Information literacy threshold concepts and the ACRL framework for information literacy for higher education

In this session, Bravender, McClure and Schaub, editors of Teaching Information Literacy Threshold Concepts: Lesson Plans for Librarians will discuss the idea of threshold concepts and how conceptual teaching has been transformative in their work as information literacy instructors and library liaisons. The editors began their research in threshold concepts as a way to focus on the core, elemental ideas rather than procedural skills in library instruction. At the same time, the use and discussion of information literacy threshold concepts increased in the United States as a variety of thinkers and organizations published research and incorporated threshold concepts into high profile documents.

The presenters will discuss the theory of threshold concepts and that scholarship’s impact on information literacy scholarship and practice in the United States. They will also discuss briefly some of the other research surrounding information literacy, threshold concepts, and instruction, and the Association of College and Research Libraries‘ Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. The Framework, organized around six threshold concepts in information literacy as identified in recent research, reflects developments in the information landscape as threshold concepts have become influential.

The book is intended as a guide and inspiration for instruction librarians to teach the foundational ideas of information literacy and to offer plans for putting this theory into practice. This collection of lessons, a collaboration of teaching librarians from across the United States, represents the immense interest in meaningful instruction shared by so many.

The presenters will then lead a workshop in which participants are given the opportunity to discuss the threshold concepts identified in the Framework and to create activities or lesson plans that they can use in their instruction to introduce their students to information literacy threshold concepts.

(Saal 4)