Weekly Reading # 5

1. What does the term "discursive practices" mean?
• The words, signs, symbols and ideas used to represent material practices.
2. What does "discourse" mean?
• Means of communication.
3. What is the "rock" and what is the "hard place"?
•  The rock is the current conception of information literacy, which is unsatisfactory, because it is confined by the discursive practices of the education sector and does not account for the complex social processes that inform learning to work. The hard place is the translation of information literacy practice with an understanding of how this practice happens, that is, from the education sector into workplace performance. 
4. What are the differences between the skills prescribed for information searching in academic and workplace settings?
• The education sector is a particular type of social setting underpinned by a discourse that shapes the information landscape of teaching and learning. For teachers, librarians, and students who are co-participating in the practices of teaching and learning, this engagement with information is systematically organized and enshrined in authorized bodies of knowledge. In this setting, primacy is awarded to knowledge that is canonical, objective, and explicit, and there is a focus on individual performance and the development of self-sufficiency through independent learning.
• Workplaces offer another type of social setting, where the information landscape is often described as messy, complex, and distributed through a range of practices that entwine to contribute to the collective performance of work. Workplace knowledge is not only shaped via the use of canonical and content-based sources but is also shaped through noncanonical sources such as the experiences of embodied performance, which are created when workers engage with the physical and material space of their workplaces, and through the tacit and implied nuances that construct the workplace narrative.
5. How do academic notions of information literacy undermine workplace notions information literacy?
• There appears to be an acceptance that information literacy focuses on individual information use rather than information use as a collective activity. This approach to explaining and describing workplace information literacy appears to undermine important workplace concepts of teamwork and group problem solving aimed at building collective knowledge, where information skills are spread across a team rather than being centered on an individual.
6. How are information needs identified in work place setting like nursing and emergency workers?
• In nursing, the discourse of another profession (doctors) shapes the information seeking activities of nurses, a profession in its own right..
• Evaluation of information is referenced against the social, embodied dimension, with workers using other workers' embodied knowledge and experience as a source of evaluated information. An important information skill in this setting is an ability to map out the information landscape, and to develop the capacity to make judgments about the veracity of information against noncanonical sources of information.
7. Why do issues of plagiarism not resonate in workplace settings?
• This type of knowledge is considered to be a collective possession and disseminated and circulated throughout the workplace, by storytelling, and extended through the distributed networks of professional practice.
8. Are information literacy skills transferable across contexts and settings? Why or Why not?
• Numerous studies on skills transfer indicate that the ability to transfer skill from one setting to another does not necessarily occur primarily because of situational and affordance factors that influence the modalities of information, which are valued in learning about the practices and performances of work. These factors act to sanction and thus enable the use of specific information skills, while at the same time contesting the efficacy of others. Fenwick (2006), who draws from the workplace learning research, suggests that spatio-temporal arrangements "actually function as pedagogies that induce particular knowledge in participants" (p. 694), which effect the application of skills across contexts, for example, the way equipment, tools, and work are scheduled-"actually compel workers to move, act and even think in particular ways" (Fenwick, 2006, p. 694). This suggests that the setting and its social, material, and embodied affordances furnish participants with opportunities to engage with situated knowledge and ways of knowing.  
• If we create situations in education that are more transferable then I believe that the skills can be transferred.
9. What is "practice theory"?
• Practice theories emphasize the analysis of ways of engaging with the world. These social theories are concerned with exploring human activity, subjectivity, intersubjectivity, embodiment, language, and power in relation to the organization, reproduction and transformation of social life.
10. How does the author of this article define information literacy?
• The author defines information literacy as an information practice: "An array of information related activities and skills, constituted, justified and organized through the arrangements of a social site, and mediated socially and materially with the aim of producing shared understanding and mutual agreement about ways of knowing and recognizing how performance is enacted, enabled and constrained in collective situated action."
11. How do educators need to change their understanding of information literacy in order to prepare student for the information literacy practices they will encounter in workplace settings?
• While workplace information literacy practice research is still in its infancy, the lessons that have emerged suggest that it is critical that we acknowledge the role of the community as central to the enactment of information literacy. Secondly, we should acknowledge that information literacy is not a skill but a practice that is constituted through a range of social activities that need to be studied, understood, and ultimately represented as part of our theorizing of information literacy.
• Educators need to acknowledge the role of the community and view literacy as a practice!
12. What do the terms "ontological" and "epistemological" mean?
• Ontology deals with the nature of being.
• Epistemology deals with the theory of knowledge with regards to methods.
13. After reading this article, how useful is the traditional research paper we expect students to produce in school in preparing them for workplace settings? What are traditional research papers useful for? Should we still assign traditional research papers?
• Traditional research papers do cause students to become more informed about a topic.  However, students are bored with them.  They are not learning the analytical real world researching skills that are useful in the workplace.  Research is good, but why not teach beyond education skills and teach the "How" and "why" of researching?  Why not come up with a situation based research question and lead students through a TrackStar?
14. What is one of the biggest challenges to changing the way information literacy is conceptualized in school settings?
• Teachers already have an existing understanding of information literacy.  When you already have what you believe to be an accurate understanding of a topic, it is hard to change that opinion.  
15. What attributes of the 21st century make it essential that educators change their approaches toward information literacy?
• The environments of the workplace are ever-change which in turn makes the literacy practices of the workplace ever-changing. That means that this change of thinking will not be a one time thing.  Educators will need to continually change their literacy practices in this ever-changing world.
16. What changes can teachers make to their classroom activities to engage students in the  information literacy practices they will encounter in 21st century workplace settings?
• For starters, implementing analytical tools like TrackStar, instead of the traditional research paper.  Teaching students how to anaylze and research on the Internet (a source that many will use in the workplace) is a skill that needs to be taught in education.

Reference:
Lloyd, A. (2011). Trapped between a rock and a hard place: What counts as information literacy in the workplace and how is it conceptualized? Library Trends, 60(2), 277-296. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.fairmontstate.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/918114303?accountid=10797