Looking Back on my Information Learning Activity

I believe that being a reflective practitioner is an integral part of being a successful teacher.  Upon the completion of my Information Learning Activity(ILA) I decided to use the Generic, Situated and Transformative(GeST) windows for information literacy (Lupton & Bruce, 2010) to analyse how well my ILA achieved ‘holistic information literacy education’ and to determine what changes I could make to improve my ILA for future use.   

Information literacy can be viewed from 3 different perspectives: as a set of generic skills, as occurring in social practices, or as transformative- both for the individual and for society (Lupton & Bruce, 2010).  Information literacy  can involve various resources not just text.  Resources and stimuli can be seen, heard and experienced through senses(Lupton & Bruce, 2010).  For this reason, I decided to base my ILA in Science where students used many of their senses to gather and analyse information.  

To begin with I analysed my ILA using the Generic window.  This window views information literacy as a set of specific skills and processes that are used to find and work with information (Lupton and Bruce, 2010).  The teaching and learning activities that fit here included lectures on using learning objects, drawing diagrams, the formatting of science experiments and critical reading of text.  These tasks were geared to prepare students for future situations where they would be required to find information and use or display the information in a manner prescribed by their instructor.

Next I looked at my ILA through the Situated window.  Through this window, literacy is viewed as, “contextual, authentic, collaborative and participatory,’ and ‘information is found through purposeful search strategies, but also by encountering information,”(Lupton & Bruce, 2010).  Using one’s senses to gather information and build one’s understanding by working with information are vital, making the process more personal and subjective and in turn having an impact on social groups.  Tasks that related to this contextualised information practice included hands on experiments, comic analysis (looking at contrasting perspectives of scientists) and class discussions about different ways we use electricity on a daily basis.  

Finally, I used the Transformative window to view my ILA.  I looked at ways students used information practices to change themselves and the society around them (Lupton & Bruce, 2010).  I noticed that during the ILA we briefly discussed other sources of energy but students weren’t challenged to research further to determine what personal or political action they could take to improve the impact that our choices of energy consumption have on the environment.  I have concluded that the transformative window was not really apparent in my activity.  If students were challenged to take action, rather than just asked to explore in order to better understand how the world around them works, the ILA would be more socially critical as it would have included personal and political action and therefore address the theme of social responsibility(Lupton & Bruce, 2010). 

In conclusion, I feel that my ILA included elements of the three GeST windows, but my primary focus was on the Generic and Situated windows.  To improve the ILA for future teaching and learning episodes I would need to incorporate elements that would ‘empower learners to critique information in order to challenge the status quo and to transform oneself and society,’ (Lupton & Bruce, 2010).  I plan to incorporate further analysis of other sources of energy and have students reflect on ways that they could make more environmentally friendly choices at home.  I will also have students write to their local Member of Parliament suggesting ways in which schools could improve their consumption of energy in order to incorporate more sustainable practices for the future.

References:

Lupton, Mandy and Bruce, Christine. (2010). Chapter 1 : Windows on Information Literacy Worlds : Generic, Situated and Transformative Perspectives in Lloyd, Annemaree and Talja, Sanna, Practising information literacy : bringing theories of learning, practice and information literacy together, Wagga Wagga: Centre for Information Studies, pp.3-27.

My Experience with Kuhlthau's Model of the Information Search Process

By focussing on my experiences during my own research, I have found that I have become more aware of the feelings and stages that my students must go through when they are set research tasks.  I feel that I will be better prepared to support students as I have recently encountered similar problems or feelings of frustration.

The process students go through to find information today is very different than when I was a student at primary school.  Students have access to many more resources due to advancements in technology.  The exposure to vast amounts of information impacts on the exploration and formulation stages found in Kuhlthau's Model of the Information Search Process(Kuhlthau, Maniotes, Caspari, 2007).  I found this to be true during my own information search where I would come across hundreds of thousands of documents and found it difficult to narrow down the results to find and form a focus for my research.
       

(Kuhlthau, Maniotes, Caspari, 2007, p.19)

References:
Kuhlthau, C., Maniotes, L., Caspari, A. (2007), Guided Inquiry, Learning in the 21st Century, Libraries Unlimited, Connecticut, USA.

