Learning Information Literacy and teaching: an action research project

Learning Information Literacy and
Teaching: an Action Research
Project
Pamela McKinney
and Sheila Webber
Information School, University of Sheffield
September 2017, ECIL, Saint-Malo

Outline
• The module context
• Mapping the modules against Entwistle’s et al.
(2004) Teaching-learning Environments model
• Aspects of course design
• Action research cycle, and reflections on
findings
• Conclusions
Title photo taken by Sheila Webber in the virtual world, Second Life (SL is TM Linden Lab)
McKinneyandWebber,2017

The Information Literacy
modules
• Face-to-Face (F2F) and Distance Learning (DL course new in 2015)
running in tandem
• Learning aims:
• understand from both theoretical and practical perspectives the
concepts of information literacy and information behaviour;
• develop their own information literacy and understanding of its
application to their future lives;
• compare different approaches to teaching and demonstrate
awareness of implications for adopting different approaches to
teaching and learning;
• understand how the information environment is evolving,
including both traditional and new media, and the implications for
citizens’ information literacy; and
• develop practical skills in searching, evaluating and presenting
information.

The development of the TLE model
• ETL project Enhancing teaching-learning
environments in Undergraduate Courses
• 5 case studies in different disciplinary areas
• Gathered multi-institutional data and used
multiple data collection methods – from students
and from staff

The Teaching-
Learning
Environment
Entwistle et al.
(2004: 3)

Subject knowledge & pedagogical beliefs
• Pam -Background as a learning developer
working specifically to extend and develop
Inquiry-based learning (IBL) at the university.
Research intersection between IBL and IL
• Sheila – expertise in TEL and IBL – 2nd Life,
MOOCs; research experience in
phenomenography
• Have UoS teaching awards individually and as a
team
• Our joint understanding of IL and what it means
from a theoretical and practical perspective in
different communities and landscapes

What students are expected to learn and
understand
• Desire to bring about conceptual change in
students and not just “develop skills”.
• Develop a strong theoretical basis for their
teaching

Validating bodies and academic community
• CILIP accreditation and Professional Knowledge
& Skills Base (PKSB) & QAA subject benchmarks
• Views from employers and alumni
• Research: Corrall & Bewick (2009); Wheeler &
McKinney (2015); Hornung (2013)
Departmental and institutional influences
• Institutional procedures & policies
• Drive to create new distance learning course

Entry characteristics
• DL students part-time, mostly working while
studying
• F2F more “just” students (but all had previous
work experience)
• F2F students ¼ International; DL students 1/10
international
• Range of Undergraduate degree subjects

Overall course design (linked with constructive
alignment; Biggs & Tang, 2011)
• Both modules share subject, sequence and assessment
but the tools used to deliver and mediate the teaching
are different in the F2F and DL versions of the module.
• 2 overarching strands – what is Information Literacy,
what is Teaching & Learning
• Practical activities (e.g. use TEL tools, Dialog searching)
that are linked to expected progress on assessment
tasks
• Theoretical material dealt with towards end of module to
ensure students have had teaching that directly relates to
the assessment

• Assignment 1: create an annotated bibliography on a
topic negotiated with a tutor and reflect on how personal
IL has been developed through this activity.
• Assignment 2: Work in a group to design an IL learning
intervention (not assessed). Critically reflect on the
experience of designing and delivering IL teaching and
their personal development as teachers.

30/05/2017 © The University of Sheffield
Principal tools we use

Principal tools we use
30/05/2017 © The University of Sheffield
Flipped learning:
Echo360, Camtasia
etc. to record - for
both modules
One practice has
informed the other
(virtuous circle)

Example activity: Reflect on an experience of
finding information and identify the sources
used
Face-2-Face
• Pre-session students asked to
post to a Blackboard
discussion forum.
• In the session students were
given a short lecture and then
asked to discuss their post with
a partner or small group in the
light of material covered on
“Infomation Horizons”.
• Plenary discussion led by the
tutor where individual’s
experiences were discussed
and points of interest or
comparison were surfaced.
Distance Learning
• Pre-session (week) students
asked to post to Google+
group.
• A lecture was recorded with
audio & video components
and made available on
Blackboard
• Students were encouraged to
reflect on their original post in
the light of material covered
on “Information
Horizons”
and post again.
• A short feedback
video was created
that discussed the
student posts and
this was also made
available on
Blackboard

Action research: was the
distance learning module
meeting goals in terms of
students’ development as
teachers?

