5 Essential Literacies for Students: Part 3 Information Literacy

5 Essential Literacies for Students: Part 3 Information Literacy - Our students need to be proficient in 5 Essential Literacies and School Librarians can integrate a Library Literacy component into any class visit. In Part 3 we look at Information Literacy Skills: problem-solving models, search & evaluation strategies, and academic honesty. #NoSweatLibraryIn our complex, information-rich, culturally diverse world, literacy is no longer just knowing how to read and write. Students need to understand and be proficient in these Five Essential Literacies to be successful in our global society:

  1. Reading and Writing (the original literacy)
  2. Content/Disciplinary Literacy (content & thinking specific to a discipline)
  3. Information Literacy (the library curriculum)
  4. Digital Literacy (how and when to use various technologies)
  5. Media Literacy (published works—encompasses all other literacies)

As School Librarians we need to integrate at least one Library Literacy component into every class visit to the library, so I’m addressing each of these literacies in a separate blog post to offer examples/suggestions about how we might do that. Previous blog posts covered Reading Literacy and Content/Disciplinary Literacy, so this post looks at Information Literacy.

DEFINING INFORMATION LITERACY

In its new National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries, the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) defines information literacy as “knowing when and why information is needed, where to find it, and how to evaluate, use, and communicate it in an ethical manner.” (p 277) We can embody this definition in our Library Lessons using these 3 Components for Information Literacy:

  • Research Process Models help students plan a project, determine sources of information and select materials, synthesize information, create a unique product, and reflect on product and process.
  • Search and Evaluation Skills help students find, access, and evaluate resources in a variety of formats.
  • Academic Honesty & Note-taking give students an understanding of, and respect for, intellectual property, copyright, and fair use when extracting & using information, creating work products and presenting results.

HOW TO INTEGRATE INFORMATION LITERACY

How School Librarians Can Overcome the Obstacles of Info-Lit Integration - Here's how one School Librarian overcomes the 3 obstacles to integrating information literacy with classroom activities: embedded curriculum, arbitrary library visits, and collaboration ignorance. #NoSweatLibraryWe School Librarians face several obstacles to teaching Information Literacy Components to our students:

  • The Information Literacy curriculum is often embedded into subject curricula, but not identified as taught by the School Librarian.
  • Class library visits are arbitrary and haphazard, making consistency and continuity of lessons difficult.
  • Teachers are ignorant about collaboration with a school librarian or have had negative experiences.

To overcome these obstacles, our Information Literacy lessons need to be short purposeful chunks that provide only what students need for the assignment. Such lessons encourage teachers to collaborate often so we can scaffold the necessary Info-Lit skills for each grade level through the school year. I’ve written previously about my Library Curriculum Matrix, an organization tool I use to plan & track my lessons, so let’s look at some specific strategies we can use for each Information Literacy component.

RESEARCH PROCESS MODELS

I’ve used many Research Process Models, and each has its benefits and flaws, but all can achieve our goal to develop a problem-solving mindset in students. Some models have more steps, some fewer, but all research process models have 4 basic phases:NoSweat Research Process Models Comparison Chart- image

  1. plan
  2. aggregate materials & information
  3. create a product
  4. evaluate outcome.

Download my FREE chart of research process models to choose a model most suited to grade level, subject, and assignment. To make the process clear and understandable, give students an infographic of the model. I use just 2 simple models for 6th graders and scaffold the planning process throughout the school year. During 7th & 8th grades I present more models, so before they leave our campus, students have learned how to use a variety of research processes.

Teachers rarely include planning as part of a research assignment—students have a single topic, gather the same information, and regurgitate the same product. We can change that by showing teachers quick planning strategies to incorporate into a library visit. Simple brainstorming with Post-It® Notes, a Thinking Map Circle©, or a KWL chart stimulates students to think in terms of problem-solving and are quick & easy ways to begin a project.

image of 6 Question Research Topic PlannerUse a graphic organizer to help students formulate questions for research. Questions also help students sift through resources for specific information, and because they require analysis and decision-making, they form that problem-solving mindset. Here are 4 graphic organizers I’ve used to generate questions:

The plan phase of a Research Process Model is followed by the aggregate materials & information phase, and we move seamlessly into that Info-Lit component when presenting resources students can use for their assignment.

SEARCH & EVALUATION SKILLS

We need to teach students 3 different elements of this Info-Lit component: source selection, search strategies, and resource evaluation.

Clipped KWHL chart for Alternative Energy Research unit.

Source selection may be proscribed by the teacher, the grade level, or the assignment. Based on the type of resources students need, we may offer a book-cart of library materials, an online Resource List of Web-based sources, or expand a KWL chart by adding How (as shown at right) to make a KWHL chart listing a variety of resources.

