IL Learning Community Meeting March 8, 2017
Meeting Details
- Attendance: Jack Phelan, Bruno Giberti, Katherine O'Clair, Kaila Bussert, Mary Glick, Carol Curiel, Marilyn Tseng
- Time: 1:10 to 2:00 pm
- Place: 35-319
Business
Approved Meeting Notes from February 22, 2017
Workshop: (35 min)
Goal: To facilitate the establishment of a working definition of information literacy at Cal Poly to use as part of the assessment of the WASC core competency
Breaking down components of the definition
Knowledge (What do students need to know?)
- Ability to recognize types of reasoning and types of evidence
- Ability to acknowledge the limitations of sources
- Understanding the concept of personal bias
- Ability to find trustworthy information
- Ability to agilely navigate through information domains
- Understand the relationship between context, authority, and reliability
- Ability to discern opinion from fact
Practice (What abilities do students need to develop?)
- Distinguishing data from interpretation
- Ability to evaluate information
- Ability to be reflective about the process
- Commitment to consult different/multiple sources
- Disposition to look for a diversity of sources and perspectives to help answer questions
- Discerning, dissecting and disseminating source credibility and appropriateness
- Validating information by seeking corroboration from other sources
- The ability to know when there is a need for information, to be able to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively and responsibly use and share that information for the problem at hand.
- Ability to define, articulate and formulate the goal (need) for information
Three distinct steps from above:
1 -defining a need
2- locating - (which may be different for freshmen e.g. using Cal poly resources/portal.
3 -evaluating
4- using
5 - metacognition - process (often lost) — reflections
Reflection
- Understanding the concept of one’s own personal bias
- Capturing the process, steps
- Process as pedagogy: showing the steps (in the process)
- annotated bibliography
- lab notebook, research diary
- etc
Product (What is the goal?)
- Disposition to use information ethically
- Ability to synthesize information
Other Definitions
- AACU -The ability to know when there is a need for information, to be able to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively and responsibly use and share that information for the problem at hand.
- Framework - A set of integrative abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, to be able to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively and responsibly use and share that information in creating new knowledge and participate ethically in communities of learning
Information literacy Draft Definition for Cal Poly
- "Information literacy encompasses knowledge that allows one to understand how information is produced and valued, to engage with a variety of information domains, to understand the potential and limitations of sources within those domains as well as one’s personal bias toward those sources.
It requires the ability to utilize a critical stance and reflective approach for defining, articulating, and refining a need for information; locating trustworthy information using a variety and diversity of sources; and critically evaluating credibility and appropriateness of the information one finds in order to distinguish fact from opinion and data from interpretation.
The information literate student is able to use and synthesize information to solve complex problems and create new knowledge in a way that is ethically, legally, and socially sound.”
It requires the ability to:
- Determine the extent of information one needs to inform decisions
- Locate and access needed information effectively and efficiently while considering the diversity and variety of those sources
- Evaluate the information and its sources for validity and reliability
- Recognize the limitations of sources as well as one’s personal bias toward those sources
- Distinguish fact from opinion and data from interpretation
- Use information effectively, legally and ethically to accomplish a specific purpose
- Understand the economic and social issues surrounding the use of information
- The information literate student is able to use and synthesize information to make sound decisions and to solve complex problems in a way that is ethically, legally, and socially sound.
Discussion/Comments
- Have we integrated the components in the definition?
- Information/Knowledge discussion on bias, move from knowledge to reflection
- We may not want to use the term ability, and distinguish from Bloom’s Taxonomy
- We should separate knowledge from abilities
Is there a way to frame a threshold concept?
Threshold knowledge is a term in the study of higher education used to describe core concepts that once understood, transform perception of a given subject or one can describe individual threshold concepts. The theory was introduced by Jan Meyer and Ray Land, who have published frequently on it.
- Should we use concept vs. threshold concept?
- Are we categorizing the components to use for the rubric development?
- Do we want to have all of these categories? It may help to inform our categories, How can we organize our rubric according to that?
- Every rubric has a practical question about where you want to be. Analytic? Holistic?
- Highly proficient – benchmark terms, statement of what we expect most of our graduates to achieve
- Is this number 80% given to us by experts? It could be practical, using most of the graduates. (QR rubric – designed that way/80% of students scored that way)
- Is it possible to design a rubric with expectations that are too high?
- Question: Proficient – Is that a better example for graduates?
- Highly proficient gives students a place to go, wiggle room
- WASC asks us for our benchmark – What are your expectations from students?
Developing Questions
- Filtering has led us to the working definition
- What is the most beneficial next step?
- Are we clarifying definition?
- Is it concepts and abilities?
- Do we want to map them to a potential rubric?
- We need to refine the language first
- Can we streamline concepts?
- How can we integrate the definitions into the rubric?
- Would it be productive to change to a list of concepts, or would we be repeating?
- Product – will not see processes in the product, will it be a portfolio? What format would it take?
- What does the artifact look like?
- Annotated bibliography – form of evidence
- Architecture artifacts – part of process/documentation
- Core of rubric in definition/possible categorical
- Create a list of questions that will describe artifacts?
- What it would be for an architect? Visual literacy? Could be a component? Example: A journalistic photograph? Precedent studies part of work, look at them deeply, comparative skills, have to gather precedents in museums or plans
- We should probably should consider general visual evidence and how these artifacts fit in.
Assignment Design
- Embed these into assignment, that these things are being asked for
- -English first year/incorporating visual artifacts, include visual rhetoric, analysis of visual rhetoric. Graphic representation of data, ethos,pathos, logos
- Economics QR – could draw graph, could also analyze graph presented in assignment
Visual Representations
- Can we add in to the concept of information – should we integrate into definition?
- Is this question still open?
- Does this need a separate category?
- It could help to be explicit. The need to consider non-verbal forms of communication
Next Steps
- What are next steps? Do we want to start looking at rubrics?
- What is the assignment? What does it include? What type of artifacts are we going to use?
- Could we look at rubrics though the lens of our definitions?
- Should we have the freedom to start on a blank page?
- Should we look at the grid and imagine how this could be?
| Highly proficient | Proficient | Emerging proficiency | Limited Proficiency | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Knowledge | ||||
| Abilities | ||||
| Product | ||||
| Reflection |