Teaching for Transfer: Reconciling the Framework with Disciplinary Information Literacy

Abstract

This article explores the tension between information literacy as a generalizable skill and as a skill within the disciplines. The new ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education addresses many challenges facing the previous ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, but the tension between disciplinary expertise and generalizable skills remains. Viewing the documents through the lens of teaching for transfer-that is, instruction that enables students to utilize knowledge and skills gained in one context in other situations-offers a useful approach. Exploring the Framework from the point of view of teaching for transfer addresses both practical and theoretical challenges. This viewpoint respects both the generalizable nature of information literacy and the highly contextual nature of its application in an academic setting.

Reddit as an Analogy for Scholarly Publishing and the Constructed, Contextual Nature of Authority

“…Librarians help students understand and value peer review, consider citation metrics, and evaluate author credentials, all while acknowledging, as the Framework does, the inherent ambiguity and discomfort in doing so. To combat some of this discomfort, librarians have adapted lesson plans to represent disciplinary differences and interests (see for example, Godbey, Wainscott, & Goodman, 2017;Kuglitsch, 2015Kuglitsch, , 2017. In many cases, regardless of discipline, teaching only these static signifiers of authority can allow students to passively accept that scholarly sources, and those who write them, are inherently superior, even if they have only a vague understanding of what makes those sources scholarly.…”

Motivational Design and Problem-Based Learning May Increase Student Engagement in Information Literacy Instruction Sessions

“…However, there is still a connection with the ACRL Framework's "threshold concepts": better selfcognition leads to better transfer of skills between settings and "transferability" can be considered one of the concepts. Cited author Kuglitsch (2015) explicitly suggests teaching toward transferability of knowledge and skills, so that students can connect the big picture of information literacy to their disciplinary environments. Likewise, cited author Lloyd (2013) exhorts instructors to incorporate the transition to the workforce in student information literacy sessions.…”

Who invited the librarian? Studio critiques as a site of information literacy education

“…Rebecca Kuglitsch considered this idea in her article, 'Teaching for transfer: reconciling the framework with disciplinary information literacy', in which she attempted to negotiate the tension between 'information literacy as a generalizable skill and as a skill within the disciplines'. 5 She proposed that librarians adopt the pedagogical technique of teaching for transfer: encouraging learners to recognize the applicability of skills and concepts across a range of contexts. 6 Through this practice, overarching conceptual definitions of information literacy are retained and contextualized according to the disciplinary communities of practice within which they are taught.…”