Curriculum for Information Literacy

On 10th November we (Sheffield University Information School) hosted a seminar on an Information Literacy Curriculum, run by Jane Secker (London School of Economics), Emma Coonan (Cambridge University Library), Helen Webster (learning developer at Cambridge University) and Katy Wrathall. I must also thank Lyn Parker, who did the organisation at this end. I have already blogged about this curriculum initiative, which arose from Jane and Emma's Arcadia Fellowship from Cambridge University. There is full documentation on their new blog at http://newcurriculum.wordpress.com/. This includes an explanation of the ideas behind the curriculum and recommendations on how it may be used and taught. There are 10 “strands” to the curriculum, and for each strand they propose learning outcomes, with example activities and assessments. The 10 strands are:
- Transition from school to higher education
- Becoming an independent learner
- Developing academic literacies
- Mapping and evaluating the information landscape
- Resource discovery in your discipline
- Managing information
- Ethical dimension of information
- Presenting and communicating knowledge
- Synthesising information and creating new knowledge
- Social dimension of information
At the workshop there were presentations from Emma and Jane about developing the curriculum and also from Helen and Katy about the next phase. This focuses (as the final Arcadia project) on ways of implementing the curriculum, through a teaching toolkit and institutional audit tool. The seminar at Sheffield also included a group discussion session (pictured), looking at things like barriers and enablers for developing information literscy in the curriculum.
Jane Secker has blogged about this workshop at http://newcurriculum.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/reflecting-on-our-sheffield-workshop/ and the powerpoint is also on their blog, under the Presentations tab.