Learn how threshold concepts and the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy can be used to create activities, assignments, and assessments to enhance students’ critical thinking skills. The session leaders will cover active learning course plans and assessments they developed for online and hybrid instruction, with a focus on information literacy.
Adopted in 2016 by the Association for College and Research Libraries [ACRL], the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education which describes what it means to be information literate. The Framework outlines six threshold concepts across which the information literate individual has traveled: Authority Is Constructed and Contextual; Information Creation as a Process; Information Has Value; Research as Inquiry; Scholarship as Conversation; and Searching as Strategic Exploration. More importantly for teachers and designers, the Framework also describes the knowledge practices and affective dispositions the information literate, or critical thinking, person possesses, understands, and employs. While the Framework was crafted by academic instruction librarians, its foundation in pedagogy and educational psychology means that it can be used by anyone seeking to design instruction that requires students to critically engage with information.
The session presenters have extensively used the ACRL Framework for instructional design: projects range from a complete redesign of a for-credit information literacy class to in-class learning activities.
The goals for this session include:
- Discuss how threshold concepts inform the ACRL Framework
- Demonstrate how to utilize the ACRL Framework’s knowledge practices and dispositions to create measurable learning objectives that support critical thinking skills
- Share activities, assignments, and assessments developed for online and hybrid instruction, with a focus on information literacy