Clarence Maybee

Designing rich information experiences to shape learning outcomes

Students in higher education typically learn to use information as part of their course of study, which is intended to support ongoing academic, personal and professional growth. Informing the development of effective information literacy education, this research uses a phenomenographic approach to investigate the experiences of a teacher and students engaged in lessons focused on exploring language and gender topics by tracing and analyzing their evolution through scholarly discourse. The findings suggest that the way learners use information influences content-focused learning outcomes, and reveal how teachers may enact lessons that enable students to learn to use information in ways that foster a specific understanding of the topic they are investigating.

Motivating learners through information literacy

This paper introduces a model for creating information literacy learning activities that motivate students. The model draws from informed learning, an approach to information literacy that emphasizes the role that information plays in fostering learning about a subject. Self-determination theory, a motivational theory that focuses on enabling self-determined learners, is applied within the informed learning framework. The results of the investigation outline characteristics of motivating learning activities that enable learning subject content through engagement with information. The model is intended to be used by librarians when working with classroom teachers to foster greater student learning gains through creative and reflective engagement with information.

Data informed learning: a next phase data literacy framework for higher education

Accessing, using and managing data is increasingly recognized as an important learning outcome in higher education. Approaches to data literacy have typically been informed by information literacy. New approaches to information literacy have emerged that address how information is used in the different disciplinary contexts in which people learn and work. Successful approaches to data literacy will also need to address contextual concerns. Informed learning is an approach to information literacy that purposefully addresses contextual concerns by suggesting pedagogic strategies for enabling students to use information in ways that support discipline‐focused learning outcomes. As part of an ongoing investigation, we advance data informed learning as a framework for data literacy in higher education that emphasizes how data are used to learn and communicate within disciplinary learning contexts. Drawing from informed learning, we outline principles and characteristics of data informed learning, and suggest future directions to investigate ways that data are used in real‐world environments.

Chapter 8 – IMPACT Lessons: Strategically Embedding Media and Information Literacy Through Teacher Development in Higher Education

Embedding media and information literacy (MIL) meaningfully and thoughtfully into curricula is a powerful way to create richer learning experiences for students. Building on the relationship between MIL and learning, this chapter describes how librarians at Purdue University leverage opportunities afforded by the IMPACT (Instruction Matters: Purdue Academic Course Transformation) teacher development program. Through IMPACT, librarians work to empower higher education teachers to strategically embed MIL in foundational courses. The chapter discusses the shifting role of librarians, adopting the strategies of an information consultant working with teachers to develop shared goals across disciplinary boundaries. IMPACT librarians adopt an informed learning approach to MIL that focuses on how information is used to address a teacher’s goals for student learning. An instructional design process provides specific targets for conversations about how students can use information more creatively and reflectively to learn. The chapter concludes with two reflections from librarians working with teachers in IMPACT that demonstrate the use of these strategies to successfully embed MIL into a communication and a technology course.

Experiences of Informed Learning in the Undergraduate Classroom

This chapter discusses using phenomenography to study information experience. Phenomenographers aim to investigate people’s experiences of the world around them, which is comprised of the interrelationship between an individual and a phenomenon they are focusing on. Phenomenography has been identified as a research approach suited to the study of information experience. Phenomenographic research investigating experiences of using information in different contexts has led to the development of informed learning, which is an approach to information literacy that emphasizes learning as an outcome of using information. Recent research focusing on information experience has been referred to as informed learning research. The preliminary findings from a current informed learning study illustrate the educative benefits of researching information experience. This study investigates a classroom lesson, in which a teacher outlines an assignment that requires the students to understand a language and gender topic by investigating the evolution of research on the topic. The lesson is experienced in multiple ways by the students and the analysis suggests a way of enhancing the lesson to enable more students to experience it in the way intended by the teacher.

Recognizing the Influence of Disciplinarity on Student Inquiry

Upper-level undergraduate students need to recognize the role that disciplinary cultures play in the creation and dissemination of scholarship. This will empower students to navigate scholarly literature with a deeper understanding of how disciplinarity shapes their inquiry. When asking students to engage with scholarship, teachers often direct them to specific journals, without making the selection process explicit. Information literacy may be situated within disciplinary or communal contexts, often highlighting the need for recognizing authority. However, these descriptions may fall short of explaining the nuanced forces shaping such authority, and how disciplines, sub-disciplines, or multi-disciplines package information. Using Herubel’s definitional model describing characteristics of disciplinary cultures, this paper offers a lens for working with undergraduate students to enable them to understand how it shapes the information they encounter and its potential influence on their own scholarly efforts.