#lilac18 The didactic Diamond: an Information Literacy model to explain ththe academic process in Higher Education.

Tim Zijlstra (@infoschoolsheff alumni) now based at university of Derby, spoke about student skills development sessions at the university. There are only around 800 students based at the campus in Chesterfield doing a variety of nursing and health courses. Many of the students are atypical, often mature and from backgrounds where they are the first person in their family to go to university. Because students have come through access courses, and find academic writing quite challenging, mostly because their IL is poor. It is important for students to read academic work, in order to become better writers themselves. Tim’s view that academic writing is to be as clear as possible helps students who take a “thesaurus” approach to complexity in langauage and produce incomprehensible work. Student make critical descions in their daily lives, but struggle to apply these critical skills to academic writing is problematic. The didactic diamond is used to provide a narrative explanation of the student journey to achieve success in written coursework. The SCONUL seven pillars model of IL provides a theoretical base for the didactic diamond model. It’s important for students to gain a broad knowledge of their topic and record notes on material they find that is NOT relevant to their work, as well as those sources that are relevant as greater understanding of a broader topic really helps present a balanced view. They use a reflective assignment to help students answer the question they have been set. When presenting to students they focus on 3 key elemants 1.preparation, 2. Research, which includes learning how to use the catalogue, reference management, and critical thinking. Stage 3. Writing, which involves going back to initial notes, taking notes on each source, developing an outline, and how to structure writing.