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Article
Publication date: 8 June 2015

Meghann Walk

This study aims to explore the question “how would professors teach information literacy to prepare high school students for college?” by observing two history professors at a…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to explore the question “how would professors teach information literacy to prepare high school students for college?” by observing two history professors at a high school early college during routine classroom instruction.

Design/methodology/approach

The research took a case study approach to studying information literacy instruction, drawing from multiple data types but relying primarily on classroom observations and teaching artifacts.

Findings

This research found that subjects taught information literacy by situating students as legitimate peripheral participants in the discipline of history. They did so as part of the daily fabric of classroom instruction, using pedagogical techniques such as dialogical reading, spending time with texts, writing to think and thinking historically.

Research limitations/implications

This research focuses on history instruction. Future studies could include additional disciplines and directly examine the impact of teaching practices on student cognition.

Practical implications

The findings suggest that taking a disciplinary approach is one way to apply insights from the field of situated information literacy to the high school to college transition. It also suggests that information literacy instruction need not be confined to research assignments, and that information literacy educators consider the possibilities these teaching techniques offer for enhancing instruction.

Originality/value

This paper offers a rich description of information literacy pedagogy in an unusual but intriguing context of use to instruction librarians and educators at both high school and college levels. It also offers a bridge between situated information literacy rooted in workplace research and academic information literacy instruction.

Details

Reference Services Review, vol. 43 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0090-7324

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 9 February 2015

Kate Rubick

This paper aims to demonstrate how a librarian at a liberal arts college partnered with a professor of rhetoric and media studies to teach students methods to classify sources…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to demonstrate how a librarian at a liberal arts college partnered with a professor of rhetoric and media studies to teach students methods to classify sources using Bizup’s BEAM.

Design/methodology/approach

Students in rhetorical criticism, read the Bizup article on BEAM. The library instruction included a discussion of the article and an application exercise where students classified cited references in a peer-reviewed journal article using BEAM.

Findings

BEAM was a valuable addition to the rhetorical criticism course. The application exercise used in the library instruction session introduced BEAM as a tool to be used in reading and evaluating sources. Students were able to apply what they learned as they selected, deciphered and interpreted sources of information for use in their academic writing.

Practical implications

Librarians teaching in a variety of academic disciplines may use or adapt BEAM as a tool for helping students learn to critically evaluate information sources, as they read texts and as they engage in research-based writing assignments.

Originality/value

This work showcases how librarians using BEAM can extend library teaching beyond traditional bibliographic instruction and into the realm of critical inquiry. It also demonstrates how librarians can use BEAM to initiate conversations with academic faculty about information literacy. It also contributes to an emerging area of scholarship involving the use of BEAM to teach source evaluation.

Details

Reference Services Review, vol. 43 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0090-7324

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 4 July 2016

Christopher Todd Beer

This research uses the social science perspectives of institutions, ecological modernization and social movements to analyze the rationale used by the early-adopting universities…

980

Abstract

Purpose

This research uses the social science perspectives of institutions, ecological modernization and social movements to analyze the rationale used by the early-adopting universities of fossil fuel divestment in the USA.

Design/methodology/approach

Through analysis of qualitative data from interviews with key actors at the universities that divested their endowments from fossil fuels, the paper examines how institutions navigate competing logics and frame their rationale.

Findings

The results show that while many institutions relied on ecological values embedded in their missions to justify their decision to divest, many also continued to embrace an altered version of market logic.

Research limitations/implications

This research is primarily limited by its small population size. If the number of adoptees increases in the future, quantitative analysis should look for statistically robust trends.

Practical implications

The implications of this research are that we can expect more universities to commit to divesting from fossil fuels if their mission statements provide them with cultural material to rationalize the decision, but also expect them to couch the decision in continued goals and concerns for fiduciary responsibility and the subsequent growth of their endowment.

Social implications

Social actors engaged in the fossil fuel divestment campaign may take this research and conclude that they need to build their arguments around the existing institutional logics and cultural identity.

Originality/value

This paper contributes original primary data documenting how institutional actors confront dominant logics using both a mixture of internal cultural identity and the reframing of the legitimated market logics.

Details

International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, vol. 17 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1467-6370

Keywords

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