Group items tagged

. should be embedded within the core subject discipline curriculum so that examples can be course specific and that info lit can be made apparent at point of need and not as a separate (and poorer) cousin.

to allow different teachers to adapt the curriculum to their own teaching style.

I believe information literacy has to be context‐sensitive both in subject but also individual experience.

he need to build on knowledge over time and to ‘scaffold’ the learner with greater levels of support in their first year or at critical points in their career was highlighted. However,it was important for the curriculum to be coherent and to ‘fit together’ and as one expert said:

No longer should the library be trying to sell its resources as part of information literacy instruction. Rather than focusing on resources, IL instruction should be focusing on habits of mind. Librarians’ role as a guide through the information landscape should not be touted but demonstrated.

The IL curriculum needs to consider the whole students information experience – skills are just one aspect.

Collaboration between different groups of staff was considered to be extremely important in terms of the successful implementation of any information literacy strategy or curriculum.

student‐centred approach’.

experts were clear that information literacy should be timed to happen at the point of need, but also that it should extend beyond simple induction.

Effort needs to be made to embed IL into the curriculum at later stages as well.

scalable approach.

Collaboration between library staff and academics was widely advocated, with many experts recognizing the role that learning developers, IT staff and also students could play.

work together to integrate it into the learning experience.

Many experts felt it was critical to the success of a programme that an audit of student abilities was carried out at the outset, to help better understand the needs of the students and any gaps in their knowledge. It would also help in planning more meaningful sessions, as otherwise itwas very easy to make assumptions about what students might know

the concerns of the different stakeholders were considered.

For students the key is to make them see that IL expertise will improve their grades. Students will respond to this most of all. There is some evidence that the term ‘information literacy’ has no currency with students (maybe not academics either), so while we can use it to coordinate efforts within the library, avoid using it externally. We need to show how the library adds value ‐ and increases marks.

Librarians are no longer seen simply as gatekeepers of information, but partners with faculty helping to facilitate learning.

The experts talked about a reluctance by some librarians to regard teaching as part of their role and a lack of confidence around more discursive teaching techniques

there is a danger ofconfusing IT awareness with information literacy.

the digital natives literature has vastly over‐rated info skills of young people, and also they may think they have better skills than they do. At the same time you have to appreciate that some students will be highly skilled online and any introduction that begins at too basic a level will put them off.

Experts agreed that independent learning and information literacy were closely linked: Information literacy creates an independent learning style which can become a self sustainable habit thorough life which must surely be considered as a desirable graduate attribute.

Experts were unanimous in the need to include evaluation skills in the information literacy curriculum.

Rather, it emphasises the need for students to appreciate a wide range of resources used by researchers in their field, although some of those described below might be valuable for students in a variety of different academic disciplines.

intense, deep research skills are lacking. Being able to find not just "good enough" sources but the best sources is critical.

Many librarians might traditionally regard managing information as being solely about bibliographic management, but file management, management of web resources and also developing an understanding of how to keep up to date, should form a fundamental part of the curriculum.

Traditionally this might include an understanding of plagiarism, and citation and referencing techniques.

Sharing information appropriately also forms part of the ethical use of information.

The need to present like someone on TED talks. Is presentation an information literacy skill? It's a digital literacy skill. Being literate in the tools, modes and reach of your presentations (slideshare, podcast, recording and rights.)

I don’t know howyou get across to people that it’s not simply about finding the answer, it’s finding your voice to make a valid answer.

Managing your online identity, web presence or ‘digital footprint’

rodusage ‐ not a consumer but not a producer either ‐ ideas of production and consumption are pre‐internet concepts. Forces of publication/dissemination now much more wide‐spread, democratized. “Produsers” produce and use at the same time. IL is beginning to sound a bit stale

I suppose the idea of synthesising information from different sources – students really struggle with this ‐ the ideasof looking at two different sources and evaluate them – even if its not evaluating for quality, they might both have different opinions about something. Compare and contrast – that idea.

Part of it is developing citizens that are aware and socially conscious ... being an information conscious person and an IL person when it comes to elections and major issues like a referendum.... It’s ina much broader sense we are talking about when we talk about IL.

That solution has two fundamental underpinnings: the first is that information literacy is an issue for every college and university; and the second is that librarians should occupy a position in attempts to define and achieve campus-wide information literacy.

While it is legitimate to use some of the information available on the web, students need to learn how to evaluate that information.

A study conducted by two researchers at the Manchester Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom found that 75% of the students surveyed used Google as their first port of call when locating information, with the university library catalogue used by only 10%.

