What I Do To #Critlib
My One-Shot Teaching
Sarah Polkinghorne | @sarahpolk | [email protected]
IL Palooza | MacEwan University | 21 April 2016| 21 April 2016
Critical
pedagogy
Critlib
(Tension
baked
right in)
Information
literacy
Pose problems that connect to the world and people’s real lives
Illuminate the power structures underpinning info creation & access
Break down the dichotomy between students & instructors
Challenge received wisdom and predominant assumptions
Help students equip themselves to change the world for the better
Some Aims of Critical Information Literacy
Critical Information Literacy is not
Constructivism
*Credit to Nicole Pagowsky and Kelly McElroy in their “Introduction to Critical Library
Pedagogy” webinar for first making this point
Critical Information Literacy is not
Active Learning
*Credit to Nicole Pagowsky and Kelly McElroy in their “Introduction to Critical Library
Pedagogy” webinar for first making this point
Refer to power and values
Focus on features and processes, rather than hierarchies
Expose structures, including barriers
Support critical consciousness
Practical things I do to incorporate a #critlib approach in my one-shot teaching
Encouraging critical consciousness: an introductory visualization of elements at work in “searching”
Why I Work with #critlib
Recommended for Reading
• bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress
• James Elmborg, “Critical Information Literacy: Definitions and
Challenges,” in Transforming Information Literacy Programs:
Intersecting Frontiers of Self, Library Culture, and Campus
Community, ACRL, 2012. (Google for OA version)
• Eamon Tewell, “A Decade of Critical Information Literacy: A
Review of the Literature,” in Communications in Information
Literacy, 9(1), 2015. (OA)
• Forthcoming two-volume book from ACRL on Critical IL,
edited by Kelly McElroy and Nicole Pagowsky