Literacies Framework

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Literacies Framework

The LITS Instructional Staff’s Literacies Framework serves as a set of guiding principles and objectives for our teaching, in support of student’s coursework and independent vocational exploration. These literacies borrow from the work of the Association of College and Research Libraries, education scholars, and smart colleagues across the country who engage in related work.

Vocation + Literacies

We identified six literacies that best represent the areas we work in – Information, Maker, Data, Media, Visual, and AI literacies. We have also explored the ways in which they relate to one’s vocational exploration. David Cunningham in At this time and in this place : vocation and higher education suggests one key vocational question for us and our students is “how will I negotiate the larger global context that increasingly affects everything I do?” (2016). We see these literacies as helping students to develop the skills to successfully manage those negotiations as they appear.

The Network of ELCA Colleges and Universities Rooted and Open document claims that “vocation-centered education equips students with the wisdom and capacity for good and needed work in the world through all forms of human endeavor” (2018). In considering our literacies, the terms wisdom and capacity describe the skill building and evaluative techniques we instill, while all forms suggests those skills and techniques apply in many different situations and to many different forms of information.

Yet another aspect of our work involves vocational storytelling – the uncovering, constructing, and sharing of vocation stories. In our instruction, we may share elements of our own vocational journey with students. These literacies also provide students with the language and tools to aid in discerning and creating their own vocation stories.

Information Literacy Overview

Information Literacy is the skill set that allows us to responsibly locate and use information for a purpose. The ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education articulates six core concepts (frames):

Authority Is Constructed and Contextual
Information Creation as a Process
Information Has Value
Research as Inquiry
Scholarship as Conversation
Searching as Strategic Exploration

Information literacy skills (and their lack) drive every decision our students make, from choosing a toothbrush to voting for an elected official. Information literacy helps students distinguish between reliable information, unreliable information, and lies in the media they encounter on a daily basis. It is also a key aspect of lifelong learning once students graduate.

Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to:

Find and distinguish between a variety of information sources, including primary and secondary sources, scholarly and popular sources, those that assert facts or opinions, and those whose sources are cited or not.
Evaluate sources within the context of their production and consumption. This includes engaging with primary sources, understanding the various uses of qualitative and quantitative data, placing an information source within the larger topical discourse, and investigating the qualifications of author(s), editor(s), and publisher(s).
Interrogate gaps, contradictions, and evidence of power relationships in individual sources and among groups of sources.
Use collected information to form their personal views, verify claims, or drive decisions/arguments.
Use collected information to form their personal views, verify claims, or drive decisions/arguments.

Media Literacy Overview

Media Literacy develops the necessary skills to be critical consumers and producers of media content. Media literate individuals are able to analyze and evaluate media for its communication strategies, audience engagement, cognitive and emotional impacts, and biases, empowering people to be effective communicators and consumers of all the forms of media that surround us.

Media literacy is critically important in an age where a wide variety of media compete for and commodify our attention. The ability to discern points of view, biases, and intent behind media content is imperative in navigating our contemporary media-saturated landscape, as well as the better understand our media history. Our media literacy frame draws on those found in the Minnesota Department of Education’s academic standards for K-12.

Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to:

Critically analyze the messages and points of view employed in different media (e.g., advertising, news programs, websites, video games, blogs, documentaries).
Analyze design elements of various kinds of media productions to observe that media messages are constructed for a specific purpose.
Analyze media for purpose, message, accuracy, bias, and intended audience and gain understanding that media messages are constructed using a creative language with its own rules.
Create a persuasive multimedia work or a piece of digital communication or contribute to an online collaboration for a specific purpose.
Demonstrate a developmentally appropriate understanding of copyright, attribution, principles of Fair Use, Creative Commons licenses and the effect of genre on conventions of attribution and citation. They can publish their work and share with an audience.
Recognize ethical standards and safe practices in social and personal media communications.

Data Literacy Overview

Data Literacy is the ability to accurately and ethically interpret, manipulate, create, and communicate about data in-context. Datasets are collections of information, and can be both quantitative (numerical observations or measurements) and qualitative (non-numeric formats). For example, data can be formatted as information from a survey, interviews, observations, and test results.