In general, faculty members involved in the process were willing to collaborate with librarians who served as consultants, as instructors, and as team players in designing, teaching and implementing course assignmen

One particular model which has proven to be effective is course integrated instruction. With this model, librarians and teaching faculty co-design a course, and make sure that information literacy is incorporated in the course.

They not only sought to build short-term programmatic partnerships but more importantly, formal long-term working relationships with campus units, groups, departments and administrators.

“Integrating Literacy into the Liberal Arts College Curriculum.

launched a campaign to recruit faculty as partners in the process

took advantage of the liaison system already in place

Symposiums were organized for faculty and librarians to focus on assessment and science disciplines.

offered a workshop

More and more course-related or integrated instruction sessions have come to play a bigger role in making students more information literate.

Changing fee structures, student experience and access to digitized information on the internet, librarians have had to rethink their approach to teaching IL skills

McGuinness (2007) argues that librarians tend to act in a reactive manner to the needs of academics, rather than proactively to promote IL skills.

eads to ad hoc, short-term solutions designed only to address one or two issues.

dds that librarians should align their own goals of incorporating IL skills into the curriculum with the goals of academics and institutions to influence the power structures within institutions and help shape educational content.

highlights both the ambiguity around how IL should be taught, and the important role faculty awareness of IL and integration of library staff plays in integrating IL

unpack the “culture clash” between librarians and academics

cGuinness (2006) found that academics expected students to “learn by doing” through collaborative projects with peers and dissertation reports with occasional support from staff, without a clear sense of how students would develop critical and analytical IL skills

aculty also tended to believe that a student’s ability to gain IL skills were driven by the student’s own motivation, interests and innate abilities, rather than the quality and format of the available instructional opportunities

Multiple literacies, including digital, visual, textual, and technological, have now joined information literacy as crucial skills for this century”

These collaborative efforts have enabled librarians to encourage and support faculty in establishing learning priorities which will ensure that students be equipped with the competencies to become effective lifelong learners.

Only by establishing a successful partnership between librarians and faculty, can the goal of mastery of information literacy by students be accomplished.

The goal of librarian-faculty collaboration in integrating information literacy into the curriculum is to enable students to learn the skills and competencies needed for success during their life time

To make sure that everyone is able to become an educated, skilled, and information-literate person, librarians and faculty at institutions of higher education throughout the world will need to work together as partners to provide the education

No Child Left Behind demands that after one year of enrollment, ELLs must take statewide assessments, and the results must be integrated into the school's accountability measures. Enrolling large numbers of adolescent ELLs can put the school at risk of failing to make adequate yearly progress.

In these times of increasingly meager resources in which schools are paring down to essential programs and making contingency plans to deal with statewide budget cuts and federal program funding reductions, adolescent ELLs are often viewed as an unwelcome presence in schools, a drain on the limited resources available. Increasing the challenge is the reality that many immigrant adolescents enter secondary schools with a triple whammy—little or no English, interrupted or limited formal schooling, and limited literacy in any language.

There is no more diverse learning cohort than that grouped under the term adolescent English language learner. Although many of these students are newcomers (immigrants who arrived within the past five years), others have always called the United States home.

now, for example, that 57 percent of adolescent learners classified as limited English proficient were born within U.S. borders and thus are second- or third-generation residents (Batalova, Fix, & Murray, 2007). These students have often achieved oral proficiency but lag behind in their ability to use English for literacy and content learning for reasons that may be only partly related to second-language status—for example, mobility and switching between language programs (Short & Fitzsimmons, 2007).

Some immigrant students arrive in the United States with fully developed academic literacy in their native language and a strong record of academic achievement in their home countries. Filip, for example, entered U.S. schools in 9th grade after having attended a high-level academic school in the Czech Republic. Within two years, he had gained a command of academic English and was performing above grade level. Contrast Filip with Ben, who emigrated from the Sudan at age 16 after experiencing the trauma of civil unrest and a severe interruption in formal schooling, which resulted in a limited foundation in literacy in any language. Rosaria, unlike either Filip or Ben, is a U.S.-born English language learner. Although her home language is Spanish, at 17, her social language outside the home is English. However, her writing exhibits many of the linguistic differences of an immigrant English learner, and she reads at the 5th grade level.

Such reforms must also take into account the particular context of each school—its demographic profile, existing program models, community culture, and so on. With this caveat in mind, a number of principles and practices support improved achievement for adolescent ELLs as well as for their native-English-speaking peers.

there is surprising agreement in what constitutes best practice for adolescent English language learners. It is up to school leaders to implement the school reforms that work and to think outside the traditional boxes that have restricted the achievement of these students.

