INFORMATION SKILLS - REPORT ON PROGRESS

["Alison Waters, Hobart Tasmania Australia" <XTCOLL_LIBR@ECC.TASED.EDU.AU>]

Dear LM-Netters,
This is very long overdue response to all your kind and helpful
suggestions wh
kills programme in our K-12 girls school in Tasmania.
That was way back in August!!
I have been burdened with guilt ever since, that I could not find
the time to answer. Burdened also with the awfulness of what I
wanted to do, and the seeming impossibility of achieving it.
However, it is now time to report what we have tried to do,
and how things stand at present.

1. I had a marvellous response from you all, and I collated all
your ideas and recommendations. I also got hold of a copy of

Eisenberg, Michael B. & Berkowitz, Robert E.
Information problem-solving : the Big Six Skills approach to
library and information skills instruction
Norwood NJ : ABLEX, 1990

This is a really useful book with lots of
um still makes
 me feel quite faint.

2.  I located some Australian bookson inf
nion are:

Skills for information literacy,
Adelaide : Education Department of South Australia, 1991
ISBN 072438202X

Gawith, Gwen
Information alive! : information skills for research and reading
Auckland : Longman Paul, 1987

3. I me

school, and we discussed ideas, brainstormed etc.
Feeling that we needed a fa
 I arranged a date in October on which we would hold a
professional development afternoon (2 hours) for the whole school staff - approx
 .
65 teachers.
Given that most of our staff are not excited at the prospect of 2 hours of profe
 ssional
development at the end of a long day, we agreed that we should try to be as
entertaining as possible, provide lots of variety in format and content, and try
  to appeal
to particular concerns of teachers from different parts
ction of the concept of students' need for information literacy, given
the enormous growth in information, etc. etc.
*       12 min of the video   Gimme everything you've got on transport
        - this is very entertaining. It depicts an example of very bad teaching
 by a ve
 ry
        stressed teacher, which is exaggerated and amusing. Everyone enjoys it,
 knows
        that they are certainly not as hopeless as this teacher, but can perhaps
  see li
 ttle
        things that they can identify with. The teachers loved it!!
*       Then I very briefly discussed the six steps in 'The Information Process'
 , and
 some
of the skills connected with each step.
        Incidentally, we decided to define our six steps as follows:
        Defining, Locating, Selecting, Organising, Presenting, Evaluating.
*       A teacher-librarian from a local high school talked briefly about the wo
 rk she
        has done at her school on information skills, and the response she has h
 ad from
teachers.
*       Teachers could then choose two from a range of short works
esented by teachers from 3 different
areas), concept mapping, library research (teachers learning how to do this),
        identifying bias in resources, using CD-ROM tools.
*       We finished up with drinks and snacks in the library (always important t
 o end
        with a party!) which gave time for informal discussion, feedback, grumbl
 es etc.
*       We had prepared lots of handouts for teachers to take away:-
        examples of how to teach note-taking, summarising, skim-reading, scannin
 g,
        essay-writing, concept mapping etc. and lots of other ideas, plus sets o
 f poste
 rs of
the six stages in the information process for classroom use.

All this was just a beginning.

        In our next professional development workshop we will ask teachers to  l
 ook at
 the
whole process  for each year level, and  decide what skills every student should
achieve by the end of ea
anged from those teachers that expressed surprise that we felt we
had to make such a big thing of information skills, to others teachers who sound
really relieved to know there is a way they can help their students learn to pla
 n
their work more effectively. One teacher confessed to me that his classroom was
just like the one in the video!
        Our student diary for next year will include a page outlining the six st
 eps of
 the
information process, and I suspect our next job will be to begin to educate our
parents about this concept.
        I have been delighted to find that I have the support of lots of teacher
 s, and
 that
introducing these ideas is giving them new ways of talking about some of the
wonderful work they are doing in
e the late response.

        Alison Waters
        Senior Librarian

        St Michael's Collegia
 sCHOOL
         Hobart, Tasmania
        Australia
        XTCOLL_LIBR@Ecc.tased.edu.au