Speakers
Thursday Afternoon Pre-Conference Workshop
Melissa Mallon
Vanderbilt University
Biography
Melissa Mallon is Director of Peabody Education Library and Director of Instruction & Liaison Services at Vanderbilt University. Her research interests include online learning, instructional design, and creative use of emerging technologies and social media in assessing student learning. She has published and presented on these topics in multiple forums, including ACRL, ALA, and LOEX.
You can read more about Melissa and her publications on her website melissamallon.com.
Friday Morning Plenary Session
Dr. Sheila Corrall
University of Pittsburgh
- Presentation (.pdf)
Plenary Address: Crossing the Threshold: Reflective Practice in Information Literacy Development
Do we think enough about what we are doing as information literacy practitioners? The relationship between reflection and information literacy development is well documented in academic and professional literature, particularly in the context of teachers using tools such as reflective journals to enable learners to think critically about their information literacy abilities. Parallel literature from education, training, and development has promoted the concept of the reflective or thinking practitioner, which has also been linked with the development of the instructional literacy of librarians. Drawing on literature and theory from various fields, and borrowing terminology from the pedagogical arena, we make the case for critical reflection to be elevated to the status of a threshold competence in the information literacy community, and explore what that means in practice, from both learning and teaching perspectives. We start with the operational context and review trends in technology and pedagogy and their impact on library facilities and service activities. We next consider models of reflection and examples of their application in professional education and practice. We then return to the concept of reflective practice and the notion of threshold competences as part of a broader professional competency framework and suggest that we can best pursue becoming effective professionals by recognizing critical self-reflection as a shared goal for our efforts as instructors and learning facilitators and our work on our own professional learning and development. We help students become reflective learners by becoming reflective teachers and modeling the process of reflection in our own practices.
Biography
Dr. Sheila Corrall is Professor and Chair of the Library & Information Science Program at the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences, where she teaches courses on Academic Libraries and Research Methods, and a seminar on Academic Culture & Practice. Sheila’s research interests include library and information service strategies and structures; collection development in the digital world; information literacy strategies and policies; and the roles and competencies of information and knowledge workers. She is currently investigating models and tools to promote the open movement in education, workplaces, and society. Before moving to Pitt in 2012, she worked at the University of Sheffield for eight years, where she was head of the Information School, a founding member of its Centre for Information Literacy Research, and chair of an institutional Information Literacy Network, a partnership of the iSchool, Library, and Centre for Inquiry Based Learning in the Arts & Social Sciences.
Sheila has a long career as a practitioner in the field, having worked as an information specialist, library manager, service director, and senior administrator in public, special, national, and academic library and information services, most recently in a CIO role at a leading research university with a portfolio that included libraries, technology, careers, and educational development services. She has also contributed to the work of academic, professional, national, and international bodies, serving on the Executive Board of the Society for College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL), as the inaugural chair of the Information Services National Training Organization (isNTO), as the first president of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), and as chair of the British Association for Information and Library Education and Research (BAILER). In 1998, she proposed and helped to establish the SCONUL Task Force that developed the Seven Pillars Model of Information Literacy, and in 2003-04, she led the CILIP Expert Group that defined Information Literacy for the UK. In 2002, Sheila was named as one of the top ten librarians in the UK, and in 2003, she received the International Information Industries Lifetime Achievement Award for her contribution to the development of the information professions.
