In the early drafts of the Information Literacy Framework for Higher Education, metaliteracy and metacognition contributed several guiding principles in recognition of the fact that information literacy concepts need to reflect students’ roles as creators and participants in research and scholarship. The authors contend that diminution of metaliteracy and metacognition occurred during later revisions of the Framework and thus diminished the document’s usefulness as a teaching tool. This article highlights the value of metaliteracy and metacognition in order to support the argument that these concepts are critical to information literacy today, and that the language of these concepts should be revisited in the language of the Framework. Certainly metacognition and metaliteracy should be included in pedagogical strategies submitted to the newly launched ACRL Framework for Information Literacy Sandbox.
The tenet of this article is that historic scientific works, along with science-themed artists’ books, photobooks, and U.S. government-produced reports, can contribute to contemporary science education in inspiring ways. By integrating these materials into undergraduate science-writing projects, we are pioneering an alternative paradigm that merges the sciences and the arts. We are teaching undergraduate science majors through content that invokes scientific curiosity, sparks creativity, and makes science accessible.
The aim of the quantitative study is to identify the digital literacy levels of prospective teachers in terms of several variables. The sample consisted of 354 prospective teachers studying in different departments of Sakarya University College of Education. The 30-item instrument used to gather the data was the “Digital Literacy Scale” developed and used by the researchers. The scale was composed of 5 different factors namely information literacy, visual literacy, software literacy, technology literacy and computer literacy.
How do artists, designers, architects and craftspeople seek and deploy information in support of their practice? It is a question that is of central importance to the learning and teaching that art libraries provide, yet one that has also been subject to much debate within the historical and contemporary literature. An attentive reading of this literature reveals three fundamental metanarratives, each underpinned by a particular epistemology, and it is these narratives that have then informed how institutions construct, embed and assess the teaching of information skills to their readers.
This paper aims to present recently published resources on information literacy and library instruction providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering all library types.
Teaching and learning visual literacy within art and design librarianship presents several unique challenges. Librarians are better equipped than ever to meet these challenges with the help of ACRL Visual Literacy Competency Standards and the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education, which provides an exciting opportunity to situate visual literacy within the contextual definition of information literacy for art and design students. In mapping these two documents together the author found several ways to address the more critical components of information and visual literacy in more nuanced and meaningful ways. While art librarians have often addressed visual literacy needs to varying degrees and in creative and practical ways, a more systematic approach is needed as we move forward.
How can librarians teach information literacy in such a politicized atmosphere? In spring 2017, the library at Fresno State held a series of workshops that introduced first-year students to information literacy in a “gamification” setting, an escape room, to encourage community learning.
An activity involving analysis of art in biology courses was designed with the goals of piquing undergraduates’ curiosity, broadening the ways in which college students meaningfully engage with course content and concepts, and developing aspects of students’ higher-level thinking skills, such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. To meet these learning outcomes, the activity had three key components: preparatory readings, firsthand visual analysis of art during a visit to an art museum, and communication of the analysis.
The authors consider an approach to visual literacy instruction that is rooted in the philosophies and practices of critical librarianship and feminist pedagogy. They explore the extent and limitations of existing standards, frameworks, and pedagogical models to support an idea of critical visual literacy, particularly in the context of art and design schools and creative career-focused institutions. By examining practices and examples from other disciplines, the authors identify strategies for teaching critical visual literacy in context. These pedagogical models inform the design and revision of two workshops for art and design students.
The origins and history of Visual literacy (VL) are summarized in this article, from the 1960s writings of John L. Debes, Marshall McLuhan and others of the Rochester School, to the influence of the Internet in the 2000s. ERIC and Google Scholar searches are used to analyse the evolution of its literature over time.
This article discusses the potential and challenges of teaching a second‐semester German class with Simon Schwartz’s graphic novel drüben! (2009) alongside a traditional textbook. While the class explored linguistic, literary, and cultural‐historical aspects of drüben!, a GDR‐themed family memoir, the focus here is on those pedagogical interventions which dealt with the training of visual literacy.
For generations, and perhaps since the inception of the motion picture industry, teachers of history have recognized the utility of incorporating Hollywood, or commercial, film productions into their classrooms as a visual stimulus.
The twenty-first century hosts a well-established global economy, where leaders are required to have increasingly complex skills that include creativity, innovation, vision, relatability, critical thinking and well-honed communications methods. The experience gained by learning to be visually literate includes the ability to see, observe, analyze, describe and interpret-leading to honing critical thinking skills, visual communications, problem-solving and the ability to articulate your thoughts both verbally and visually. This qualitative research explores the potential benefits to leaders in being visually literate.
In this technologically advanced environment, users have become highly visual, with television, videos, web sites and images dominating the learning environment. These new forms of searching and learning are changing the perspective of what it means to be literate. Literacy can no longer solely rely on text-based materials, but should also incorporate digital images and sounds. Higher education seems to be lagging behind with incorporating visual literacy into their academic programs. This paper explores visual literacy, the digital native, and the importance of integrating visual literacy into our learning curriculum, especially in instructional design programs.
In this paper, the author describes the cultural and technological context of visual literacy, resulting from the specificity of the evolutionarily expanding culture of image and the development of the information society, in the context of the concept of transliteracy. It presents the results of pilot studies of Polish university students for specific visual skills. Comparative material for research tasks of the prepared project “The legitimacy of visual literacy in the process of education” is a set of visual literacy (Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, 2011) developed in academic and scientific environments in the USA (The Association of College and Research Libraries, ACRL).
Designing a public exhibition is one way for students to meet the goals of the Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education quoted above. Students able to combine visual literacy with strong writing will be better prepared“to function creatively and confidently in the working environments of the twenty-first century” (Weber 2007). Scientists rely on visual images, animations, and 3D models to convey research findings and concepts, yet educational research shows that students“do not necessarily automatically acquire visual literacy during general instruction,” but must be explicitly taught these skills (Schönborn et al. 2006). Exhibition design provides a powerful pedagogical approach, helping students learn to “author” in a manner distinct from traditional writing.
Sequential art is a unique storytelling medium that combines visuals and content in a deliberate, specific delivery in order to engage audiences on emotional and cognitive levels. Consequently, graphic novels, comics, and comix are a rich educational medium for undergraduate credit instruction in academic libraries, precisely because this alternative delivery of content can effectively educate many learning styles. This article documents the development and implementation of an undergraduate, upper division credit-bearing course in an academic library that examined multiple types of literacy through the medium, with commentary on instructional strategies for other academic librarians and professors.
The purpose of this paper is to understand young children’s knowledge of visual literacy elements as well as their ability to comprehend newly introduced visual literacy concepts. The study also examined existing support for visual literacy programs from parents and educators. The study explored the knowledge of basic visual literacy elements of young children enrolled in two private schools in the New York City metropolitan area.
The purpose of this paper is to explore graphic design best practices and approval processes used by librarians. This paper used an online, qualitative survey to collect data on librarians’ design processes and best practices. The responses were reviewed to determine categories and themes of librarians’ design processes and best practices to gain an understanding of the state of graphic design in libraries.
This study proposes a basic learning program for enhancing visual literacy using an original Web content management system (Web CMS) to share students’ outcomes in class as a blog post. It seeks to reinforce students’ understanding and awareness of the design of visual content. The learning program described in this research focuses on to address how to create meanings of visual content that is important to express information visually, and includes three exercises based on perception, visual variables, and signification. The Web CMS to publish student works and share in class helps enhance students’ reflection. We also developed a rubric as an assessment device for students’ outcomes. The content of the learning program and its implementation are described with the support of observational data.