My Personal Experience with Kuhlthau's Information Literacy Process

Gaining a clear understanding of the term 'guided inquiry' is difficult as it is used by experts in numerous ways.  Guided Inquiry is the specific term used by Kuhlthau to describe information literacy skills that are used to assist students to locate, evaluate and use information.  It originates form  the constructivist approach to learning (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, Caspari, 2007).  Guided Inquiry helps to develop the three areas of the American Association of School Libraries (AASL) information literacy standards- information literacy, independent learning and social responsibility (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, Caspari, 2007).  Students independently look for, choose and interact with information in ways that better prepare them for real-life situations due to the high degree of independence involved.

Libraries are seen as valuable environments for the instruction of information literacy skills.  Information literacy is viewed as fundamental in shaping the way people learn in the 21st century (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, Caspari, 2007).  I feel that this instruction needs to take place both in classrooms and in the libraries to be most beneficial.  I found my Teacher Librarian had some valuable insights into the different ways in which information is organised on the web compared to the collections for teachers in the library.  An emphasis needs to be placed on cooperative teaching between teachers and teacher librarians for students to benefit most.

Part of Guided Inquiry involves the development of an understanding that different searches are required throughout the inquiry process to achieve various goals.  The four search types involved are preliminary, exploratory, comprehensive and summary searches (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, Caspari, 2007).  I found that I used these different types of searches during the development of my context.  Initially, I used a preliminary search to explore different possibilities for my topic of research.  I was able to build up a general knowledge of the types of  information that were available in order to narrow my topic.  I then delved further into my narrowed topic during my exploratory phase to gain a clearer focus.  The comprehensive search helped me gather more detailed and specific sources of information to use.  My summary search assisted in the clarification of information and the retrieval of any missing information needed to complete my context. 

When determining the reliability and usefulness of the information I gathered, I found my strategies closely related to Kuhlthau's 'Five Characteristics for Evaluating Sources'(Kuhlthau, Maniotes, Caspari, 2007).  The five criteria include: expertise, accuracy, currency, perspective and quality.  I often look for scholarly articles and cited works to ensure the author's expertise on the topic and to ensure accuracy  and quality of information.  I often use the advanced search options on databases to limit my searches to information published in the last five to ten years if my topic is a current one or an ongoing issue where recent information is necessary.  I try to be alert to any bias or personal perspectives that may be present in the information I find.  I quickly scan information to determine if it is factual or opinion based and determine if the information is suitable to use.

I agree with the development of information literacy through Guided Inquiry but feel that this can be best achieved by close coordination between the teacher librarian and the teacher.  Teaching and learning episodes need to take place both in the library and in the classroom. 

References:

Kuhlthau, C., Maniotes, L., Caspari, A. (2007), Guided Inquiry, Learning in the 21st Century, Libraries Unlimited, Connecticut, USA.

Critically Evaluating Information

How Far Have I Come?

Question Time- What have I learned?

1) What do I know about my topic? 

After reading research written by a variety of experts, I now understand that there are many definitions for terms such as guided inquiry and information literacy.  I realise there is a lot more to understand about these terms than I originally realised.  I feel confident in knowing that inquiry learning is supported and encouraged during science lessons.

 2) How interested are you in this topic?

I continue to be genuinely interested in learning about ways to actively engage students in the classroom. I aim to keep up with current research into the ways in which I can support students in the classroom.

3) How much do you know about this topic?

I have gained much knowledge on information literacy and inquiry learning but I am aware that there is still much to learn.  Research continues and new ideas will continue to be presented.  What I do know is that students will always have inquiring minds and teachers need to continue to encourage and support this inquiry the best way that they can.

4) When researching, what do I find easy to do?

I am finding that I have become quicker at finding suitable search terms that will return results that are pertinent to the topic I am interested in.  Linking the advanced search button in Google Scholar to the QUT databases will save me time in future searches.  I am improving on my ability to organise the information I find to make it more manageable to work with.

5) When researching, what do I find difficult to do?

I still find the referencing of some materials difficult.  I often find time management difficult as it is easy to get caught up in an interesting article that isn't as relevant to my topic as I initially thought. 

Inquiry-based Learning

In inquiry-based learning, asking questions is fundamental.  I encouraged questioning throughout my information learning activity and modelled different types of questions.  I found modelling a variety of question types assisted students to improve their questioning skills over the unit.


Students have inquiring minds but often find it difficult to verbalise what they are thinking.  I  believe this might be due to an overwhelming amount of information causing them to have difficulty sorting it in their minds.  I find when I don’t have a clear understanding of a task, writing down questions helps me to clarify what it is that I understand and what exactly I am unclear about.  During my own information quest I found that I used questioning to help me sort out the confusion I felt at the early stages of my inquiry.

