Learning Together: Peer Tutoring in Higher Education.

This article explores the tension between information literacy as a generalizable skill and as a skill within the disciplines. The new ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education addresses many challenges facing the previous ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, but the tension between disciplinary expertise and generalizable skills remains. Viewing the documents through the lens of teaching for transfer—that is, instruction that enables students to utilize knowledge and skills gained in one context in other situations—offers a useful approach. Exploring the Framework from the point of view of teaching for transfer addresses both practical and theoretical challenges. This viewpoint respects both the generalizable nature of information literacy and the highly contextual nature of its application in an academic setting.

/pdf/teaching-for-transfer-reconciling-the-framework-with-3tl2aovsd0.pdf

Teaching for Transfer: Reconciling the Framework with Disciplinary Information Literacy

Integrating Information Literacy into Academic Curricula: A Professional Development Programme for Librarians at the University of Auckland

The concept and practice of information literacy has been widely discussed in library and
information professional literature in recent years. In the main, these discussions have focussed on
practice in Higher Education (HE), specifically on how librarians may be involved in developing the
skills of students to enable them to maximise the use of academic resources, predominantly librarybased,
in order to meet the requirements of learning outcomes of their courses. More recently this
focus has widened to examine transition from school and Further Education (FE) into University but
also into the workplace, recognising the UNESCO assertion that information literacy is a process for
lifelong learning (UNESCO, 2006) (eg Antonesa, 2007, Julien & Barker, 2009). The identification of
information literacy as an attribute of employability and the concepts, policies and practices of
workplace information literacy is the subject of this review. Here, key texts are drawn from academic
theoretical and practice-based research and official reports from stakeholders including government,
professional associations and industry and commerce in order to provide an overview of the main
issues around workplace information literacy, focusing on employability and transition, context and
theory, practice and policy. The purpose of the review is to inform CILIP members of the wide range
of issues in this developing area in order that they may contribute to its development at all levels in
an informed manner.

Information literacy is for life, not just for a good degree: a literature review

Purpose




The purpose of this paper is to present a qualitative investigation into whether online textual postings, produced by undergraduate students as part of an undergraduate module, can demonstrate their information literacy (IL) capabilities as a discursive competence and socially enacted practice. It also asks whether these online postings embody power relations between students, tutors and librarians.




Design/methodology/approach




Foucault’s notion of discursive competence and the separate but complementary concept of practice architectures (specifically focussing on “sayings”) devised by Lloyd were used as thematic lenses to categorise online discussion board postings from a formative online peer assessment exercise created for first-year UK undergraduate students. Online postings were the node of analysis used to identify patterns of language across online conversation. These postings were inductively analysed through manual content analysis. Subject’s responses were initially categorised using open coding.




Findings




Postings appeared to embody student’s discursive competence and information practice in IL, especially their level of information discernment and what constituted a quality “reference” for an assignment. However, they also demonstrated that the notion of “references” (information artefacts such as a journal article) perform a certain function in reproducing the discursive practices of an academic discipline as an agreed construct between tutor, student and librarian.




Practical implications




Students were engaged in the process of becoming good scholars by using appropriate online postings to create valid arguments through assessing other’s work, but what they did not do was question received meanings regarding the quality of information they used as evidence. Far from exhibiting the desired outcome of critical thinking (a cornerstone of IL) students who appeared most articulate in discussion tended to emulate the “strong discourse” put forward by their tutors and librarians.




Originality/value




This research uses practice architectures and discourse analysis to analyse students’ IL capabilities and the context in which they are developed. An approach not employed hitherto. This has practical implications for the ways in which academics and librarians introduce students to the academic discourse of their discipline and the ways in which the production, communication and exchange of information in academic contexts is characterised.

/pdf/information-literacy-empowerment-or-reproduction-in-practice-4fist2cuds.pdf

Information literacy: Empowerment or reproduction in practice? A discourse analysis approach

This month's regular feature will discuss some of the implications for library-based information literacy teaching that have emerged from a HEA-funded research project conducted at De Montfort University. It is argued that information literacy teaching as it has evolved in a university setting, while having a greater degree of relevance and value than ever before, nevertheless has inherent limits when it comes to its transferability beyond the academy and into a workplace setting.

Context and learning: the value and limits of library-based information literacy teaching.

https://ojs.lboro.ac.uk/JIL/article/download/BR-V7-I1-2013-3/1796

Book Review of Secker, J. and Coonan, E. (eds.) 2013. Rethinking information literacy: a practical framework for supporting learning. London: Facet.

If we are to accept that peer-led learning (peer mentoring, peer tutoring and related approaches) are of benefit to students, how are we to approach the implementation of such approaches at the institutional level in a way that is resource efficient and effective? This paper presents the holistic framework for the institution-wide coordination and support of a wide variety of peer-led learning initiatives developed at De Montfort University. The framework presented sidesteps the thorny issues of categorisation that dominate the discourse of peer-led learning by devolving issues of definition to the site of implementation. A simplified typology is presented that characterises an initiative based on its level of formality and its overarching purpose with respect to transformational A¢â¬Etransition pointsA¢â¬â¢ through the student lifecycle. This A¢â¬Emixed economyA¢â¬â¢ approach accommodates highly idiosyncratic and locally-defined approaches to peer-led learning coordinated and supported by the universityA¢â¬â¢s learning development unit (the Centre for Learning and Study Support). AÂ

Institutional Management of Peer-Led Learning: A Framework for Holistic Integration

As learning developers increasingly seek recognition of their practices as a coherent and shared approach to teaching and learning in higher education, the notion of a ‘definitive’ understanding of learning development may appear an appealing prospect, one that promises clarity in recognising, understanding and valuing learning development. However, attempts at definition should be approached with caution, as they can be founded upon assumptions that permit no scope for evolution or change. Drawing on the philosophical work of Gilles Deleuze (1967) and his concept of the virtual, this paper problematises the idea of there being a ‘clear and distinct’ definition of learning development, arguing instead for a ‘distinct and obscure’ concept of learning development open to creative evolution.

/pdf/dramatising-learning-development-towards-an-understanding-3uopjbhnkz.pdf

Jason Eyre

Papers

Context and learning: the value and limits of library-based information literacy teaching.

Book Review of Secker, J. and Coonan, E. (eds.) 2013. Rethinking information literacy: a practical framework for supporting learning. London: Facet.

Institutional Management of Peer-Led Learning: A Framework for Holistic Integration

Dramatising learning development: towards an understanding without definition