"What's information literacy?" - "Go look it up in the encyclopedia."

husband - age 8

He admits it, my husband was one of those somewhat irritating, but wonderfully curious children who constantly peppers their parents with questions about the world. You know, the kids who endlessly ask, “Why?” His parents often responded with, “Go look it up in the encyclopedia.” And believe it or not, but he did. A. J. Jacobs may have become famous from his idea to read the Encyclopædia Britannica cover to cover, but my husband swears he did it first. And in so doing, he essentially learned how to learn. Now, when he has a question or a problem, he feels confident in his ability to find appropriate resources, understand the information that is presented, and then apply what he has learned to his question or problem—this, in a nutshell, is information literacy.

The American Library Association (ALA) states, “Information literacy is a set of abilities requiring individuals to ‘recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information’” (1989, para. 3). The example I gave about my husband represents a more traditional concept of literacy, specifically one that is related to books; however, information literacy skills need to be appropriate to the activity at hand, and books are not always the answer. In school, information literacy often has to do with finding, evaluating, and using written information. When driving a car, information literacy is based on one’s ability to recognize, evaluate, and react to road signs, other drivers, weather, etc. In a dance class, one demonstrates information literacy by observing an instructor, interpreting the movements of the instructor, interpreting the music, and moving one’s body appropriately. It is valuable to consider that information literacy means something different in different environments, and we shouldn’t assume that there is only one definition. So before I go any further with this discussion, I will specify that for the remainder of this post, I will be focusing on information literacy as it relates to academic work (explicitly that at the collegiate level).

Information literacy seems to be a particularly hot topic given the rise in resources now available via the internet. Many are asking, what part do blogs, internet videos, wikis, online articles, online news stories, etc. play in scholarly research? Do students know how to identify and use appropriate resources for their research? It seems like many librarians do not believe students are very information literate. Some librarians groan that students look things up on Wikipedia, and they groan louder when student cite Wikipedia in their college papers. We often focus on a student’s ability to locate appropriate information, but information literacy doesn’t end with simply finding appropriate resources.

For this reason, I found the results of Rosenblatt’s (2010) study particularly interesting. In her study, she reviewed papers prepared by undergraduates, about half of whom had attended a workshop geared toward increasing information literacy, and half of whom did not attend any workshop. She found that 85 percent of the students were able to “meet or exceed the professor’s bibliographic requirements” for their assignment (p. 56). Even those students who had not attended the workshop were able to identify appropriate, scholarly sources for their papers (p. 56). On the other hand, only 50 percent of all of the students “showed evidence of the ability to integrate the scholarly information they discovered into the arguments they made in their papers” (p. 57). This is a good reminder that information literacy goes beyond simply teaching students to find appropriate resources; students must also be able to use the information effectively.

As librarians, we do a disservice to students if we merely teach them to locate information. I would argue this is why it is important that faculty and librarians work together to encourage information literacy: librarians may focus on helping students to locate and evaluate resources, and professors can support the process by teaching students how to use the information they find. Information literacy certainly isn’t something students learn once in a workshop and that’s it. One of the outcomes of information literacy is for students to develop into lifelong learners (ALA, 2000, Information Literacy Defined section, para. 2)—which is good, because becoming information literate is a lifelong process.

[LIBR 250 Prompt: What are the "big ideas" and unspoken assumptions in information literacy?]

References

American Library Association. (1989, January 10). Presidential committee on information literacy. Final Report. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/publications/whitepapers/presidential.cfm

American Library Association. (2000). Information literacy competency standards for higher education. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/standards/informationliteracycompetency.cfm

Rosenblatt, S. (2010). They can find it, but they don't know what to do with it: Describing the use of scholarly literature by undergraduate students. Journal of Information Literacy, 4(2), 50-61.

“A long shot, Watson, a very long shot!” (- Sr. Arthur Conan Doyle)

     Have you heard about Watson, the IBM computer that is going to be on “Jeopardy!” this week? Watson is a super computer that has been programmed to play “Jeopardy!” against two of the game show’s greatest champions, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Watson can answer trivia questions remarkably well, but did it actually learn the information, and does it understand the questions and answers? It’s certainly got me thinking.
     My first thought was, no, Watson did not actually learn anything. It has been programmed to perform, but it can only perform within the parameters the programmers established. To me, the strongest element of learning is the ability to take new information from one situation and apply it to another. However, after looking in the dictionary, I realize my definition may be off.
     In fact, Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary lists the first definition of the verb “to learn” as follows: “to gain knowledge or understanding of or skill in by study, instruction, or experience” (Learn, 2011). This definition doesn’t include the ability to transfer the information to new a context, like I had original thought. It also states that one learns by instruction, which is conceivably equivalent to programming, in the case of Watson. So, perhaps Watson has learned the information it relies upon to answer trivia questions.
     Beyond learning, there are the concepts of knowledge and understanding. Wiggins and McTighe (2005), in Understanding by Design, make it pretty clear that there is a difference between knowledge and understanding. Wiggins and McTighe state, “An understanding is a mental construct, an abstraction made by the human mind to make sense of many distinct pieces of knowledge” (p. 37). From this description, we see that understanding is on a higher level of cognition—a level that is attained by applying “distinct pieces of knowledge.” Therefore, knowledge is a building block that leads to understanding. This concept is also apparent in Bloom’s Taxonomy, which places Comprehension (understanding) above Knowledge (Page, 2010, p. 56).
     One can argue that Watson learned a variety of facts, which is the knowledge Watson relies on to answer the trivia questions on “Jeopardy!”, but does Watson understand? Again I’ll rely on Wiggins and McTighe, who state, “Understanding thus involves meeting a challenge for thought. We encounter a mental problem, and experience with puzzling or no meaning. We use judgment to draw upon our repertoire of skill and knowledge to solve it” (p. 39). By this definition, one could even argue that Watson understands the game show prompts, at least some of the time, as evidenced by the computer’s ability to sort through its “repertoire of skill and knowledge” to answer the prompt correctly. Of course the computer can make mistakes, but, then again, so do humans and animals, so why not computers.
     However, as we delve deeper into the layers of understanding, it seems less and less likely that a computer, even one as well programmed as Watson, can be said to truly understand. Wiggins and McTighe present six facets of mature understanding:
     When we truly understand, we,

1. Can explain
2. Can interpret
3. Can apply
4. Have perspective
5. Can empathize
6. Have self-knowledge (p. 85)

It’s possible that Watson exhibits the first three points (explaining, interpreting, and applying); however, I suspect the computer would not be able to demonstrate the ability to have perspective, empathize, or have self-knowledge. Thus, Watson does not have the ability of mature understanding (back to the drawing board IBM!).
     While it may be silly to look at learning, knowledge, and understanding as it applies to a computer, I believe it to have been a valuable exercise nonetheless. As humans, we perhaps take for granted the fine differences between these three concepts—in fact, we often use these terms interchangeably—but, by applying them to an inanimate object, we have to really examine our definitions of these concepts and determine how they might be applied to something outside our normal frame of reference. For that matter, this was an exercise in understanding the concepts of learning, knowledge, and understanding by transferring what I’ve learned in one context (the typical teacher-student relationship) to that of a different context (the programmer-computer relationship).

If you’d like to read more about Watson’s big match, here is an article from the New York Times, and one from the Washington Post.

[LIBR250 Prompt: What does it mean to learn?  Include thoughts and definitions regarding knowing and understanding?]

References

Learn. (2011). In Merriam-Webster online. Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/learning?show=10&t=1297730018

Page, B. (2010). 12 things teachers must know about learning. Education Digest, 75(8), 54-56.

Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.