Published on September 20th, 2021 📆 | 5260 Views ⚑
0University Senate creates group to boost students’ technological skills
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A group of faculty and staff from across Syracuse University are working toward making sure SU students graduate with 21st century skills.Â
The University Senate Ad-Hoc Committee on Shared Competencies created the ILTA Community of Practice, said Kelly Delevan, an information literacy librarian and leader of the group, in an email to The Daily Orange.
ILTA stands for information literacy and technological agility, which the community is looking to implement throughout SU.
LaVerne Gray, a group member and assistant professor in the School of Information Studies, described information literacy as the ability to locate, find and analyze information in a technological context.
Technological agility, the second part of the groupâs title, is slightly different. Jian Qin â a leader in the community and director for the library and information science masterâs program â described it as âthe ability to quickly adapt to technology changes and learn new technology rather than be afraid of it.â
ILTA is one of six competencies the university has set out as âinstitutional learning goals that enhance undergraduate education through an integrated learning approach,â according to the competency policyâs website. Other skills include âcritical and creative thinkingâ and âcommunication skills.â
In the universityâs initial research, it found that, out of the â182 undergraduate major and stand-alone minorâ programs, only 43% effectively taught information literacy and technological agility. It was the lowest rate of the universityâs six competencies.Â
Delevan is looking to change that.
âOur end result is a clear definition of what skills, attitudes and dispositions students must develop in order to be information literate and technologically agile,â she said in an email to The D.O.Â
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The changes do not necessarily mean freshmen will have to take a new mandatory course, Qin said. Some faculty will adjust their current course syllabi to fit new standards.
It should âfeel like part of the class, part of the course content rather than part of the course evaluation,â she said.
To implement ILTA properly into university classrooms, faculty members are going to have to work to evaluate studentsâ ability in information technology and ability, Qin said. Part of this evaluation will come through a rubric, but further evaluation of students wonât be one-sided, she added.
âWeâll look at the results and see whether the rubric is a good instrument for assessing the ILTAÂ level of students and how well they can be integrated into the syllabi for individual faculty to implement,â she said.
The group contains librarians, archivists and professors in fields ranging from the humanities to engineering, which alters how the community looks at ILTAâs implementation across the campus, Gray said.
âWhen discussing different areas of what the competency should look like, what language should we use? The voice of whatever discipline is represented, what does this look like for them in their school or college?â she said.Â
This upcoming spring semester, 14 faculty members will be in the first round of ILTA teaching at the undergraduate level, Qin said. The faculty members will have to go through training and debriefing sessions following their courseâs completion.
âI want our students to be able to critically evaluate information resources and systems, use information ethically and responsibly, and advocate for information equity for all,â Delevan said.
Published on September 20, 2021 at 12:14 am
Contact Kyle: [email protected] | @Kyle_Chouinard
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