no plain sailing

Hello  again, Followers (all six of you) and Lecturer (just one, I think) – this time from the Gippsland Lakes where today it is too windy to sail our lovely little boat so I am FORCED indoors to contemplate (once again) the grand, and surprisingly perplexing, concept of Information Literacy in the 21^st century.

The beautifully situated St Barnabas chapel not far from my camp on Raymond Island doubles as my study, and THIS, my friends, is my divine view...

Today I looked up from my ruminations to see a Mrs koala strolling by as though this was the most natural thing to be doing (well, in this part of the world it actually IS), with a tiny new-born babe koala cub clinging to her back. Well, sorry ETL401 but this STOLE my attention and I was momentarily paralysed by joy. 


Isn’t nature beautiful? There is no library like the real thing, my friends.

Anyway back to work. I’m going to take a side-ways approach to this PRICKLY TOPIC of what REAL power teacher librarian MIGHT have for a moment, and go back to Teacher Training. Can’t we TEACH TEACHERS at teacher training level to be more “information literately” minded in the classroom and to absolutely worship and adore their teacher librarians? Shouldn't the learning culture of our educational environments begin at birth?

It’s been a while since I did my Dip.Ed so please forgive me if I’ve forgotten but do we still (did we ever?) teach teachers during teacher training about information literacy models? It sure would save the TL a HECK lot of heart ache and convincing if she could assume that teachers were TRAINED to respond positively to collaborating with teachers and wouldn't it be great if she were CONFIDENT that they spat them out of teacher's college complete with an in-depth understanding of information literacy, perhaps with a couple of models, say Herrings PLUS or the BIG6, up their sleeves so our TL could ASSUME they were all on the SAME PAGE?

Imagine you are in a school meeting AFTER school. There is an IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:  

TL to IMPLEMENT NEW IL MODEL IN SCHOOL. PLEASE LISTEN.

Mmm. A few humble thoughts on the TL trying to implement a great info literacy model in her school. 

Oh, and please excuse the gender specific terminology ‘she’ – I DO realise TLs come in both genders (hello, boys) and possibly others in between (hello, lovelys) but we do seem to get away with ‘he’ a lot in our writing, don’t we. Today I will try to get away with ‘she’.

First let's try to be positive and  imagine the OBSTACLE FREE ENVIRONMENT, A.K.A. The Ideal World.

Stay with me. Let’s say the TL comes up with a BRILLIANT info literacy model. 

• We have the curriculum coordinator, the principal and the director of library services on board. 
• The TL is able to provide PD to many or all of the staff using her BRILLIANT info literacy model. 
• The library itself is well resourced, with print and access to digital resources, and the means with which to access these easily. 
• The library itself is a wide and welcoming place. 
• Classroom teachers are keen to collaborate. 
• The TL’s work load is balanced in such a way that she has ample time to partner up with individual teachers as well as spend time with students guiding them through research and intervening only where warranted, as per Kuhlthau at al’s Guided Inquiry model (Kuhlthau, Maniotis and Caspari 2007). 
• She manages this in addition to her other tasks of collection management (and all the other stuff she has to do which I’m sure are the basis of all the ETL subjects I haven’t completed as yet). 

So what are we waiting for? Press START and implement this model in an obstacle free zone! Hooray!

Perhaps there are BIGGER ISSUES than just the school – UM, LIKE, NATION-WIDE REPORTING AND ASSESSMENT CULTURE

I sound facetious. I’m being cynical.  Yet I realise I am yet to do the research or the reading – that will come in future subjects. But as I am still a teacher, and I still think like a teacher, I am trying to apply this to a typical classroom teaching situation. What do kids think about when you set them a task? Let’s see…um,

1)      Getting it done and out of the way

2)      Getting the best marks for it (if they are so motivated).

3)      Memorising enough of the material to pass the test (well).

4)      Making sure the task takes as little time as possible so that they can get back on facebook or x-box or on the trampoline outside.

5)      Their parents reading their end of semester report

And how does our current school culture reinforce this malaise? We have an assessment reporting culture which is built around grades, percentages, summative grades and university entry scores. The first thing many parents look for on a report are the GRADES. As long as reports, grades, AIMS testing (YES I SAID AIMS TESTING) and the like drive the curriculum, this will remain the unalterable focus for the student, sometimes the teachers, and sadly many parents, and not the learning PROCESS itself. Unless we can change the culture of assessment and reporting, we don’t have much of a chance to shift the focus of learning from outcome/product based to PROCESS based, to one which fosters the higher level metacognition we have come to so value in academic reading (yes, bold for added emphasis because author knows that people are drawn to BOLD when they skim read. Which is really rather hopeful actually. I'd be happy with just a skim read).

At ground level (read “in reality”), a lot more has to change before really good Information Literacy models can be successfully implemented and CULTURALLY accepted as normal practice. This is obviously not just a little obstacle for the Teacher Librarian. Nor is it a challenge for the school. It is part of a much bigger nation-wide pedagogical debate. The revision of the Australian Curriculum in this country offered us an ideal opportunity to put this debate more prominently on the education map.

CHALLENGE: THINGS HAVE TO BE UNDONE AS WELL AS DONE

I think a fair bit of ‘undoing’ needs to occur before the ‘doing’ or the implementation of really robust and culture-changing information literacy models can set in. Students’ view of their own learning seems to be very much compartmentalised into discreet areas of study (what Herring suggests seems to stifle transference in his Feb 2011 paper) and to be honest, I think most teachers foster this culture. For most info literacy models this would be an obstacle as it works against the transference of info literacy skills – that skills learned in one area are applied in another.  It is not helpful that we rarely use language like ‘transference’ (Herring) or ‘metacognition’ or having an ‘affective’ response like anxiety when faced with a lot of new material (Kuhlthau). You know, even young students are amazingly adept in learning, using and understanding new language. If being language deficient can limit the boundaries of our world, then language can also EXPAND the boundaries of our world. We should be introducing the language of transference or concepts related to thinking about your own thinking, and make these a part of the natural learning vocab repertoire – this has occurred to a degree in my own teaching environment and it’s one way to foster the changing of learning culture. If students become more familiar with the concept, they are more likely to work with it as though it’s the most natural thing in the world – like it’s the only way they know. From a humble teacher’s perspective, this just might address some of the obstacles faced by the TL trying to implement a great info literacy model in her school.

Finally, ASSESSMENT RUBRICS and INFO LITERACY

Great idea. I’ve looked at a few by Carol Brown and Mueller and these look okay. They offer a way to gauge how well students are aware of their own learning and research processes etc…. What happens to these assessment rubrics though? Are these reported on? Please forgive me if I sound cynical AGAIN, but often the first thing a student will as is ‘will this go on the report?’

• ·         If yes, we have application from students.
• ·         If no, we have application from the motivated and interested (typically this seems to be about 10%) and many of the remainder do it without too much reflection (unless the culture of the learning environment has changed!).

However, reflection is THE key component of this task. Can you make something like this ‘reportable’? I’d say it’s wrong to do so because such a task is not about grades, but in a culture which values grades and is driven by reports (and in an Independent School this features very prominently) this presents an interesting tension. Brown and Mueller didn’t really address this.