Presented at LILAC 2015

1. How can we
raise information literacy levels
in a secondary school?
Dr. Carol Webb FCLIP
Forest Hill School
Lilac 2015

2. Research Questions
• Practitioner research
• Exploring teacher perspective
• What does it mean to be information literate and is it changing in the new
technological age?
• How can librarians and teachers work together to raise information
literacy levels?
• What is the role of the librarian in raising information literacy in the school
for both teachers and students?
• What is the understanding among teachers of the importance of
information literacy and of the role librarians can perform in the teaching
and learning of this subject?

3. Significant outcomes
• Contextualisation
– The meaning of IL is contingent on the context in
which the skills are being deployed.
• Information Literacy Capacity
• Role of the librarian

4. Methodology
• Secondary school setting + small in scale
• Participant researcher
• Respondents’ validation
• Twelve teacher voices – a range of age,
experience and subject specialisms
– With and without experience of working with the
librarian

5. Factual Findings
• Information has a specific role in a subject
discipline.
• It is understood and its use taught, through that
subject lens, by the teacher.
Classroom-based,
didactic, staff-led
cognitive authority
Iterative, student-led
inquiry + cognitive
authority open to question
IL Teaching Styles

6. Conceptual outcome 1:
The meaning of information literacy
• In History: ‘…although the skills are transferable
they’re not identical and we do want to emphasise
different… The importance of one skill in history might
far outweigh another.’
• In Science: ‘the ability of students to look at
information in a range of formats, text, tables and graphs
and to construct meaning…’
• In Art: ‘It would be an emotional response…I’m
interested in not going to the text because we’re
visual…the information, it dictates our responses and our
connections’

7. Conceptual outcome 2:
Instrument – Information Literacy Capacity
Capacity Learner Attainment Characteristics Ability Teacher Role
5
Metacognition:
self-awareness as a
learner
Critical thinking, tests
methods and consciously
hones skill
Adapts and integrates for own use
and articulates personal impact
Accommodate student
autonomy
4
Understands complexity
and has coping strategies
Selects appropriate
technique and shows critical
thinking
Confident in making choices and
testing them
Provide opportunities
for independent
application
3
Adapts skills to different
contexts
Understands differences Discusses principles/rules for
different subject contexts
Guide practice
examining use in other
contexts
2
Awareness of transfer Connects with previous
experience
Needs prompting and support to
make explicit link to other
experiences
Guide practice using
knowledge of work in
other subjects
1
A trained behaviour Knowledge of resource
e.g. a dictionary
No transfer, personal selection or
autonomy
of thought
Close direction
(Bloom and Krathwohl 1956; Nisbet and Shucksmith 1986; Perkins and Salomon 1989; Beyer 1997; Limberg 2007)

8. Transfer of Learning
• “low road” and “high road” (Perkins and Salomon 1989,
p.22)
• Elements need to be examined and their
applicability in other contexts explored (Nisbet and
Shucksmith 1986, p.21)
• Practice these skills in “ever-widening variety
of contexts” (Beyer 1997 p.272)

9. Transfer of learning
Current strategies include:
• Modelling (Teacher A and C);
• Cross-curricular teaching of a topic (Teacher D);
• Discussion to make links between use in different subjects (Teacher
G);
• Consistent use of language by teachers in one department team
(Teacher C)
• Only the latter had been monitored for effectiveness.
• No widespread recognition of strategies and little is
systematically implemented.
Complicated by:
– A limited knowledge of how the deployment of a
skill changes from one subject area to another.

10. Overview of factual findings
• Progress to greater capacity complicated by
– low teacher awareness of IL
– Constraints of time, curriculum priorities and
academic monitoring requirements
• Knowledge and strategies needed for teaching
transfer of learning not widespread.
• Teaching of search (library context) is almost entirely
absent from subject teaching.

11. Teacher Perspective: Librarian Role
• The librarian’s role in resourcing the curriculum is
valued for the way
• it supports teachers,
• provides students with many more information-handling
opportunities
• and opens up the cognitive authority of knowledge to
questioning.
• Role of the library in a school setting is valued for
• the support it gives students outside of lesson times and
• how it helps student develop their reading to underpin
wider literacy skills.

12. Teacher Perspective: Librarian Role
Teachers value the librarian’s teaching role
when:
• their knowledge and skills improve the quality
of student outcomes;
• if they have a knowledge of student needs for
differentiation purposes;
• are able to activate prior learning;
• and employ some of the subject specific
language in support of the teacher’s goals.

13. Continuum for Librarian’s
Collaboration Role with Teachers
Counselor Tutor Instructor Lecturer Organiser
Integration Co-ordination
(Montiel-Overall 2005; Kuhlthau 1993)

14. Complications of field
• Low confidence of librarians in teaching role
(Streatfield, Shaper and Rae-Scott 2010)
• Absence of empirically tested pedagogy used
in schools relating to information literacy,
particularly
– Synthesis and Assessment

15. Implications for librarians
• Teaching needs to be subject situated and task relevant.
• Librarians need knowledge of: differentiation; student
understanding of skill/topic; task objective; subject specific
language; assessment criteria; resources.
• Awareness of principles and rules for deployment of skills
in different subject areas.
• Need to re-conceptualise search: intellectual Vs mechanics.
• Librarian roles of resourcing and developing readers in
relation to questioning cognitive authority of knowledge.
• Wider profession needs to develop a vision of IL that
reflects a multiplicity of contexts (other than library)
enabling other communities to find resonance with their
practice.

16. Future research
• Uses and responses to Table for IL Capacity
• Need to empirically test pedagogy
• Identify action images for disseminating
practice
• Study deployment of IL skills in different
subject contexts to identify principles and
rules
• Re-conceptualise Search

17. Bibliography
Beyer, B. (1997) Improving student thinking: a cognitive approach. Needham
Heights: Allyn & Bacon.
Bloom, B. S. and Krathwohl, D.A. (1956) Taxonomy of educational objects. Vols
1 & 2. London: Green & Co Ltd.
Kuhlthau, C.C. (1993) Seeking meaning: a process approach to library and
information services. Westport, Connecticut: Ablex Publishing.
Limberg, L. (2007) ‘Learning assignment as task in information seeking
research’, Information Research, 12 (4), pp.1-11.
Montiel-Overall, P. (2005) ‘A theoretical understanding of teacher and
librarian collaboration (TLC)’, School Libraries Worldwide, 11 (2), pp.24-48.
Nisbet, J. and Shucksmith, J. (1986) Learning strategies. London: Routledge.
Perkins, D. N. and Salomon, G. (1989) ‘Are cognitive skills context-bound?’
Educational Researcher, 18 (1) pp.16-25.
Streatfield, D., Shaper, S. and Rae-Scott, S. (2010) School libraries in the UK: a
worthwhile past, a difficult present – and a transformed future? Main Report
of the UK Survey. [Online]. Available at http://www.informat.org/slpsurvey/
(Accessed: 20 December 2012).