Event Title

FSM05 - News Literacy: Applications for the Classroom and Beyond

Presenter Information

Kendra Auberry

Location

CB1-307

Streaming Media

Start Date

3-11-2017 11:15 AM

Description

Applying the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education to the 'fake news' phenomenon provides instructors and librarians opportunities to increase students' understanding of information sources, provides all students a voice in the current debate on authority, and increases students' ability to evaluate and ethically use information for academic and personal success. The Framework consists of six concepts which were adopted by ACRL in 2016: Authority is Constructed and Contextual Information Creation as a Process Information Has Value Research as Inquiry Scholarship as Conversation Searching as Strategic Exploration Since the creation of the Framework, librarians and educators have been increasing their efforts to apply active learning strategies across multiple disciplines to increase the information and digital literacy skills of college students. Three personal examples which focus on news literacy which will be shared include: • Allowing students in English Composition (ENC1101) to evaluate the authority of a source by providing guided practice using Guide-on-the-Side tutorial software to create a customized student experience requiring students to apply the Rationale-Authority-Date-AccuracyRelevance (RADAR) technique for evaluation of a news source. • The exploration of how information is generated and for what purpose utilizing portions (slides, videos, and discussion questions) of the open source curriculum created at the Center for News Literacy at Stony Brook University to encourage American Government (POS1041) students to visualize the different "information neighborhoods" that they may find themselves in and when to be cautious. • Utilizing the ECHO Active Learning Platform (ALP) to walk Biology Junior Seminar (BSC3931) students through the information cycle and use the live polling features of the ALP to reinforce application of how scholarship is generated in the biological sciences. Examples of how Zika is reported in the news versus the scholarly literature provides the news literacy tie-in. Information literacy skill building is a component of the General Education Learning Outcomes at my institution, as well as at many others. While the Association of American Colleges & Universities provides detailed rubrics for what being information literate looks like, the knowledge practices from the Framework hints at what the learning process looks like with enough flexibility to build content that is institution and course-specific. It is impossible to cover all frames in a single lesson, course, or semester, but by allowing students an opportunity to explore these concepts across their course load, they can apply the ideas and engage with them in meaningful ways. References Association of American Colleges & Universities. (2013). Information literacy value rubric. Retrieved from https://www.aacu.org/value/rubrics/information-literacy Association of College and Research Libraries. (2016). Framework for information literacy for higher education. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework