“Dismantling the Information Framework”
Discussion questions for reading groups
“Dismantling the Information Framework,” Alaina C. Bull, Margy MacMillan and Alison J. Head, In the Library with the Lead Pipe, July 21, 2021 (4,000 words)
https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2021/dismantling-evaluation/
Questions prepared by the Project Information Literacy Team: Steven Braun, Alaina Bull, Barbara Fister, Alison Head, Merinda Kaye Hensley, Kirsten Hostetler, and Margy MacMillan (posted on August 2, 2021).
About “Dismantling the Information Framework”
What happens if we shift our instructional paradigm from assuming that students are agents in information-student interactions and assume that information sources are the agents? Our In the Library with the Lead Pipe article discusses a new way of considering information as having agency and moves information evaluation from a reactive stance to a proactive one. This change in perspective dramatically reframes library instruction in a profound way. This document provides discussion group questions for exploring a proactive approach to evaluation and the impact that might have on teaching and learning.
Purpose and intended use of this resource
“Dismantling the Evaluation Framework” offers a wide variety of lessons about reconsidering information literacy instruction and incorporating proactive methods to better equip students for the information landscape they inhabit. This essay (as do essays in our occasional PIL Provocation Series) makes an argument grounded in research while posing questions for the future: What new directions in information literacy and higher education should we be exploring? What fundamental aspects of student experiences with navigating ever-changing information spaces have we overlooked? What fresh ideas can we advance to inspire librarians, staff, educators, researchers, students, and higher education policy-makers?
These OA prompts are designed for an audience of people who work in libraries, other educators, and learners. They are intended to provoke discussion around the themes in the essay, suggest ways to advance teaching and learning in your institutional context, and open up new avenues for inquiry and experimentation.
Questions or comments? Drop us a line at: projectinfolit@pilresearch.org.in
Discussion questions
- In light of the instruction that you or your library provides, what do you see as the major strengths of using a proactive evaluation teaching approach?
- How would adopting a proactive perspective on evaluation change the ways you currently teach evaluation of sources? Would it have any effect on how you teach searching for information?
- In the article, the authors discuss using a news article in a proactive evaluation exercise with students. What other sources could you use, and what learning gains could you imagine occurring?
- Asking learners questions about social media practices, such as “How do you go about deciding if you would reshare that news story?” and “What are your motivations for sharing that news story?” provide entry points for challenging learners to recognize how they have agency in those encounters. What additional questions could you ask learners to help them interrogate the ways they are active agents in their own evaluation processes?
- The idea that sources seek us may be startling to both instructors and learners. How might you introduce this concept, given that the actual workings of most algorithmic systems that personalize information encounters are a “black box”? What aspects of the everyday experiences of learners could help clarify the idea that knowledge is networked? How could/do you broaden evaluation of single sources to include considering its networked context?
- Maintaining agency and balanced skepticism is an essential aspect of moving along the continuum of proactive evaluation. The authors reinforce the idea that students bring skepticism to the information evaluation process “with defensive practices for safeguarding their privacy and mitigating invasive, biased information as they navigate the web and search for information.” What kind of exercises or questions could be designed to build on the idea of healthy skepticism?
- We know that novice researchers use limited search strategies while experts “realize that information searching is a contextualized, complex experience that affects, and is affected by, the cognitive, affective, and social dimensions of the searcher.” What are some strategies for better understanding learners’ cognitive, affective, and social dimensions so that we can develop pedagogical approaches that meet learners where they are?
- The authors note that “reliance on other people as part of trusted information networks is rarely even acknowledged, let alone explicitly taught in formal instruction.” What role do social information practices play for the learners you work with? What strategies and source evaluations do they share with others in what contexts? What could encouraging more social evaluation practices look like? Similarly, what do examples of over-reliance on the social aspect of information evaluation look like and how do you strike a balance?
- Many people may have developed evaluation habits based on the CRAAP test or similar binary evaluation tools. Given that, how would you introduce new proactive strategies that are more responsive to the changing information landscape? What challenges might arise in promoting this approach in your context to parents, discipline faculty, colleagues and others who have relied on these habits, and how could you address them? What support, additional learning objects, or structural changes would you need in order to begin implementing this style of instruction?
- The movement from reactive to proactive approaches in evaluating information requires a shift away from “oversimplified binaries” for determining credibility and toward a more nuanced systems-level understanding of information as networked and situated objects. However, the effectiveness of this proactive approach has the potential to be enhanced or diminished when placed in the context of the practices and methodologies of students’ primary academic disciplines. In your experience in the academic programs you teach in, what methodologies, philosophies, or academic practices specific to those disciplines have the potential to enhance or diminish the effectiveness of teaching this proactive approach?
- The authors note that through a proactive approach, over time users can develop their own matrix or map of trusted information sources for particular contexts and topics. What would a map of trusted sources, including humans, platforms, and publications, look like for you in a typical information task, like developing a new activity or exploring a new professional role?
- “Dismantling the Evaluation Framework” advocates teaching that helps learners make the tacit moves they already use in evaluating information more explicit, like weighting where a piece of information came from and other factors outside of the source itself. Thinking of the last time you were gathering information for a particular purpose, what factors influence your credibility judgments? Does your level of background knowledge of the topic change the factors you add to the mix? What parallels can you draw from this about the experiences of learners?
About PIL
Project Information Literacy (PIL) is a nonprofit research institute in the San Francisco Bay Area. Since 2009, in a series of 12 groundbreaking scholarly research studies and articles, PIL has investigated how U.S. college students and recent graduates utilize research skills, information competencies, and strategies for completing course work, engaging with news, and solving information problems in their everyday lives and the workplace.
Essays in the PIL Provocation Series are open access and licensed by Creative Commons.
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