Science inquiry, involving questioning, is the focus of Bell et all (2005) in the article “Simplifying inquiry instruction” where different levels of inquiry are outlined.  The belief that inquiry must involve data analysis, not just searching library or internet resources, is discussed.  This belief is in contrast to other researchers who believe that library searches are inquiry learning.  

The levels of inquiry outlined by Bell et all (2005) are: Confirmation (level 1 - lowest), Structured (level 2), Guided Inquiry (level 3) and Open Inquiry (level 4 - entirely student directed).  After reading this article I believe that my Information Learning Activity involved elements at both the Structured and Guided Inquiry levels.  At times students were instructed to investigate a specific question in a way specified by myself(Structured inquiry).  Students also were involved in investigating a question presented by myself but they were to design the procedures that they would use for the investigation(Guided inquiry). 

Initially I found the terms inquiry-based learning, information literacy, guided inquiry and science literacy all quite confusing.  I remembered a flow chart that once helped me understand the terms inquiry-based learning and information literacy.  I found that this chart in conjunction with this article helped me understand the different types of inquiry and was useful in helping me organise my thoughts around the type of Information Learning Activity I wanted to develop and the types of outcomes I hoped to achieve.  

(Lupton 2010)

(Lupton 2010)

References:

Bell, R; Smetana, L & Binns, I. (2005). Simplyfying inquiry instruction The Science Teacher, 72 (7), 30-33. [CMD]

Lupton, M. (2010). CLN646 Learning Hubs: Week 3 [Readings]. Retrieved from http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_62532_1%26url%3D

The Six Principles of Guided Inquiry and Five Kinds of Learning in the Inquiry Process

I found these tables helped me to understand the main elements of the five kinds of learning in the inquiry process and the six principles of guided inquiry.  The layout of the information made it easy to use as a quick reference and helped me keep my thoughts on track.

References:

Kuhlthau, C., Maniotes, L., Caspari, A. (2007), Guided Inquiry, Learning in the 21st Century, Libraries Unlimited, Connecticut, USA.

Helpful Feedback Linking to Daniel Callison's Interpretation of Information Inquiry

I often search out other people's opinions as I am very interested in what points of view people hold.  Sometimes I find this frustrates others as I may not appear to take the advice that is offered.  This is not my intention of course, merely the way that I work.  I formulate my own ideas and opinions and then like to compare these with those of other people.  After I have taken in the new information that is provided, I decide if I need to make changes or if I am happy with the decisions I have made.  This is the approach I take whenever I am presented with new information.  If I find the new information useful or enlightening, then I hold on to it and use it to inform decisions or in other ways possible.  If I find the information does not come from a reliable source, contradicts what has otherwise been proven to me or I deem it not to be useful, then I discard the information. 

This style of inquiry supports Daniel Callison's (as cited in Lamb, 2005) interpretation of information inquiry.  A need for information arises, information is then analysed and combined to meet the needs of the information inquirer in the best way possible(Lamb, 2005).  Information can be obtained from print, audio or visual sources as well as through interviews, surveys and other sources.  Authentic research and investigation are key elements of an inquiry-based task.  I am pleased to read that the style of inquiry that I apply to my everyday life is supported in research. 

Interactive Components of Information Inquiry

(Lamb, 2005)

Often times I find I can get caught up in an idea and lose sight of other possibilities or restrictions.  This is when I find feedback most useful.  The feedback often helps me regain focus and I can get my thoughts back on track.  I found the feedback from my peers to generally be of great assistance although there were some suggestions which I chose not to follow.  I found the feedback regarding the organisation of my ideas in paragraphs of most benefit.  Even though I had clear topic sentences, I still found it difficult to ensure that I placed the correct information in the correct paragraph.  It was gratifying to hear positive feedback on my work.

I have attached an example of some of the useful feedback I received for my context.

In day to day life I find I can be quite self-reflective in hopes of constantly improving.  I can be quite analytical but at times have difficulty expressing what I am thinking without sounding too critical.  I feel this has to do with my upbringing where people were direct in what they said as opposed to beating around the bush.  I generally find this type of feedback easiest to receive, otherwise I spend far too long trying to read between the lines.  I am aware that most people aren't as comfortable with such direct constructive criticism so I am learning to be more tactful.  I find providing feedback at times can be quite difficult if I feel many improvements need to be made.  I don't know the best way to suggest some changes when I find it difficult to locate positive aspects in the work.  If there are elements that have been done well, then giving feedback becomes easier as I can balance the changes required with positive examples found in there work.  I find writing report cards has helped me improve my ability to provide feedback. 

