Information literacy: the new "pedagogy of the question?" Paper presented at Information Literacy: recognising the need- May 17 2006, Staffordshire University.

1. Information literacy:
the new “pedagogy of the question”?
Susie Andretta,
London Metropolitan University
s.andretta@londonmet.ac.uk
http://www.ilit.org

2. Essential aspect of learning
Fully integrated in the investigation of disciplines
Underpinned by collaboration
(faculty, library and administrative staff)
Information literacy in Higher Education

3. “a practice that challenges the learners to think critically and to adopt
a critical attitude toward the world […] Unlike the pedagogy of the
answer, which reduces learners to mere receptacles for pre-
spackaged knowledge, the pedagogy of the question gives learners
the ‘language of possibility’ to challenge the every constraints which
relegate them to mere objects.”
“Quite often a teacher or text book is seen as a font of knowledge
that is fundamentally true. Students often don’t question or criticise
the source of knowledge and so do not learn how to evaluate
knowledge in the ‘real’ post-education world.”
Does education empower or domesticate?

4. Pedagogy of the question - finding a voice?
“The question for me as a teacher is not just to become silent now
and say bureaucratically to the students that it is time for you to
speak (because it is written in the curriculum). What I have to do
is learn how to challenge students to [..] find their voices, to get [..]
into speech [..] into concreteness, and little by little I also have to
go into silence.”
Information literacy module & independent learning

5. Empowering the learner through Information literacy
1. Making students responsible for their learning
“non-compulsory attendance increases the trust between the pupil
and the tutor. I feel that tutors often think you do little or no work
because you have not attended the lectures, but this module proves
otherwise.”

6. Empowering the learner through Information Literacy
2. Making learning relevant & at students’ own pace
“I felt control over my learning. I learnt what I needed to at my own
pace, rather than learning something new each week at the lectures
and not fully understanding what was taught, then having to catch up
with those more experienced.. This method also ensured that I kept
interested as well as challenged”

7. Challenges faced by information literacy as the
pedagogy of the question
Power and control
Conflicting relations
Spoon-feeding expectations from learners
Does education empower or domesticate?
And who should be in charge of the answer?