IL and Lifelong Learning

On Tuesday I gave two presentations at the Lifelong Learning conference in Yeppoon, Australia (that's a picture of the tea tent). One presentation was on Second Life and Information Literacy (I might do another post on that), but the main one was Fostering Lifelong Learning through Information Literacy education: Exploring conceptions in different disciplines and framing pedagogies for lifelong learning. You will find it embedded below (or follow the link from the title): I have added an extra slide (compared with the actual presentation) to explain a bit more what we were doing in the presentation. The abstract for it was as follows: "Information Literacy (IL) has been acknowledged as a key element of lifelong learning (Candy et al., 1994). The aim of this presentation is to explore the lifelong learning dimensions of pedagogies for IL in different disciplines. Our starting points are the categories of pedagogy for IL identified in a research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). We will look at them in relation to: a.Candy Report’s attributes and qualities of the lifelong learner in relation to the ideal structure of the undergraduate curriculum described in that report. b.The competing models of lifelong learning identified with OECD and UNESCO respectively. The AHRC project investigated conceptions of UK academics in four disciplines: Marketing, English, Chemistry and Civil Engineering. It is notable that some conceptions of teaching IL focused on the requirements for the students’ course of study, whilst others focused on supporting students both in their course and for their life beyond university. For example, in marketing one conception of pedagogy for IL was Helping students understand how information literacy is critical to them, for marketing and life whilst another was of Upgrading students’ information toolbox at an appropriate point (of the course). We will reflect how these differing approaches relate to different aspects of Candy’s model/structure. Similarly, some conceptions focused more on students’ development as people and citizens (thus with more connection to the UNESCO view), and others on students’ development as practitioners. The discussion will be augmented by evidence from the literature and the authors’ experiences of implementing IL in the University curriculum, including Webber’s work as a CILASS (Centre for Inquiry-based Learning in the Arts and Social Sciences) Fellow at the University of Sheffield.

Candy, P., Crebert, G. and OLeary, J. (1994) Developing lifelong learners through undergraduate education. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service. National Board of Employment, Education and Training Report; 28. http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/training_skills/
publications_resources/profiles/nbeet/hec/ developing_lifelong_learners_through_undergraduate.htm"

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