How can teacher librarians and teachers encourage students to transfer information literacy skills and practices? Read the articles and think about how this might be done effectively in our schools, then post some commentary to your blog.
- Make it a whole school policy to consider transfer of information literacy skills to be a main priority with all staff involved in planning and documenting which particular skills are considered imperative to transfer from one learning level to the next.
- Implement clear procedures and precise guidelines for all teachers to follow from prep to senior levels.
- Clearly inform students of what specific skills and knowledge they are expected to demonstrate as they move through each learning level and consistently reinforce expectations on regular occasions throughout all curriculum areas. Eg. Ask students to identify which skills they need to use on a continual basis to reinforce transfer.
- Regular staff meetings to reassess and ‘ fine-tune’ successful/unsatisfactory procedures and to take into account any social issues that could impact on student’s inability to transfer certain or all information literacy skills.
- Teacher librarians, with the assistance and support of the classroom teachers, to focus on one essential skill, which is then practiced within each learning level throughout all curriculum areas. As part of a sustained collaborative project, all teachers could identify and teach one skill with the backup and support of each other; a team effort.
- Skills are listed and assessed for each student, with those at-risk students specifically targeted, encouraged and assisted to develop and practise them through small focus groups, with a teacher/teacher librarian.
- Collaborate with local secondary schools to develop procedures for smooth transfer of expected information literacy skills when students move from grade 6 to year 7, as it is such a huge academic transition.
- Share your experiences and ideas with others in your group on the Topic 4.2 Forum.
Has the school in which you work (or know best) developed an information literacy policy?
- Should this be an essential policy for a 21st century school?
- How is information literacy approached in your school or experience? Do you see gaps in the approach used, and if so, where?
- How can a transliteracy approach expand the teaching role of the TL beyond the traditional information literacy paradigm?
- Unfortunately the small catholic primary schools where I have worked previously didn’t choose to have a teacher librarian as a specialist teacher, and employed a school officer to perform a library technician role for the borrowing and returning of texts and resource materials. Similarly, the government schools I have worked at as a CRT also employ library technicians and I haven’t seen or heard of an information literacy policy at any of them.
- I consider it a priority to formulate and implement a school information literacy policy because it is such an integral link between traditional literacy skills, which are still relevant and necessary for students to a student’s learning development, and the teaching of vital technology and digital/social media skills that are so important for students to master and integrate into their daily lives as future global citizens.
- There is definitely a growing need for teacher librarian’s to expand their teaching role by developing the concept of transliteracy through incorporating these new ideas (social meaning of literacy) into ways they assist students with accessing, understanding, and producing information. The social media aspects of transliteracy can enhance learning by creating effective systems of knowledge-sharing, and also enhance user experience by allowing them a role in the construction of information (Ipri, 2010).
- Post some commentary to your blog about these readings.
Stripling, B. (2007). Assessing informative fluency: Gathering evidence of student learning
QUOTE: “Assessment is a critical element of effective teaching”. (p. 29)
- TL’s who can provide evidence that student’s have learned information fluency skills will be more integral to the teaching program of the school, and have the potential to transform their roles from invisibility to prominent participants. (p. 29)
- TL can assess student’s ability to apply information skills at each phase of an inquiry process by using 3 main types of assessment: Diagnostic; Formative; Summative
- TL’s must use Diagnostic, Formative and Summative assessments to strengthen the teaching of information fluency skills and move students towards confidence and independence in their own learning. (p. 29)
- Assess student’s ability to demonstrate their information fluency skills by using the Stripling Inquiry model which provides students with criteria to follow using the phases of Connect, Wonder, Investigate, Construct, Express and Reflect.
- Diagnostic assessment is used in the Connect phase as it is important to identify prior knowledge and skills, or any misconceptions, before setting goals for new learning. By recognizing misconceptions students are more likely to replace them with more accurate or detailed knowledge.
- Formative assessment is the measurement of knowledge and skills during the process of learning and found in the Wonder, Investigate & Construct phase.
- Summative assessment is the measurement of knowledge and skills at the end of the process and learning, and found in the Express and Reflect phases, in order to determine the amount and quality of learning. Examples are: presentations, authentic projects, exhibitions, performance tasks, portfolios and process folios that enable students to demonstrate their new understandings.
jennykerlin 