Today's students are surrounded by more information coming from more sources than ever before. After graduation, they will change careers and job functions with increasing frequency and will thus be called upon constantly to learn new skills and solve unforeseen problems.
Schools cannot teach students all they will need to know, advocates of information literacy say. There is simply too much information, much of it too specialized. "A better way is to teach them to manage the information resources," says Susan Smith, principal of Summit Park Elementary School in Baltimore. Although educators should still identify "the basic information we want students to graduate knowing," says Smith, schools must also "teach them how to find and use the information they haven't committed to memory."
The term "information literacy" dates from the 1970s, but advocates have only recently begun to reach a consensus on what the concept means for schools and students. The National Forum on Information Literacy (NFIL), an umbrella group of more than 60 organizations, including ASCD, has adopted an outline of outcomes for information-literate students. These are students who can successfully complete a complex problem-solving process that requires them to define the need for information, determine a search strategy, locate the needed resources, assess and understand the information they find, interpret the information, communicate the information, and, finally, evaluate their conclusions in view of the original problem.
While these skills are not unique to an information society, the abundance of information and the pace of change in today's society create a new sense of urgency for their development.
Some states, including Colorado, are designing guidelines for integrating the goals of information literacy into their content standards. The new guidelines "provide all students with a process for learning that is transferable among all content areas and from the academic environment to real life," according to the document preamble.
Barbara Campbell, supervisor of information literacy and technology at the Plainville (Conn.) Community Schools, says information literacy used to refer to developing skills specifically for the workplace, but now "it has evolved to an educational agenda for our society." There are still questions, however. "Is information literacy a separate form of literacy, or is it a new literacy?" she asks. "I'm of the mind that it's the new literacy. What we're really talking about is the definition of literacy itself changing over time."
Practical Methods
Advocates of information literacy promote resource-based learning as the methodological tool to realize it. Patricia Senn Breivik, coauthor of Information Literacy: Educating Children for the 21st Century and associate vice president for information resources at Towson State University in Maryland, calls resource-based learning "a down-to-earth, practical way of accomplishing the goals we've had in education for so long." These include making learning more authentic, encouraging interdisciplinary studies, developing more meaningful assessments, as well as accommodating learning styles and making inclusion more effective.
In this model, students are active learners (under the guidance of teacher coaches) charged with finding information and turning it into knowledge—making their own meanings while integrating information from a variety of sources and media.
"When you go toward information literacy, that requires getting students to use all the information resources that are available," Breivik says. And that process "lets students individualize the information they use."
The challenge of becoming an "information detective" also "puts the excitement back into learning," she finds. In her research for Information Literacy, "fun" was a word that "came up time and time again," she says.
At first, resource-based learning may be unsettling for teachers, says Campbell, who has heard more than one teacher complain about not having control over what students are learning. Instead, she argues, teachers should see themselves as "setting up the conditions for learning" and coaching students through it.
At the same time, there is less guidance available for teachers. Resource-based learning cannot flow from the pages of detailed lesson plans. It's "so open-ended that there is almost a point beyond which you can't provide help" to teachers, Campbell says. "Resource-based learning is more about forming questions and about following the trail the questions take you down." By definition, then, the teacher cannot know the answers before the learning begins.
Kerri Cravens, who teaches at Lanphier High School in Springfield, Ill., says she has been frustrated by the lack of developed curriculum in this area, especially for high school students. So she has created her own units, including one in which students created a TV viewer's guide to the O. J. Simpson trial. "You can't imagine how wonderful it was to hear students complain when it was time to move on to another project," she says.
More curriculum may be on the way, with the introduction of guidelines such as those in Colorado, says Vicki Hancock, assistant director of ASCD's Education and Technology Resources Center and vice chair of the NFIL. The tools are in place, she believes, for "curriculum specialists and library media specialists together to develop powerful curriculums that include engaging content while at the same time developing the skills of information literacy."
New Roles
Resource-based learning puts new demands on library media resources—and offers new opportunities for collaboration, says Campbell. Library media specialists face a new schoolwide role that "really allows them to assume the role of teacher," she says. Library media specialists act as "modeling staff developers and co-planners" in resource-based learning, she adds. Instead of merely providing materials, they now help develop curriculum and work more individually with students.
Library media specialists bring useful experience to those tasks, Campbell says, as they often work with several students doing different projects simultaneously. With resource-based learning they can now "pass that experience on to teachers and help them assume the role of coaches and guides."
The Colorado guidelines suggest that library media specialists should not only hold an "overall view of the school curriculum," they should also use their resources to promote interdisciplinary learning and forge connections between school and community.
Kim Carter, information specialist at Souhegan High School in Amherst, N.H., says new technologies and roles do not mean leaving behind common sense. Confronted with an information problem, she frequently reaches for (believe it or not) the telephone. There is no substitute for speaking directly with the right person or reading the right book.
Carter says she has found some resistance to resource-based learning from teachers—especially at lower grade levels—who display what she calls "the mother-hen syndrome," in which they are not comfortable letting children out of their sight or control. But she believes those concerns can be ironed out. "Once teachers give it a chance," she says, "they very rarely want to go back."
Common Hurdles
Campbell points out that many library media specialists themselves are not used to teaching. Most of today's corps "were not socialized into the profession with the expectation that they were going to play this instructional role," she says.
To adopt a resource-based learning model requires commitment at all levels, she adds. "The biggest challenge is the people. Anything new requires a personal change for the teacher—and the student." Changing attitudes and learning to collaborate can be more difficult than the (often expensive) tasks of getting classrooms and libraries equipped with the technology they need.
Teachers and library media specialists must look at themselves as "co-learners who need to dialogue with each other, as co-explorers. That's a [new] attitude," Campbell concludes. "If we can get them to see themselves in that role, then we would be 85 percent of the way to doing what's best for kids."
One important aspect of that change, says Carter, is being "comfortable with the ambiguity and uncertainty" inherent in new school technology. She argues that teachers need to work at learning not only how to use new technologies, but also how to evaluate the information that technology makes available.
Cravens has found that adaptation challenging. "A lot of the technology that brings information to students has developed since I was in school," she says. Although she takes classes to stay up to date, she often finds herself learning alongside her students in the classroom.
For teachers, Smith says, "training is probably the key factor" to getting resource-based learning off the ground. But Carter points out that teachers also need planning time built into the schedule, which has been "an ongoing struggle for teachers." With the increased role of technology and greater staff collaboration, teachers have an even greater need for planning, she says.
Student schedules also need to be more flexible, proponents of information literacy argue. For students to become information literate, they will need access to information resources when a question comes up—not on a fixed schedule, Smith says. The days of weekly group marches down the hall to the library should be over, she contends. "We need to have them use the media center [when] they have a real purpose for being there."
To effect these changes at the school level also requires the commitment of principals, and they are often reluctant at first, Breivik notes. "With all the things that are pushing on principals, how can you get them to make a commitment to an instructional shift?" she asks. Most of the time, however, "they don't know what they're missing." Given the chance to explore and witness resource-based learning, principals become much more willing, Breivik has found.
Smith, who as a principal has encouraged the process, says resource-based learning is more engaging, and that makes students better learners who perform better on tests—and in life. With resource-based learning, she believes, "students are going to get better at handling all kinds of problems."
