Information literacy, diversity and the role of reflection in creating knowledge

Abstract

Diversity in higher education calls for process oriented information literacy (IL) practitioners rather than source oriented practitioners. They must be generalists because e.g. students with different backgrounds to a higher degree bring multi- and interdisciplinarity into the situation of creating knowledge and problem solving. It is a situation where counselling is about how to prioritise and combine the multidisciplinarity rather than knowing a subject in depth.

The purposes of this workshop are:

• To facilitate answers to the challenges IL practitioners meet in their work in an educational environment characterized by diversity
• To go through a process from pedagogical reflection to practical ideas about teaching or counselling.

The participants will be challenged on their pedagogical awareness, competencies and creativity and on their understanding of information literacy.

The participants will not be given the answers, but in order to live up to the concept of a workshop, we must all work and participate in the exploration for answers.

The workshop will be a mix of understandings of IL, investigations of diversity and creating knowledge, pedagogical tools, examples of teaching materials, theoretical concepts and creative processes.

We will deal with the following questions:

• How does IL fit into the process of creating knowledge?
• How should we look at information literacy? As a defined set of skills, qualifications and competencies or as a readiness to handle certain intellectual or academic situations?
• Does diversity mean the end of information literacy standards?