Musings on the new AASL learning standards

[Mary Ann Harlan]

In October AASL published the updated information literacy standards “Standards for the 21^st –Century Learner”. Now the parsing begins… what is right about the standards? What is wrong? What do they mean? How can I use the standards to improve my instruction, and student’s learning? There is more to come, more work being done by AASL but in the meantime what is that we, teacher- librarians, notice about the new learning standards.

It took me time to move past the nine common beliefs. I applaud the articulation of the beliefs that are the underpinning of the four learning standards. It identifies our biases and ideals up front for the world to know, and hopefully understand. Without that identification we are facing more standards that speak only to our community. Instead we have a document that outlines to those outside our profession can read, and recognize why we think our brand of information literacy is important. I suppose a cynic could suggest that it is propaganda designed to prove that we are teachers, but I’d advocate that all teaching and learning standards should lead with a statement that describes the mission of the organization, subject area, or committee responsible for designing teaching and learning standards. AASL has done that. Now it is our responsibility to move these common beliefs beyond our professional community.

When I moved into analyzing each learning standard I first appreciated the four pieces of each larger standard – skills, dispositions in action, responsibilities, and self-assessment strategies. However I quickly became overwhelmed, and as I moved through each piece frustrated by redundancies. A complaint I have heard from other first timers reading the “Standards for the 21^st –Century Learner” document. So I stepped back, and asked the question we should all be asking: “How can I use these standards to inform my instructional design to provide an optimal learning experience for my students?”

One of my biggest concerns as I work with students is what I call the “run and gun” research assignment – a two day extravaganza that leaves no time for musing, in-depth searching, the ability to refine questions and focuses, and metacognition to identify and evaluate the learning processes. In questioning the redundancies of the new learning standards I began to contemplate how to make the process more transparent, to teach students that research, true inquiry, is about refocusing, refining, and that it is a circular process. Similar skills, dispositions, responsibilities, and self-assessment are needed throughout their process. Rather than approaching teaching the process in a linear fashion, how can I break this down? What connections can be made throughout all four learning standards that move beyond the step by step process?

And then there was a flash – there are themes that occur throughout the learning standards. For me, I could sum them up as Context, Creativity, and Community. Throughout the “Standards for the 21^st –Century Learner” document there are echoes of placing information in context to create new knowledge, to use personal information schema, and cultural and social context to illuminate and define new knowledge. There is an emphasis on using and producing a wide variety of formats and diverse sources. This highlights the theme of creativity (a word and piece more specifically identified in the ISTE NETS). If we are guiding students to use a diversity of sources in a variety of formats then we are asking them to call upon creative thinking and problem solving; take that a step forward and ask them to produce a diversity of thought in a variety of formats and we are accessing the creative nature of our students. And finally there is community, an emphasis on collaboration and sharing within a global community. Use the tools available to go beyond the classroom walls, and to do so in a responsible and ethical manner.

So what will this mean to my instruction? How can I use this to improve my students learning experiences? This will be the next trick. Can I rearrange the standards into themes that make sense to me and allow me design meaningful instruction that emphasizes inquiry, and the patterns of learning? Now that I’ve mused, it is time to sit down with the “Standards for the 21^st –Century Learner”, NETS, Habits of Mind, Partnership for 21^st Century’s framework and design new instruction that improves student learning experience.

A beginning draft visual of these thoughts.