References

Lamb, A. (2005). Information Inquiry for Teachers. Indiana, USA: Eduscapes.  http://eduscapes.com/infooriginal/inquiry.html 

Reflecting on My Searches

One of the first important tasks of starting out on a new information journey is choosing what resources are available to use.  My mind map tracks a number of the different sources of information that I used to form my context and my Information Learning Activity (ILA).

Perfecting My Search

Below, I have attached videos of the process I went through, using the EBSCOhost database, to find scholarly documents relating to inquiry learning, information/science literacy and primary science.

Initially, I narrowed my search by selecting databases (ERIC, Primary Search, eBook collection and Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA)) that I thought would contain relevant and suitable documents, based on the descriptions provided.  

For my first search I used the words inquiry AND information literacy AND primary education and was surprised to find only two results. One of the results related to science but not to the specific subject area I was interested in.

This prompted me to change my search from primary education to primary science. I was even more surprised that zero results were returned. I thought more carefully about the Boolean operators that I had used and realised that using AND twice meant that all of the words needed to appear in the document before it would turn up as a result.

This reflection prompted me to change my search terms to inquiry OR information literacy AND primary science, as I was interested in both inquiry learning and information literacy in primary science. This search returned 25,391 results, which I thought was a good starting point, but I needed to narrow the results further.

I decided to select only full text documents as abstracts were of no use to my research. Clicking the full text only button refined my results to 10,889. 

To reduce the results further I limited my search to publication dates between 2000 and 2011 to return current documents only. This resulted in 6,057 documents.

Looking through the results, I noticed that the words information literacy and primary science often appeared separately in the documents. I decided to use quotation marks around the words information literacy, as I wanted these words to appear together in the text. Surprisingly, this did not change the results and the words were still found separately in the documents. This was a strategy I had successfully used in other database searches.  I then tried placing primary science in quotation marks and again found no change in the results.

I was still unhappy with the results that had been returned as many documents were not relevant to the specific subject I was interested in.  I decided to change my search words slightly to see the impact on the results.  I removed the words primary and literacy and searched for inquiry OR literacy AND science. There was an increase in results up to 7,746.  By selecting the peer reviewed button, to ensure only scholarly documents were displayed I narrowed the results down to 3,784.

To find the most relevant documents I changed my Boolean operators both to AND. My final search using inquiry AND literacy AND science returned 71 results which was a manageable number of documents for me to search through successfully. 

Through my search process I realised the importance of Boolean operators and the need to try a variety of search terms in order to achieve desired results.

ProQuest Education Journals

ProQuest is another database I have found to be very useful over the years.  With the option of performing an advanced search, I can really narrow down what it is that I am looking for.  On the right hand side I can narrow my search further by clicking on 'scholarly journals'.  I was able to reduce my results by scanning through articles to determine which ones did not exemplify the form of inquiry based learning that I was interested in and easily eliminated any fact-finding inquiry. 

In ProQuest, if I search inquiry-based learning AND primary science, the database would search for 'inquiry-based' as  one word and 'learning' as separate.  It would not necessarily search for 'inquiry-based learning'.  This is the same way that Google works.  This means that what it is really searching is 'inquiry-based' AND 'learning' AND 'primary' AND 'science'.  For this reason, I need to use 'inquiry-based learning' and 'primary science' in quotes so it searches each as a whole phrase.  I experimented with a variety of searches to clearly understand how the use of quotations and Boolean terms altered the results that were returned.  I also narrowed my searches by clicking the boxes that specified 'full text', 'peer reviewed', 'date range 3 years' and 'scholarly journals'.  

A+ Education Search

In my search of the A+ Education database I found that even quite a general search returned few results.  The A+ Education database searches as a whole phrase unless the Boolean operator AND is placed between search terms.  My first search using the A+ Education database returned only 19 results when I used (primary science) AND (inquiry).  I am aware that when I use AND I narrow the search and that by using the Boolean operator OR I would have returned more results but the results would not contain the information I was after.  Using OR is best when there is more than one term for a word.  Primary science and inquiry do not have the same definition therefore by placing OR between the two terms I would not find results containing information on both topics.  I could have narrowed my search using the 'subject headings' on the right hand side of the page but as I had few results returned in the first case, this was not necessary.  Quality is more important than quantity and I found 8 of the entries to be useful to my topic.

