University of Meaning

Known for its educational innovation and experimentation, I went to the Antioch College in the 1980s. The most notable thing (my own estimation) that I brought away from my experience at Antioch was a simple, but powerful, understanding that I was responsible for my own learning. This, I believe, was an institutionally shared and promoted value. It was also an extremely novel idea at the time. This meant that I had to communicate with my professors about what my goals were, and ask them to assist me in the participatory design of my own learning. Was this always how it worked? No, sometimes it was just another class with another professor “explaining” their own way of things to me as if it were, or should be, my way too. BUT sometimes it did work, and during those “sometimes,” egged on by my own potential, I discovered new meanings for myself.

Right now I am reading Tara Brabazon’s, The University of Google. She blames the Internet for many real and unpleasant problems we face today in higher education. She recounts “horror” stories from her own experiences where students do not seem to take their studies seriously. They assume that last minute calls for help will be readily addressed. They place other commitments above their coursework. They opt out when more personalized attention is offered. She laments that students' need for real connections are being replaced with technological “solutions” such as e-mail communications, flexible learning, etc., that are actually creating more distance between them and the space of learning. I can follow this line of reasoning to a point—I too find some aspects of the technologically-mediated world challenging. But is it really what is creating the distancing effect for students?

What compels students to learn? My suspicion is that we all want to learn, or at least started off wanting to learn, and the real question should be “What holds people back from learning?” It isn’t technology. What I hear reiterated in Brabazon’s descriptions of her interactions with students is an old and prevailing student attitude that higher education experiences aren’t all that meaningful to them. Are they simply jumping through hoops? Perhaps they are not getting lost in a technological shuffle—they are just getting lost. Let’s face it, if they thought it worth their time, they would go to class.

So, what might bring them back? My first thought is to try creating assignments that have real life outcomes. I worked on a project last year with a class that created a podcast series about silenced or marginalized conflicts happening in the world. The professor asked the students at the end of the term to compare this project to writing a term paper. I was surprised as some students described their resentment of working on papers that only their professor will ever read. If we want students to be “in it” for more than a grade, then we have to design assignments that do more then simply “prove” that they learned the material. Assignments need to act as more than assessment tools. The assignments need to be relevant to students’ interests and reasons for taking the class in the first place. They need to allow the students to create their own meanings.

Brabazon, T. (2007). The University of Google. Hampshire, England: Ashgate Pub.

Spring is in the Air

I have not finished reading Mandy Lupton's new book, Information Literacy and Learning, based on her PhD dissertation. Nevertheless, I am ready to recommend it as another "must read!" If you are at all interested in phenomenography and the benefits of employing a relational approach in your teaching, Lupton's work will prove extremely useful. For example, the book provides an insightful look at information literacy compared to models for literacy in general and also offers a good overview of "variation theory," a teaching method that relates to phenomenography that I have wanted to learn more about. I have not yet digested the results of Lupton's research investigation, so I will speak more directly to that in another blog entry.

I guess the "BIG" thing that I keep taking away from my readings of phenomenographic researchers is that while we have made some headway into the investigation of information literacy as a concept, we still have a long road ahead as we develop new pedagogy that better enables learners to use information with more sophistication to learn in the classroom, and of course, to continue to use information to learn beyond their formal education.

Lupton, M. (2008). Information Literacy and Learning. Adelaide: Auslib Press.

Small Steps

Have you read Christine Bruce’s new book, “Informed Learning”?

I recommend that everyone who teaches read this book! It asks us to consider how learners use “information” to learn. I imagine that most of us would agree that information plays a key and fundamental role in student learning, and that teaching learners to use information in a more sophisticated manner helps them to learn better. What Christine Bruce, and other researchers she describes in the book, recommends is using an approach that will make our teaching more effective. She asks us to employ a pedagogy that has learners focus on information as they learn.

I recently collaborated with a professor and an IT person to develop assignments and activities leading up to the creation of a podcast recording. One of our goals was to teach students to become more critical of the information they encountered in learning about the topic and creating the script for their podcast recording. We selected one of the readings for the course and asked students to evaluate it’s credibility and then share their evaluation with a small group. The idea was for students to see how others might go about this task differently than they did. When the class came back together we discussed the different approaches. While the session was considered successful by the professor and myself, I have been thinking about what we might have done instead to reach our goal more effectively.

After thought – sometime shortly after the session students were to review two podcasts of their own selection and consider: audience, structure, and information use. These same aspects were to be considered in later evaluations of each others podcasts (peer review) and eventually their own. Rather than have a librarian-led session focusing specifically on “evaluation” of credibility, I think we should have addressed the aspects (audience, structure, and information use) as part of the class discussion of all the readings, focusing discussions specifically around them early in the semester. This would have reinforced a critical stance and been more relevant to the immediate task of learning about the topic. The students would have been repeatedly exposed to various evaluative approaches of their fellow students, which would have fueled their own critical abilities as the worked on the final assignment of making their own script/recording.



Bruce, C. S. (2008). Informed Learning, Chicago: ACRL.

New Thoughts for New Times

Today begins my new journey—or more like the reaffirmation of my continuing investigation—into phenomenographic research and relational educational theory. The impetus is a desire to improve my own teaching as an instructional librarian in higher education. In 2006 and 2007 I published the results of my own phenomenography research projects, which provided me with new understandings of the ways that undergraduates conceptualize using information in their academic work. Now I wish to further this work by exploring the basic question:

What are the best ways of designing coursework to teach both information literacy concepts and subject content that promote deep learning responses in learners?

I plan to read and/or re-read the work of phenomenographic researchers and practitioners in an effort to shed new light (illuminate) my own thoughts. I will post my responses to the readings and my reflections here.

My Articles:

Undergraduate Perceptions of Information Use: The Basis for Creating User-Centered Student Information Literacy Instruction. (2006). Journal of Academic Librarianship, 32 (1), 79-85

Understanding Our Student Learners: A Phenomenographic Study Revealing the Ways that Undergraduate Women at Mills College Understand Using Information. (2007). Reference Services Review, 35 (3), 452-462