Åbo Akademi University - Domkyrkotorget Åbo1 Information literacy, the Finnish core curriculum and the role of school libraries in this combination Anu Ojaranta researcher/PhD student Åbo Akademi University Department of Information Studies EMPATIC workshop Krakow, Poland

Åbo Akademi University - Domkyrkotorget Åbo2 My presentation in EMPATIC workshop  A brief presentation of my research in progres  A look at information literacy  The Finnish core curriculum and information literacy  Developments in Finland during the last 15 years  Concluding remarks

Åbo Akademi University - Domkyrkotorget Åbo3 My research:  The title: Information literacy in the curriculum and in teaching the seventh grade: A research of schools and school libraries and the roles and attitudes towards information literacy and information seeking  The aim of the thesis is to study the national core curriculum as the term information literacy (IL) as a framework. – How do actors (teachers, librarians and principals) in schools understand the term IL, and what are their attitudes towards teaching IL skills and information seeking mentioned in the core curriculum? – How does their students think about information seeking skills and what it means to be information literate?  One important aspect of the study is does school libraries play a part in teaching IL skills or information seeking and if so, how does this go about?  Intentions for the study to be ready for defense in 2014.

Åbo Akademi University - Domkyrkotorget Åbo4 Information literacy  Why information literacy? – Vital in today’s world – Interesting since the sweet confusion of terms and definitions – No information literacy in the Finnish curriculum?? – What’s with media literacy?

Åbo Akademi University - Domkyrkotorget Åbo5 The Finnish core curriculum and IL  The present core curriculum has said to have an IL emphasis.  The core curriculum is at the moment been revised, the new will be in effect in  The core curriculum is adapted and implemented in the local level.  Some issues that make things hard at grass-root level, ie. in school lessons: – Definitions are missing – Variation can also be seen in individual teacher level, since everyone is obviously teaching the student they know best – The responsibility of teaching ’information skills’ lies with all and therefore easily with no-one – The teacher education is possibly not paying enough emphasis to this issue – The skills teacher students learn for them selves are hard to implement to teaching the students  And – one important observation. PISA scores in Finland are in a down-ward trend, especially when it came to information searching skills

Åbo Akademi University - Domkyrkotorget Åbo6 IL in the Finnish core curriculum  Some excerpts from the curriculum: – In the general part: ”the definitions of conceptions of learning, the study environment and methods and operational culture” speak for example for Constructivist learning philosophy Personal knowledge construction Individual and collaborative problem solving Being able to work independently ”A library should be close to the school to enable active and individual studying” ”The work methods should promote skills in information seeking, using and evaluating information, and the usage of information and communications technology.”

Åbo Akademi University - Domkyrkotorget Åbo7 IL in the Finnish core curriculum  In Cross Curricular Themes – One of the 7 cross curricular themes a school can choose as the theme of the year is ”communication and media competence”, which includes the need to develop information skills and to compare, select, and to use the acquired information.  In Finnish language curriculum, secondary school, that is grades 6-9: – On of the five central contents is information managing skills, including: Searching for information in various sources, planning the search, judging the source credibility and usefulness Making notes and learning to make simplified list of references, selecting information, grouping of information and building it into a presentation.  There are some scattered notions in some subject specific curricula about specific information skills in subjects like health education, history, social studies, and visual arts.

Åbo Akademi University - Domkyrkotorget Åbo8 Development in Finland during the last 15 years  The IL conversation in education still concerns mainly higher education  Not enough discussion  Several projects around the turn of the millennium – National project ”Finland can read!” – National project ”The reading Finland”, – Active cities in these projects Espoo, Oulu (School library of the information society), Lappeenranta (The spring of information).  Some of there projects gave birth to guides and books about school libraries and teaching information skills in schools.  Most of these projects were literacy and reading oriented but with a strong emphasis to school libraries of library cooperation.

Åbo Akademi University - Domkyrkotorget Åbo9 Concluding remarks...  Based on earlier research and my personal observations: the things that will create difficulties in implementing IL to teaching and possibly even to the curriculum: – Different municipal authorities with different viewpoints and aims – Teacher – librarian problems, different professional backgrounds – Who’s responsibility or the responsibility off us all? Unclear at the moment... – Shortcomings in teacher education and the difficulty deriving from this – Commitment among the actors in all levels: government, municipality, school, and teacher – A long term commitment is needed to make these issues daily practices in schools

Åbo Akademi University - Domkyrkotorget Åbo10 Thank you! Questions and comments... Contact info: Twitter account: BloomingCherry Delicious: anuojaranta