In the past I have used this database and have been more successful at returning a greater number of results.  Perhaps this database has few articles relating to science in particular.  I found reading the blurb about the different databases located in the library of QUT to be useful when I initially chose databases to search but some of the databases that I chose contained far more useful articles relating to my current topic.  

Scholarly Searches

Google Scholar is a web search engine I turn to when I am looking for reliable, academic information.  I find that the information it contains is often too complex for primary school students but relevant for use with my university studies.  I feel students in high school would also benefit from using Google Scholar in their web searches.

Google Scholar is a citation database which means that I can click on 'cited by' at the bottom of the results and I will find people who have cited the article in their own work.  This allows me to trace how their ideas have evolved.  It also allows me to locate highly relevant, although older, material.  I also find using the 'related articles' function very useful as it helps me locate other articles based on a similar topic.

Google Scholar returned fewer results than Google for the same search ("scientific inquiry" "investigation" "primary science") although there were still too many at 271, 000.  I had used quotation marks to search exact phrases to help narrow my search.  Even though I used quotation marks, Google Scholar returned results for secondary school science when I searched for "primary science".  In Google scholar, instead of using the term NOT, you need to use a negative in front of search terms you don't want to appear in the results.  I used a negative in front of "secondary science" and "high school science" to reduce the number of results.  My new search went as follows: "scientific inquiry" "investigation" "primary science" "-secondary science"  "-high school science" and resulted in 11,500 entries.

Many of the results were not useful to me as they were either on specific topics not relevant to my ILA, not written in english, or were basic fact finding activities.  I used my information literacy skills to scan the results to determine which ones were relevant and useful.  I  only searched through the first couple of pages of results as I know Google ranks the pages according to their relevance.  This procedure helped me find articles related to my topic.

I found using the 'scholar preference' tab to add the Queensland University of Technology to my library links very helpful as it enabled me to see which results were available as full text documents from QUT. I feel this tab would have been very useful to activate at the beginning of my Masters course as it would have saved me lots of time over my studies.  I look forward to quicker searches in the future!

Information Seeking Process

With so much information available these days, it is important to have strategies available  to help determine whether information is useful and reliable for a specific search.  Often I find my first search takes me to Google as it is readily available and quick to generate results with minimal effort.  This helps me get a basic understanding of the topic I am interested in.  I am always mindful of the results I get as the information is often not scholarly and definitely questionable at times.  This initial search often helps me brainstorm other terms I can use in future searches.  

For my initial search I used the terms 'inquiry and investigation in primary science'.  This search returned 82,100,000 results, a bit overwhelming to look through.  Fortunately, some of the results located on the first page were of great relevance to my information Learning Activity as they related directly to Primary Connections.

This search was improved by placing quotation marks around terms that I wanted to keep together.  This helped limit the results to those with the exact phrases I placed in quotations but the results were still too numerous at 223,000.

I decided to narrow my search to focus specifically on 'scientific inquiry' as this relates more closely to my information learning activity.  By placing 'scientific' before inquiry, I reduced the number of results to 6,140.

Using a negative before a word can help eliminate any unwanted results but I felt this strategy could not be applied successfully to my current search.  I felt frustrated with the volume of information still available to me.  Kulthau (2006)  identifies two critical stages for intervention during the inquiry process, one of which is the Exploration stage.   Confusion and uncertainty are common emotions felt by people during this stage due to uncertainty and an abundance of information.   Knowing that Google sorts web page results based on their relevance, helped me overcome my feeling of frustration and find some useful resources for my context.  To further my information seeking journey I decided that Google Scholar would be my next search engine as I am mainly interested in scholarly information.


References:

Kuhlthau, C. 2006. Information Literacy through Guided Inquiry: Preparing Students for the 21st Century. Retrieved 3 September 2011 from http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/~kuhltau/recent_presentations/iasl2/IASL%202006.doc


Ownedboxes. (2009). Web Search Strategies in Plain English [Video file]. CLN650 Information Learning Nexus: [Learning Resources, Expert Searching]. Retrieved from http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_76514_1%26url%3D


therobba. (2007). googles dark side - google conspiracy [video file]. CLN650 Information Learning Nexus: [Learning Resources, Expert Searching]. Retrieved from http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_76514_1%26url%3D