In both their undergraduate work and post-graduate life, students will need to apply data knowledge and skills in regard to the information landscapes they inhabit. Data literacy skills equip students to critically approach and ethically create and use the data they encounter in their daily lives.

Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to:

Use data ethically by describing ethical standards for creating and collecting data and recognizing when those standards have or have not been met, as well as by ethically referencing and citing existing data and statistics in new research.
Evaluate data critically by identifying the methodologies used to collect data and determining whether the conclusions drawn are reasonable and accurate.
Describe and interpret data by creating or locating supporting documentation, such as codebooks, metadata, and research articles, to interpret datasets and draw conclusions.
Contextualize data by identifying and describing the contexts in which data is collected and disseminated, and explaining how those contexts impact likely interpretations and appropriate uses of the data.
Find data strategically by developing flexible search strategies that account for differences in terminology between different disciplines, and by identifying relevant places to search for data on a selected topic.
Manage data sustainably by developing processes of organizing and storing information in an efficient and sustainable manner that is suitable for a given project or coincides with data standard practices.

Maker Literacy Overview

Maker Literacy guides the act of creation, particularly with physical materials. St. Olaf’s Mission in Practice encourages students to pursue inquiry and imagination. By developing maker literacy skills, students are able to experiment, learn the value of trial and error, practice teamwork and project management, understand how to share skills with others, transfer making skills across disciplines. In making, students also recognize they do not create in a vacuum, but that their ideas and solutions can make a difference.

Hosted in Rolvaag Memorial Library, the Cave and DiSCO are open to all students and provide a welcoming and accessible place for students to cultivate their maker skills and community ethos. Instruction sessions in these spaces, and in collaboration with faculty and staff, introduce students to competencies and processes of design and creation.

Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to:

Discover and question by asking questions to identify challenges, problems, or unmet needs that can be answered through acts of making and creation.
Articulate and discern by learning how to express an idea, question, or problem, explore how others have solved a similar issue, and determine which solution will best meet their needs and/or other’s needs.
Design and adapt through by gaining proficiency in iterative design principles. These include creating criteria for prototypes versus finished products, designing testing protocols, being comfortable with failure, identifying and soliciting feedback from stakeholders and mentors, and adapting and revising their designs.
Reflect and connect by understanding how skills and experiences relate across disciplines and how they can be transferred to solve other challenges.

Generative AI Literacy Overview

Generative AI Literacy involves understanding how generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) functions. Students who understand GenAI’s capabilities and limitations can capitalize on their uniquely human skills (creativity, empathy, critical thinking, and adaptability) while harnessing the potential of this technology.

GenAI Literacy is essential to St. Olaf students’ academic success, career prospects, and personal and civic lives. As they seek and evaluate information and as they create content of their own, students can see GenAI as a tool to assist, rather than replace, their voices, ideas, and learning.

Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to:

Explain a general understanding of how AI systems function, including how large language models (LLMs) are trained and the conversational, iterative nature of GenAI output.
Discuss the ethical implications of GenAI. These include copyright issues, citing GenAI output, issues surrounding algorithmic bias or prejudice, and concerns about privacy and online safety.
Evaluate GenAI output, such as identifying “hallucinations” and locating reliable and corroborating sources.
Use GenAI effectively for idea generation, information discovery, and editing. This involves selecting the tool appropriate for a given task and generating prompts that return high-quality and relevant output.

Visual Literacy Overview

Visual Literacy describes students’ ability to find, evaluate, interpret, and create visual media. St. Olaf Libraries and IT, in conjunction with the Flaten Art Museum, model how to engage with visual media as forms of information and misinformation. Research & Instruction Librarians teach how to find and evaluate visual media, museum staff demonstrate the cultural interpretation of visual media, and Instructional Technologists facilitate students’ creation of posters, videos, and other forms of visual information.

Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to:

Articulate how an image’s cultural context and design communicate meaning,
Identify when visual media, such as diagrams or interactive maps, may effectively supplement or even replace text.
Find relevant visual media. This includes physical objects such as paintings, sculptures, and printed maps, as well as digital materials found in archival image databases, museum websites, and other online sources.
Create new visual media by selecting the analog or digital media or technology best suited for the information they wish to communicate.
Apply issues of law, public domain, and licensing to images and correctly cite sources for visual media.