, of course, and that needs some teaching, some education, and some deeper grasping of what scholarship actually involves. They may have been told never to use popular sources without learning their are occasions actually, when popular sources are exactly right for investigating a particular topic such as one dealing with general public perceptions about climate change or artificial intelligence, it really does depend on the assignment. So the assignment design, using the framework, will actually give students much greater opportunities for thinking about context and how to assess and judge information they’re looking at, and also how to develop better questions that will keep propelling them through the information landscape.
Another example is they may have been told that using Wikipedia that all purpose wonderful online encyclopedia that we all know about, is inappropriate because it’s biased and perhaps often it is biased. But students need to learn how to look at a comprehensive source like that and make judgments about when to use it or to calibrate their trust about when to use it or not use it. These are just some examples of familiar perennial issues in addressing the gaps in understanding and assignment design and new curriculum design using the framework will help overcome some of those gaps in understanding.
Learners can often struggle with these new essential understandings introduced in the Framework for Information Literacy because of previously formed simplistic information-seeking habits. These habits may have been explicitly taught or learned implicitly through assignment design that can reinforce simplistic approaches. For example, if a learner is asked to write a paper and cite three scholarly sources, they could very well finish writing the paper and then search for three sources to “plug in” at the end, rather than selecting sources which inform their writing process. Depending on their previous instruction, they also may not have a clear definition of what a scholarly source is, where it comes from, and who writes it. Likewise, if a learner is instructed to not use Wikipedia without an explanation of why it would be inappropriate in that context, they may forego valuable background information during their initial search processes and also potentially reinforce their views of Wikipedia as an “always bad” source rather than identifying its benefits and drawbacks in different contexts.
These gaps in understanding may persist and will require educators to design assignments through a course or a curriculum to encourage students to work through what threshold concepts theory calls the “liminal space.” This “liminal space” is the zone of uncertainty where learners gain partial knowledge or competence, but further scaffolding or instructional intervention is needed to help move them toward greater independence as inquirers and researchers.
There are many ways to creatively address information literacy framework concepts within existing courses. Here are some sample strategies that you might try to help build up learners’ conceptual understandings of Scholarship as Conversation. These strategies will naturally depend on the learning stage and the nature of your coursework.
- Preface a writing assignment for which sources are required by having learners react to or dialogue with a source. In a freewrite have learners ask questions of the author and respond to their content.
- Assign an article from a journal in your field as well as a Letter to the Editor responding to it, or another article that cites the first article. Have learners analyze how the Letter Response or the cited article continues the “conversation” started in the first article.
- Give learners one article or book chapter and have them find an article that cites it, as well as one that the article itself cites (placing the article or book chapter in the flow of the scholarly conversation).
- Schedule classroom discussions throughout a course that show how one of the “frames” also develops knowledge of the discipline (e.g., in history, how primary sources influence secondary sources written by historians).
Discussions
Which strategies can you employ to help students reflect on their own thinking about scholarship and information sources throughout a course? (example: keeping a brief journal about sources and authorities identified)
Please share your thoughts and questions in the comments section below.