4.4. Topologías de red
4.4.3. Topología de árbol
Supporters of a more holistic approach believe that reducing teaching to a set of technical strategies minimises or denies the complexity of all that is involved in teaching and learning. That complexity is derived from both external and internal influences, the socio-cultural practices of the school, the nature of the learning environment, the quality of student
relationships and those between staff and students. To reduce our understanding of information literacy to a set of behaviours fails to acknowledge the complexity of skill and thinking that informs every aspect. If definitions for information literacy are contingent on the context in which they are going to be used, then perhaps the teaching of it too, should be relative to the student and their learning need and has been articulated as:
“a set of abilities for seeking and using information in purposeful ways related to task, situation and context… Influential studies have abandoned the idea of IL as a set of generic skills to be applied anywhere”
(Limberg 2007 in Markless 2008 p12)
Limberg’s research was based on a series of empirical studies made in 1993-2004 in 11 secondary schools and one of the main conclusions was that information literacy should be viewed as a social practice shaped by the discursive practices of the context in which it takes place (Limberg 2007). This means that the institution’s objectives and the socio-cultural practices used to achieve them, influence student and teacher approaches to the use of information. It assumes the institution’s role is to teach a particular canon of knowledge (Limberg 2007) and this determines the teacher and the curriculum as the centre of cognitive authority (Wilson 1983). When teachers set tasks they have a recognised purpose and a learning outcome in terms of knowledge that is pre-determined. Limberg’s research ( 2007 p.5) found that students resolve these tasks, perceiving that they were not based on genuine research questions and that there were ‘right answers’ to be found. This resulted in fact-finding behaviours requiring little judgement which yielded poor learning outcomes.
In contrast when authentic research questions were employed, which indicated the uncertainty of knowledge, the task required a deeper analysis and scrutiny of resources resulting in demonstrations of more sophisticated reasoning (Limberg 2007). The implication is that working with a reductive, competency-based model is easier for a librarian because it fits more closely with the socio-cultural practices of formal school education. Yet if we are intent on raising information literacy levels then we must provide higher quality teaching and learning experiences and resist some of the influences that wish to reduce information literacy teaching
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to a set of routine tasks. The rise of information behaviour research included the design of the Information Search Process model (Kuhlthau 1993) which studied student attitudes and experiences contributed to a focus on inquiry based learning as a more holistic approach to teaching information literacy.Figure 2.1 Model of the Information Search Process (Kuhlthau 2004 p.82)
The ISP model’s acknowledgement of the emotional experience of learning and its impact on learning, created a departure from the models which focussed on behaviours and resources.
Subsequent research (Todd, Gordon and Lu 2011) has characterised inquiry learning as relevant and motivational by engaging the student’s background knowledge to generate a question that drives the research. Then by affording choice of topic, questions and how to represent new knowledge it engages students in critical thinking, examining diverse and conflicting
information. The teaching role is seen as intervening with supporting frameworks to develop knowledge through problem solving; analysis; synthesis; reflection; and management of the research process (Todd, Gordon and Yu 2011 p.77). This view of what it means to be information literate also provides some pedagogical insights. This might be because it is designed from empirical work with teacher-librarians. The vision is underpinned by the knowledge that its American audience are usually dual-qualified as teacher-librarians. In common with the EXIT model it has a stage for activating prior knowledge, but in contrast this inquiry based approach moves the locus of control to the student for the choice of research question and end product. It is an investigative approach rather than a spoon-fed experience. This resonates with other studies that recommend a more iterative enquiry process to facilitate a focus on the learner and their task (Williams and Wavell 2006 and Limberg 2007). So the
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librarian is faced with a range of definitions, accompanied by models which are linear, staff-led and resource-focussed or more holistic inquiry based approaches which are student centred with an emphasis on dialogue and critique. The latter provides some pedagogical guidance but they do not explicitly address the issue of learning transfer.The inquiry based approach to teaching information literacy skills can also take a generic, rather than subject-based approach. Moore’s review of skills (1995), including metacognition,
focussed on a student project about birds and was later critiqued (Loertscher 2005) for the superficial level of learning that took place. The task of finding out about birds where students decided on their own questions and final presentation resulted in basic fact-finding behaviours. Loertscher’s response (Loertscher, Koechlin and Zwaan 2007) was to design instruction pathways for different curriculum subjects which involved students in making judgements. These require a degree of synthesis, evaluation of findings and a conclusion to be articulated but the issues of skill transfer and assessment were not addressed.
Kuhlthau’s guided inquiry work (Kuhlthau, Maniotes and Caspari 2007) critiques project-based approaches as over-emphasizing the end product at the expense of the process skills. It suggests that the library provides context-based materials on which students base an answer to scenario- style questions which she has designed to meet the national learning objectives for a range of subjects like mathematics. It provides librarians with a useful way forward to show teachers how information literacy can be relevant to their subject. Its assessment method is based on a survey of learning indicators used by librarians (Kuhlthau, Maniotes and Caspari 2007 p.115), ranging from whether the student returned to use the library again, to observing skills being used independently in the library. This is not really an assessment of student learning but a method of evaluation of the library’s impact on behaviour. In the U.K. we are now in an era where emphasis is placed on formative assessment methods and these lend themselves to a focus on the learning process as well as the end product. None of the works discussed so far address the issues of learning transfer between subject contexts or how skills may need to be adapted in different circumstances.