What Matters? Shaping Meaningful Learning through Teaching Information Literacy

The point of departure for this article is an assumed gap between the different communities concerned with the practices of teaching or researching information literacy. Its purpose is to discuss some critical features of teaching information literacy identified in three previous research studies with a view toward understanding how they support meaningful learning outcomes and what the implications of this understanding are for information literacy education. The analysis is framed by a sociocultural perspective of learning that views information seeking and learning as social practices set within the discursive practice of school. The findings indicate that teacher/student interaction with a focus on learning goals and content is a vital condition for students' meaningful learning. Focus on the object of teaching, away from information seeking skills toward an emphasis on the quality of students' research questions, on negotiating learning goals between pedagogues and students, and on the critical evaluation of information sources related to the knowledge contents of students' assignments improves learning. The conclusions are that observing such critical features of information literacy in teaching may allow the discursive practice of school to be reshaped in favour of more genuine research-based learning. A second conclusion is that there are mutual benefits in a closer interaction between the communities of teaching and researching information literacy.