Guiding the Development of Information Literacy Skills
Author: Rick Phelan
Published: 03.02.15
Information literacy is an important learning area for K-12 students. It’s essential because children and adults are constantly receiving information of one kind or another—and the sources of that information are diverse: traditional print materials, web pages, social media feeds, television, radio, and music.
We sometimes seek to receive information; for example, we might use a search engine to find information on the Internet. Information is also directed to us in the background of our daily experiences, whether we want it or not, from email spam, web page ads, ‘muzak’ broadcast at stores and businesses, radio ads, and junk mail. Products, services, and political perspectives are frequently thrust upon us.
K-12 Information Literacy Learning Areas
Helping students learn to interpret, access, filter, and synthesize information from a variety of sources is one part of information literacy.
Christina Doyle, former director of California’s Telemation Project, articulates key information literacy learning areas for K-12 students:
- Recognize the need for information
- Recognize that accurate and complete information is the basis for intelligent decision making
- Formulate questions based on information needs
- Identify potential sources of information
- Develop successful search strategies
- Access information from a variety of sources (print, websites, personal interviews, etc.)
- Evaluate information
- Organize information for practical application
- Integrate new information into an existing body of knowledge
- Use information in critical thinking and problem solving
Information Literacy in the Classroom
Information literacy can be advanced with K-12 students in many different ways. Some starting points are highlighted below.
Website Evaluation
How do you choose resources to be included in a research project? Materials that support critical thinking and evaluation of websites include:
• Evaluating Websites from Ohio State University’s “net.tutor”
• Kathy Schrock’s 5W’s of Website Evaluation (pdf)
• All About Explorers
Writing Activities
School writing projects can be training grounds for real-life information explorations and the development essential competencies. Teachers can support development of information literacy in a number of ways. Four places to begin are highlighted below.
- Developing Good Questions | Concentrate on questions that encourage thinking. Traditional questions that ask students to describe the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., or do a report on Bolivia’s economy don’t work well. Students can easily “copy and paste” information from print resources, electronic databases, and the Internet. Better questions ask students to display personal thinking in their responses. Examples based on the topics above would be:
• Compare/contrast the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mahatma Gandhi
• Explain how Bolivia’s economy compares to California’s
- I-Search Papers | Another strategy that encourages research thinking is the idea of an I-Search paper. I-Searches require students to complete research activities and report on both the process and findings through a first-person narrative. Take a look at this sample excerpt from a fifth-grader’s state report on New York:
“... I drew New York from our class report lottery. I was happy with the choice because my Aunt Becky is from Buffalo, NY.... The essential question I came up with for my report was: Why is New York among the top five states in America to live in? In researching the answer to my question, I used the following reference materials: EBSCO Online Database, 2011 Information Almanac, Fodor’s USA Travel Guide, and the New York State World Wide Web Home Page.... I learned that New York City, also known as the “The Big Apple,” has international importance, housing both the New York Stock Exchange and the United Nations.... Based on these points, I think that New York is among the top five states in America because of 1) its importance as a global trade center, 2) its natural beauty, and 3) its historical past as a place that welcomes all people.”
- 500 Mile Projects | Jamie McKenzie believes that students need to learn persistence when doing research work. He laments that as a society we’re focused almost exclusively on “trivial pursuit” kinds of questions and answers. McKenzie observes that real-life questions don’t have the simple answers that you’d find on Jeopardy. Preparing students for the world of tomorrow requires “500 Mile Projects”—projects that a student studies for an entire semester or school year. McKenzie has a website that teachers can use to guide students through a 500 Mile Project. He maintains that there are seven steps to a 500 Mile Project:
• Selecting a topic
• Developing essential questions related to the topic
• Establishing methods for storing information about the topic
• Prospecting for resources that can shed light on essential questions
• Monitoring information resources over time; checking for changes
• Responding to inquiries
• Creating a product
- The Big6 Skills | Michael B. Eisenberg and Robert E. Berkowitz are known among librarians for their work developing The Big6, an approach to teaching information and technology skills. (Some teachers who work with younger children promote a simpler version of the Big6, known as the Super3.) Eisenberg and Berkowitz hold that successful research activities involve these six process steps:
• Task Definition: What do I have to do?
• Information Searching Strategies: What kind of information do I need to complete my task?
• Resource Location: Where can I find the information I need?
• Use of Information: How can I remember what I need to know?
• Synthesis: What can I do to show that I have used my information?
• Evaluation: How did I do?
Get more ideas to promote information literacy from your school librarian!
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