Plan
(another
year...)
Reflect
Observe
Act
(delivery)
Plan
(setting aims;
course design)
Teacher’s
observation in of
teaching
Student reflection
in assignments
Student
evaluations
Teacher’s
discussion with
co-teachers &
others
Informal student
feedback
Interviews with 3
students:
transcribed and
analysed
Discussion
fora etc.
“reflection in
action”
Action research
In context of TLE

Interviews drew on 2
phenomenographic studies
• Hornung (2013):
conceptions of
Continuing Professional
Development
• Wheeler and McKinney
(2015): librarians’
conceptions of
themselves as teachers

Action research project:
development as teachers
• All participants had some teaching (training)
experience but no theoretical back ground “I just did it
or did what my colleagues did and tried to adapt it if I
didn’t like it” (P1)
• Theoretical focus of the IL module helped
development as a teacher: “this was one of the big
things about your module, that it kind of gave me more
of this theoretical background, and I can use it”(P1)
• Prompted P1 to do PG Certificate in teaching at their
institution
• P3 identified an increased desire for teaching
qualifications in librarian job advertisements

• All participants reflected on moving from transmissive style of
teaching to a more constructivist style of teaching
• “you have to have a little bit of confidence when you try to be a bit
more active, more active learning, and I think this is one of the
things that improved, yeah, I have more discussions now with my
students than I had when I started.” (P1)
• “For me it was opening my ideas to probably some of the more
modern theories about how we can engage people, and I can see
how for me those would be good models to use with people when
you’re trying to work with people with different skillsets and different
ideas and different backgrounds, that allowing them to explore it is
much more an empowering experience for them.” (p2)
• But I have to say that before I did this module that was my only sort
of concept of teaching, so in a classroom sort of giving information
(p3).

Developing expertise in Technology Enhanced Learning and
Teaching; “I was really worried ……I would naturally have a lot of
strategies for getting to know my learners and talking to them and sharing,
you know, and making sure that they’re feeling comfortable about joining in
and understanding what it is that they want to get out of sessions and
things like that, and I was looking at this electronic stuff thinking, I felt
completely inexperienced and yeah [laughs], like I don’t know how I’m
going to approach this, you know, so that was the really hard thing, and
having to rethink stuff to try and convert it.” (P2)
changing perceptions of TEL: In fact, you know, when I was looking for
courses in librarianship I sort of avoided the distance learning ones
because I thought, you know, how am I going to interact? But the fact that I
did this module definitely sort of changed my way of thinking, that you
know, the fact that you have Adobe Connect and you can see the lecturer
and you can hear them, and that you have a variety of resources that you
can look at in your own time as opposed to sort of face to face, having to do
it there, and that was also quite good. (P3)

Helen Kiely's
experience...
(distance
learner)
Photo: Sheila Webber

"It’s eleven o’clock at night and I am sitting in bed with my
laptop balanced precariously on my knees. On my screen, a
PowerPoint document is undergoing rapid changes. Slide 3’s
pictures are moving around, citations are being added to
Slide 7, typos are being removed on slide 12 all at the same
time. Through my headphones I can hear my fellow students
chatting away about the changes we still need to make and
at the bottom of the webpage a chat browser adds more
comments to the conversation. One person says she will
have to go soon, it is nearly teatime in Hong Kong, while the
rest of us will soon be heading to our beds before it is time to
get up for work the next morning.
I never expected distance-learning group work would look like
this!" (Kiely and Dawson, 2017)

Action research project–
development of own IL
• P2 – developing a broader conception of IL “So there’s
a lot about not only the finding the information but that full
assessment of information, what is information and what’s
not information and what’s, you know, and from their
context it would have been hearsay and things like that, but
I think it was thinking about those things that was newer to
me”
• P2 – incorporating new IL understanding into student
support “So actually, and so that’s something that I now
show students to do quite regularly, is I draw them out a
little table and go, “Look, think about what words you’re
using and compare them,” because it’s surprising how
differently you get results for just a tiny, you would almost
think of it as an inconsequential change”

Action research project –
wheeler model
P1: Before module: “trainer”
“Exactly, I am a trainer, I am a skills trainer, no, I
show them something, I show them how to use a
database, I show them how to type in a word, I
show them how to use Refworks or
whatever……It’s very much skills training session,
I’m not a teacher.”
After module: “Librarian who teaches” –
increase in understanding of constructivism

Wheeler model
• P2: before – “Trainer” (relates assessment
to teaching)
• After: views “teaching” as a transmissive
style and rejects it “I think the word teacher
is too, yeah, it indicates a degree of formality
and control and rigidity of presenting
information that I do not subscribe to”

Wheeler model
•P3: Before ”I’m not a teacher and I don’t
teach.”
•After: “My whole concept has sort of changed,
like it’s not standard, you know, being a teacher,
being in a classroom, preparing something,
having students do an activity, mark it, but it can
be in other sort of ……it’s not just giving them
the information they’re asking you for but
understanding what they don’t get, and that’s
sort of trying to, yeah, help them develop their
skills or their knowledge”

Conclusions
• Being in-work allows students to more
immediately contextualise their learning through
discussion and observation
• Students enhanced their own teaching practice
through engaging with teaching theory
• Personal IL development has been fed through
into improved support for their students
• Models developed through phenomenography
useful tools for stimulating reflection and
development

Referencesat
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AStBnYqjwMn
dpDoIL9aaJPh18ZgbjbH-
J3cHZWG4Sbk/edit?usp=sharing
Sheila Webber
Information School
University of Sheffield
s.webber@shef.ac.uk
Twitter: @sheilayoshikawa
Second Life: Sheila Yoshikawa
http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/
http://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber/
Pamela McKinney
Information School
University of Sheffield
p.mckinney@shef.ac.uk
Twitter: @ischoolpam

Learning Information Literacy and teaching: an action research project

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