Convince students they will “save time and find better information” by using subscription databases and e-books provided by the state and school district. I use this 2½-minute video from Yavapai College: “What Are Databases and Why You Need Them.” If you really want to convince students, mention that they don’t have to evaluate these sources since they’ve already been approved!

My own Keyword Search Form with search modifiers.

Keyword search form

The most important lesson we can teach students about search strategies is how to generate keywords. For a quick lesson students can write keywords on a Post-It® Note (which can be used as an Exit Ticket!). When we use a graphic organizer—such as the KWHL above—have students highlight or underline important words in their questions. To help students master the basics, download my keyword search form and provide it at library computers to reinforce the importance of keywords.

Pre-HS students don’t need to know the term “Boolean operators, as long as they know how to use them. I include the search modifiers AND-OR-NOT on infographics, in graphic organizers, and as part of my keyword search form.

We can quickly teach students to sift top-level domain extensions when searching the free Web by typing site:gov, site:edu, or site:org into the search field of a search engine.

ABC: A Simple Acronym For Website Evaluation - Website evaluation is a topic with many checklists and acronyms. To keep things quick, easy, and memorable, use this simple 3-letter “ABC” acronym which is enough for evaluating the quality of any resource. #NoSweatLibraryThis is a perfect segue into resource evaluation, a topic with many Internet checklists and acronyms. To keep things quick, easy, and memorable, I use this simple 3-letter “ABC” acronym which I believe is enough for evaluating the quality of any resource:

  • Authority — Who is the source of the information?
  • Bias — Why is this published, for what purpose?
  • Currency — When was this information published or updated?

You may wonder why I don’t have all the criteria other evaluators use:

  • I don’t include validity/usefulness, because it’s implied when students select sources that answer the planning questions for their topic. If a source doesn’t provide answers to any questions, they don’t need to evaluate it; if it does, then they use ABC.
  • I don’t include reliability, because it’s part of Currency and Authority. If the site creator has the proper authority, then we can accept it as reliable.
  • I don’t include accuracy, because that can’t take place until the “create” phase, when students analyze and compare information after it’s been aggregated from sources. If the information isn’t accurate, the source isn’t used.

Part of the aggregate materials & information phase of a research process model is extracting information from chosen sources, and that’s when we discuss Academic Honesty Guidelines & Note-taking Skills with students.

ACADEMIC HONESTY & NOTE-TAKING

It’s important to give students an understanding of, and respect for, intellectual property & fair use so they legally access and ethically use information & media, and properly cite copyrighted text, images, music, and video to avoid plagiarism or piracy when producing their end product. For years I struggled through these lessons, but as soon as I began to use the phrase “academic honesty,” students became more positive toward these lessons—I believe it empowers students to meet high standards and builds their self-esteem.

A previous blog post about how I teach Academic Honesty includes examples and resources, but here’s a quick overview of the 3 conceptual elements of Academic Honesty, organized in the order that best complements the problem-solving mindset we’re trying to implant in students:

  1. The Academic Honesty Bundle at No Sweat Library on Teachers Pay TeachersIntellectual property – creations of the mind that belong to the originator or other designated owner.
    1. Citation
    2. Bibliography
  2. Copyright – legal rights given to owners of creative work so it can’t be used or stolen by others.
    1. Note-taking by quoting/paraphrasing, in-document citation
    2. Note-taking by summarizing
  3.  Fair Uselimited legal use of copyrighted material.
    1. Public domain – works whose intellectual property rights/copyrights are expired, given up, or excluded.
    2. Creative Commons
  4. Plagiarismpresenting someone else’s words, ideas, or creative expressions as one’s own. An ethical (not a legal) issue of academic dishonesty/fraud.

This conceptual separation of Academic Honesty can allow us to incorporate a short lesson on any concept throughout the school year.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Research process models, search and evaluation skills, and academic honesty complete the Library Information Literacy curriculum, but in our modern technological and global world students need more. Technology skills are crucial for future schooling and employment, and students also need to learn how to ethically interact with and evaluate all the media around us, so come back for Parts 4 & 5 of Essential Literacies as I offer ideas for incorporating digital literacy and media literacy into library visits.

This is the third entry in my series of blog posts on the 5 Essential Literacies for Students. I invite readers to offer comments and suggestions about any or all of these literacies.

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Research Process Models

You can find the Research Processes chart & keyword search form on my FREE Librarian Resources page.
 NoSweat Research Process Models Comparison Chart- image

My own Keyword Search Form with search modifiers.

Keyword search form

The 6-Question Research Topic Planner mentioned above can be downloaded free by joining my e-Group mailing list. Click on the invitation below. You can find the Notetaking Worksheet mentioned above at No Sweat Library, my TeachersPayTeachers store.
image of 6 Question Research Topic Planner NoSweat Research Notetaking Worksheet available on my TeachersPayTeachers Store
You can find my 4 Academic Honesty lessons featured in NoSweat Library, my TeachersPayTeachers store.

