Information Literacy
Since training students to be a lifelong learner is a major priority, I chose
Option 1: Information Literacy because it allowed me the opportunity to to explore tools that will maximize student learning when teaching fundamental information literacy skills. It’s never too early to introduce these skills to students. Mastering these skills at an early age provides a stronger foundation for developing literate individuals. In the end students will know how to sift through multiple resources, decipher and evaluate the important information, and accomplish the specified goal in their learning.
A simple search on Google quickly led me to some useful tools that support learning information literacy skills. (Honestly, I never knew such tools existed, and I’m glad I chose option 1 for this assignment.) The UAB Libraries site (http://uab.libguides.com/c.php?g=83910&p=1442388) shared many resources that furthered my investigation.
The first tool I discovered was TRAILS: Tool for Real-time Assessment of Information Literacy Skills (http://www.trails-9.org/index.php?page=home). I completely support using data to drive instruction, and that’s exactly how you use TRAILS. It’s a web-based tool that measures students’ strengths and weaknesses of the skills they possess when seeking new information. After setting up a FREE teacher account and student accounts, the program easily guides students through the assessment to provide detailed information so you can start planning lessons. The categories tested include develop topic, identify potential sources, develop, use, and revise strategies, evaluate sources and information, and use information responsibly, ethically, and legally. The program is specific to content standards aligned with grades third, sixth, ninth, and twelfth, but they can be used for assessing grades above or lower than the specific age. The ‘Related Resources’ section offers many sources for planning lessons and activities related to the specific needs of your students.
Also, on this site, I found ALEX (Alabama Learning Exchange http://alex.state.al.us/). When you search ‘information literacy’ it provides multiple lessons plans, specified to grade levels, focusing on particular information literacy topics. Using the data received through the TRAILS assessment, you can peruse through the different lessons that meet the specific needs of your learners.
Another informative link was S.O.S. for Information Literacy (http://www.informationliteracy.org/). The American Association of School Librarians voted it one of the best websites. There are different options with this site to support the learners’ needs. You can either search for a specific lesson (i.e. information literacy skills) or you can peruse any of the featured sections (lesson plans, teacher ideas, buILders) to search for the support needed. I liked the variety of choices offered, whether it be a lesson plan, video, or presentation needed, to manage the learning to specifically fit the needs of your students. Plus, all plans submitted are reviewed for quality before posted to the website.
The last website reviewed was the Critial Evaluation section of Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Everything (http://www.schrockguide.net/critical-evaluation.html). A subsection titled ‘Critical Evaluation Information and Lesson Plans’ provides a plethora of important areas for training students on information literacy, related to evaluation resources. I know first-hand that many second graders have yet to learn that not every website is a reliable source. I’d love to share this evaluation tool http://www.2learn.ca/kids/backpack/div1netscheck2.html with my students because it would teach a valuable lesson when conducting their investigations.
All of the above websites offered exposure to multiple areas of the infographic from the National Forum on Information Literacy (NFIL). If one particular area of the site didn’t expose students to a particular area, another section or lesson did. Using the TRAILS assessment will allow some parts of the infographic to be dismissed when students already show mastery in that particular area. Therefore, those specific areas won’t be neglected when improving the skills that showed weakness.
As always, the learning standards should guide your instruction. When combining the learning goal with these beneficial resources, it will improve my teaching and yield more information literacy skills by learners. By making certain that the resources I share with students touch on all areas of the National Forum on Information Literacy (NFIL) infographic I know all of my students are developing the crucial skills of information literacy. I know how critical it is for students to acquire these requisite skills in order to be successful in the future, therefore I’m confident in finding resources that will positively impact student learning.
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