Special Interest Group Archive: BI SIG 07/16/15

• Threshold concepts: core or foundational concepts that, once grasped by the learner, create new perspectives and ways of understanding a discipline or knowledge domain.

• Knowledge practices: proficiencies or abilities that learners develop as a result of their comprehending a threshold concept.

• Disposition: a tendency to act or think in a particular way.

• Metaliteracy: information literacy taken a step further to address the ever changing information environment which includes students as collaborators, producers, and sharers of information. "This approach requires an ongoing adaptation to emerging technologies and an understanding of the critical thinking and reflection required” to participate in digital environments.

Attendees considered how they may better augment student's academic careers with a thorough grounding in information literacy—from freshman-level, on. Also considered were current hurdles to overcome in the effort to better establish information literacy at all levels of education. Some topics discussed included:

• Google vs. research: introduce threshold concepts and integrate bibliographic instruction early on in order to overcome Google-centric dispositions (disambiguate ‘keyword’ vs. ‘search term’ vs. ‘phrase’).

• The framework has shifted agency to students; emphasis on inquiry-based learning vs. traditional, regurgitative education.

• Challenge is to overcome extant dispositions contrary to inquiry-based learning, in both professor and student mindsets.

• Possible to incorporate bibliographic tutorials (whether instructor-led or virtual) into student participation grades? As part of orientation?

What are some practical strategies to better integrate information literacy into academics? Here are some brainstorming results from the group:

• Instill a sense of information literacy know-how from the point of freshman orientation, onward.
• Include ALL incoming freshman in bibliographic instruction, whatever their major or concentration.
• Work with professors to craft assignments/ projects focused around inquiry-based learning and requiring well-rounded research skills/knowledge of resources.
• Work with tutor/writing centers/labs to be available for students at these points of contact.
• Cultivate a digital presence for librarians via text/email/campus intranet.
• Establish an “embedded librarian” presence via Blackboard and other Learning Management Systems (LMS) to assist students (online and off) with specific research goals in a class-by-class context.

• “Information Literacy” LibGuide, Mount Saint Mary College Library: http://libraryguides.msmc.edu/il
• Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education: http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework
• The Framework Appendix 1 (Implementing the Framework): http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframeworkapps
• Metaliteracy MOOC: http://metaliteracy.cdlprojects.com/index.html
• Metaliteracy Website by Mackey & Jacobson: http://metaliteracy.org/ (This site is designed to provide information about the concept of metaliteracy.)
• Association of American Colleges & Universities, Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP): http://www.aacu.org/leap