Allen Grant

A Collaborative I-LEARN Project With Kindergarten and Second-Grade Urban Teachers and Students at a University-Assisted School:

This study describes an information/digital literacy project that was conducted with kindergarten and second-grade students and teachers at a university-assisted school. The study centered on the I-LEARN model—a learning model that blends research and theory from information science and instructional systems design—and investigated how the model could be used to support information-rich learning at the school; the dimensions of digital literacy that were most salient for the teachers and students; and how information/digital literacies can be taught in this setting. The data revealed that each teacher’s approach to the project, their assumptions about their students’ background with technology and research, and their own knowledge about information/digital literacies had significant effects on their students’ learning outcomes.

I-LEARN: Helping Young Children Become Information Literate

This study involved 49 children and four teachers in the design, development, and evaluation of a research project built around the I-LEARN model [1-2]. The objectives were to investigate the use of the model with an early-childhood population and to understand how digital and information literacy evolves in best practices for implementing problem-based learning as informed by I-LEARN. Analysis revealed that teachers adjusted their implementation of I-LEARN’s steps to meet students’ needs and to mesh with their own styles. Students were able to build new knowledge and enjoyed learning a variety of ways to acquire information. The model made the idea of research concrete and helped learners focus on specific tasks and accomplishments. Teachers’ technological/pedagogical knowledge grew, and teachers concluded that students’ projects were successful and that they overcame a lack of computer experience to focus on finding and analyzing sources and reflecting on their learning.

Community Schools and the Role of University-School-Community Collaboration

Public school districts are locally controlled and funded through local property taxes. Funding schools this way perpetuates structural inequities in poorer school districts and as a result, students living in poverty have minimal access to critical resources that support student learning. Community schools are resurfacing in many of these urban spaces as a mechanism for addressing the systemic and structural inequities plaguing students, schools, and communities. Advocates posit that increasing student achievement requires addressing the needs of the whole child; conceptualizing schooling through this lens offers an expanded vision of what public education needs to be for many of today’s children. This paper aims to improve our overall understanding of community schools and highlights specific actions taken by community organizations and higher education institutions to create meaningful partnerships with public schools operating as community schools. The authors posit that collaborative and organically developed, grassroots relationships have the potential to alter the traditional dynamic between internal public school employees and external stakeholders, leading to school, student, and community transformation.

Using I-LEARN to Foster the Information and Digital Literacies of Middle School Students

This paper summarizes the findings from focus group data of four teachers and 41 middle school students in an urban school who were involved in a project that used the I-LEARN framework to develop the participants’ skills in information and digital literacy. An analysis of the data revealed that the students found it useful and/or challenging to find and evaluate information on the Internet and to design digital products and that their digital skills improved in different ways. The teachers cited various approaches and purposes for using technology during the project and held varying assumptions about their students’ digital literacy skills.