Interesting commentary today in Mark Bauerlein’s blog in the Chronicle of Higher Education on the information literacy of our students.
The ETS website on testing student defines skills in information literacy as today’s students are part of a technology-savvy generation, but they are often still at a loss when it comes to using their critical thinking and problem-solving skills in a digital environment; a skill set identified as Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Literacy.
ETS conducted a study in 2006 assessing ICT literacy in 6300 students in high school and college. Though it was a nonrandom sample, it was interesting that many students had difficulties in searching, assessing and synthesizing information from ill-constrained sources. (Get the report).
In any case where information technology is used to support inquiry activities in a classroom, ICT literacy is an important requirement for successful completion of the inquiry-based instructional modules. I don’t often explicitly instruct my students in these skills but we have addressed the development of these skills in novice teachers enrolled in PLC-MAP.
Posted in PLCMAP, Science education
