Conference presentation for First steps into learning & teaching course at Oxford Brookes University

1. Teaching
information literacy
skills
Jo Akers
FSTL16
February 2016

2. Background: about me
Academic Liaison Librarian for:
Communication Media & Culture, English Language & Communication,
Religion & Theology, Philosophy, and Sport Coaching & PE at Oxford
Brookes University

3. Background: why teach
information literacy?
One of the Brookes graduate attributes is
“To be able to use appropriate technology to
search for high quality information; critically
to evaluate and engage with the information
obtained” (OCSLD, 2015)

4. Theories behind need for
information literacy
• IAKT “I already know that” (Bell, 2007 et al) BUT
• Gross (2012) “Simply stated, they tend to believe that they
have above-average IL skills, when, in fact, an objective test of
their ability indicates that they are below proficient in terms
of their actual skills”
• Rieh (2016) “students [...] believe that accessing, searching,
using and evaluating sources of information are easy tasks
that anyone can perform”

5. Confirmation from some of our
students
• From OBU Library satisfaction survey 2015 – suggestions for
improvements
“The search tools for searching things online, for example I can't
always be specific enough when searching for peer assessed
journals”
“Find resources easier. I'm sure the system is easy but often you
have to learn it first, it's not just straight forward”

6. Session for evaluation
• First year undergraduates, in week 4, 1 hour training session in
the library. Already seen the group previous week for 1 hour.
• 19 students attended (not exactly the same 19 as the week
before)
• Lecturer wasn’t present, but I was instructed to take a register
and she had implied heavily that attendance was compulsory
– this can help counteract IAKT syndrome.
• Session focused on teaching referencing skills

7. Methods employed:
powerpoint slides

8. Brief exercise
in groups

9. Demonstration of software

10. Outcomes – as professed via
powerpoint

11. Outcomes – for my own purposes
• Making them remember ME!
• Making it relevant – both in subject matter and timeliness for
their course. This is helped by knowing the title and hand-in
date of the assignment.
• Making it student centred (Carbery, 2010)

12. Bloom’s taxonomy* and IL
• Evaluation – being able to appraise and critically evaluate extracted
information (Keene, 2010)
• Synthesis –extracting information from those articles to use to back
arguments in own assignment ie using them as evidence
• Analysis – finding useful articles pertaining to those
keywords/metaphors
• Application – creating a search strategy from those keywords &
metaphors
• Comprehension – understanding the assignment, being able to pick
out keywords and use metaphors
• Knowledge – the assignment that they’ve been given
*taken from Butcher, 2014

13. How do the outcomes align?
Knowledge
Comprehension
Application
• Recognize different types of
references
• Understand the difference between
a reference and a bibliography
• Understand the importance of
citing your sources
• Understand the benefits of using
reference management software
such as EndNote
Knowledge

14. How do the methods align?
• Brief exercise in groups
• EndNote software
• Populating EndNote with…
• …useful articles
• Synthesis & evaluation – would come from correctly
referencing and using EndNote after the session has ended
Analysis
Knowledge &
comprehension
Application
Analysis

15. Evaluating the outcomes against
Bloom
• Need to focus on progressing the synthesis and
evaluation levels, but how?
• Follow-up on students. There will be an opportunity
as I’m seeing the group again this semester. Are any
still using EndNote?
• Devise a way of testing their knowledge for this second
session – maybe another exercise embedded plus
opportunities for questions
• Ask for feedback

16. Future actions
• Liked the breakout session – but try and elicit more
participation/conversation
• Promote materials (eg slideshows, videos, handouts)
arising from the session more effectively – via Moodle,
social media, lecturer
• Reiterate – use Moodle forums, social media channels,
rep forums to reinforce messages by repetition (Rothera,
2015)
• Focus on feedback!

17. Feedback
• Some formal feedback via surveys (OBU internal and
external such as NSS)
• Informally through other channels (subject committees,
from lecturers, views of Moodle tools)
• But do need to address, so may try Rothera’s open
questions (p.41-42)
• Peer review of training sessions – ask a colleague to sit in

18. Recommendations
• Seek better channels for feedback
• Employ more drop-in sessions (Rothera, 2015)
• Create more online tools for use as-and-when – some
progress made already with video for Communication
Media & Culture undergrads
• Increase use of mixed methods in sessions

19. References
Bell, S. J. (2007) 'Stop IAKT syndrome with student live search demos', Reference Services Review, 35(1), pp.
98-108.
Butcher, C. (2014) 'Describing what students should learn', in Fry, H., Ketteridge, S. & Marshall, S. (eds.) A
handbook for teaching and learning in higher education: enhancing academic practice. 4th ed. London:
Routledge, pp. 80-93.
Carbery, A. and Hegarty, N. (2010) 'Think 'on' the box: delivering engaging library database training to first year
undergraduate students', SCONUL Focus, (50), pp. 52-56.
Gross, M. and Latham, D. (2012) 'What's skill got to do with it?: Information literacy skills and self‐views of
ability among first‐year college students', Journal of the American Society for Information Science and
Technology, 63(3), pp. 574-583.
Keene, J., Colvin, J. and Sissons, J. (2010) 'Mapping student information literacy activity against Bloom's
Taxonomy of Cognitive Skills', Journal of Information Literacy, 4(1), pp. 5-17.
OCSLD and Oxford Brookes University (2015) Graduate attributes. Available at:
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/ocsld/your-development/teaching-and-learning/graduate-attributes/ (Accessed: 15th
February 2016).
Rieh, S. Y., Collins-Thompson, K., Hansen, P. and Lee, H.-J. (2016) 'Towards searching as a learning process:
A review of current perspectives and future directions', 42(1), pp. 19-34.
Rothera, H. (2015) 'Picking up the cool tools: working with strategic students to get bite-sized information
literacy tutorials created, promoted, embedded, remembered and used', Journal of Information Literacy, 9(2),
pp. 37-61.