School administrators and teachers grappling with the often confusing and contradictory premises of these popular initiatives can draw on three useful sources of information: (1) meta-analyses of research studies regarding program effectiveness and instructional practices that support and enhance achievement, (2) studies of the initiatives' effect on English language learners' English language acquisition and academic achievement, and (3) databases that compile language assessments administered to large populations of English language learners over time and across grade levels. Several myths about the instruction of English language learners do not stand up to scrutiny when examined through the lens of this research base.

The "One-Size-Fits-All" Myth

Schools throughout the United States use a variety and range of theoretically sound programs to meet the needs of their specific populations of English language learners, who vary in demographic and linguistic characteristics.

For instance, bilingual programs are appropriate and effective in schools that serve concentrations of students who use a common native language

In many schools, however, English language learners speak a number of different native languages; such schools often use English as the common language of content-area instruction. Therefore, some state agencies and language-minority educators advocate a mix of services and program types in response to each school district's demographic mix—an approach that contradicts the state laws requiring a default model of sheltered English immersion

The "Language of Instruction" Myth

But according to Education Week, cumulative and comparative studies based on National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) scores suggest that statewide mandates limiting bilingual education in California, Arizona, and Massachusetts have produced "less-than-stellar" results (Zehr, 2008, p. 10).

Proponents of the ballot initiatives mandating sheltered English immersion argue that bilingual education is the reason for low levels of English proficiency among immigrant students—especially Latinos, the group served by the vast majority of the bilingual programs.

(Parrish, Pérez, Merickel, & Linquanti, 2006). The study found that students participating in English-only education programs had no statistically significant advantage in terms of academic achievement over those in bilingual education programs that parents chose through the waiver process under the law.

Thus, ballot initiatives have not realized their goal of improving English language learners' academic achievement.

In denying the injunction against the implementation of Proposition 227, the U.S. District Court in Valeria G. v. Wilson (1998) ruled that structured English immersion was based on delivery of English language and content instruction that was "sequential" rather than "simultaneous."

This focus is based on the belief that the "problem" facing these students is essentially a "language problem.

K-12 Program Continuity and Coherence Programs for English language learners must be proven models with a demonstrated track record. Programs must have long-term goals and continuity in the curriculum as students move up through the grade levels. As students' listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in English grow, the focus of instruction should shift, and instruction should be differentiated according to students' language levels (Mora, 2006). Differentiating the curriculum in this way requires monitoring students' progress toward performance benchmarks in English language proficiency, literacy, and content-area learning (Gottlieb & Nguyen, 2007)

Targeted Professional Development Educators must view the education of language-minority students as a shared responsibility. Teachers must have ample professional preparation in how to use appropriate curricular materials and teaching strategies to promote English language learners' achievement. Both new and experienced teachers need intensive professional development above and beyond the teacher education coursework required by the state credential and certificate programs. For example, teachers should be knowledgeable about second-language acquisition and cross-linguistic transfer so that students learning in their second language can capitalize on the commonalities in literacy with their native language, regardless of whether their instruction is in dual languages.

Local school districts must have the freedom and support to establish sheltered English immersion programs and/or bilingual education programs depending on community values, parental choice, and available resources. Policies must allow flexibility in use of students' native languages—especially for development of literacy skills. In states with anti-bilingual mandates, local jurisdictions should apply liberal and open interpretation of petition and waiver requirements to support parent empowerment and involvement in program selection.

Research-Based Policies to Replace Politically Based Policies

I think that digital literacy has three parts. The first is the ability to use information well—to find it, consume it, analyze it, and leverage it to solve a problem. The second part of digital literacy is the ability to use media and digital technologies to communicate and collaborate effectively.

Third, and arguably the least understood, is the development of digital citizenship

they will be lacking the ability to keep track of what they’ve found and (the hugely important task of) determining if the information is reliable

Providing students will print handouts that help walk them through the final stages of Big6™.

The six dimensions of social-media-literate leadership

instant communication

ncorporate video streams into their blogs

That unease soon vanished with practice

Leveraging

Equally important is the skill of creating and sustaining a body of social followers who help to spread and reinforce the message.

n traditional corporate communications, consumption is a mostly passive act: you are pretty much left alone to make sense of messages and to assess their authenticity and credibility. In the social-media realm, information gets shared and commented on within seconds

engage more closely with stakeholders

To achieve this goal, leaders must become tutors and strategic orchestrators of all social-media activities within their control

agile

Bir Sethi shares the story of children who were taught the importance of literacy and who were inspired to hold a campaign to educate their illiterate parents