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5 Ways a School Librarian Can Improve Your Project Based Learning

5 Ways a School Librarian Can Improve Your Project Based Learning - Project-Based Learning provides a superior learning environment for students. School Librarians can download the PDF "How a School Librarian can help with PBL" to encourage collaboration with teachers who have been reluctant to try PBL or had a bad experience with it. #NoSweatLibraryEducators have known for years that student projects are great assessment strategies, but the current trend in project based learning shows us that projects also provide a superior learning environment. Students are more engaged in critical thinking, their learning is contextual instead of disparate, and they make more authentic connections to the ‘real world’.

Many teachers struggle with Project Based Learning or have had a disappointing experience, and that doesn’t need to happen. I’m revealing the very best way to make Project Based Learning more successful: collaborate with the School Librarian!

A BIT OF BACKGROUND

An Edutopia article Project-Based Learning vs. Problem-Based Learning vs. X-BL, by Buck Institute for Education (BIE) Editor-in-Chief John Larner, states that “The term ‘project learning’ derives from the work of John Dewey and dates back to William Kilpatrick, who first used the term in 1918,” and “The use of case studies and simulations as ‘problems’ dates back to medical schools in the 1960s.” Thus there is a rich background for the success of PBL as a learning system.

According to Larner and BIE, project-based learning has an array of new monikers that take various forms, but it is primarily an “extended learning experience” that may include one or more of the following:

  • “investigating a topic or issue to develop an answer to an open-ended question”
  • “solving a real-world problem (may be simulated or fully authentic)”
  • “designing and/or creating a tangible product, performance or event.”

According to Larner, PBL et al. falls under the general category of inquiry-based learning—which also includes research papers, scientific investigations, Socratic Seminars or other text-based discussions, etc.” (Nice to know those research papers we’ve been assigning all these years are still relevant!)

HOW YOUR SCHOOL LIBRARIAN CAN HELP

School Librarians Are Perfect PBL Partners - Teachers collaborating with the School Librarian can make Project Based Learning more successful for students and generate higher achievement. #NoSweatLibraryIf you’ve been reluctant to try PBL or had a bad experience with it, here are 5 ways your School Librarian can be an invaluable PBL partner:

  1. We can show students the best research process model to guide them through the project/problem/design/challenge they’ve chosen. I’ve created a chart of the best research process models out there and it’s a FREE PDF download. All PSMs have 4 basic phases: plan, aggregate materials, create a product, and analyze outcome. Some have more steps, some fewer, and all develop in students a problem-solving mindset. NoSweat Research Process Models Comparison Chart- imageSince each model has its benefits and flaws, a School Librarian, experienced in teaching these models, can determine the most suitable process for the project a teacher has in mind, can present it in a manner that supports student inquiry, and will scaffold the learning so students master each step.
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  2. We can show students the best ways to develop meaningful questions.My 6-Question Topic PlannerStudents rarely have an opportunity to plan a research assignment, so they may not be adept at creating meaningful questions for PBL. School Librarians have brainstorming tools to help students formulate questions as they begin their projects. We can also show students how good questions help them sift through resources for specific information—saving them time—and how to analyze the value of that information to create a quality product or outcome.
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  3. We can show each student the best information resources for their needs.
    My school library had 10,000 non-fiction books, along with more than 50 different online services. Imagine the confusion for students trying to determine what to use for their information need. A school librarian knows all the resources available to students, and more importantly, knows how to match the most useful print, audio, video, digital, or web-based resources with the needs of each student’s project. We are the ultimate curators of information resources!
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  4. We can show students all the best search strategies for those sources.
    Before the Internet came along School Librarians taught students how to generate keywords to search an Index or Table of Contents in print materials. Our purpose has not changed; teaching students to generate keywords is essential for searching online, whether for text, graphic, audio or video materials. "Google can bring you back 100,000 answers; a Librarian can bring you back the right one." Neil GaimanWe’ve also mastered ways to fine-tune a search in online subscription services and search engines, such as Google. We can help each student customize their search for whatever their own project requires.
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  5. We can show students the best way to gather information ethically and proficiently.
    NoSweat Library Academic Honesty SloganA prior blog post talked about Academic Honesty and teaching students note-taking methods for the ethical use of information. School Librarians also know a range of digital and online apps to assist students in gathering and organizing their information, some of which are excellent for presenting the final project/product.

Teachers can gain confidence for doing Project/Problem Based Learning by collaborating with their School Librarians. If you are a Teacher, now is a perfect time to visit with your School Librarian about planning PBL lessons for the coming school year.

image of 5 ways SL helps with PBLIf you are a School Librarian,  here is a downloadable PDF document to share with your teachers about this article’s 5 Ways to collaborate with them for some exciting Project Based Learning experiences for students!

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