ERIC EJ1089148: A Pedagogy of Inquiry

2015·0.33 MB·English

by  ERIC

Volume 9, Issue 2, 2015 [THOUGHTS ON THE FRAMEWORK]
A P I
EDAGOGY OF NQUIRY
Nicole Pagowsky Library instruction continues to evolve.
University of Arizona Regardless of the myriad and conflicting
opinions academic librarians have about the
ACRL Framework for Information Literacy,
the debates and the document itself have
engendered greater discourse surrounding how
and why librarians teach. The Framework
provides an additional push toward designing
instruction with big ideas rather than a skills-
based curriculum. However, we still must
contend with constraints imposed upon us by
higher education taking on business models
and enforcing a skills agenda. To enact the
pedagogy of the Framework in contrast to
changes in higher education presents a
challenge. We should consider ways in which
the Framework can help us push back against
these neoliberal agendas in our pedagogy and
reinvent our roles as librarian educators.
[PERSPECTIVES EDITED BY ROBERT SCHROEDER]
136
Pagowsky, A Pedagogy of Inquiry Communications in Information Literacy 9(2), 2015
[W]e’re the children of Dionysus, inquiry, and to spark more questions,
floating by in a barrel, accepting including thoughtful student
nobody’s authority. We’re on the questions, not just pat answers…By
side of those who don’t offer final tackling such questions, learners are
answers or transcendent truths. Our engaged in uncovering the depth and
mission, rather, is the asking of richness of a topic that might
questions. otherwise be obscured by simply
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 2013 covering it (p. 3).

I think one thing we can all agree on about This is in opposition to teaching
the ACRL Framework for Information memorization of “disembodied ‘truths’ that
Literacy for Higher Education (2015), are just ‘out there,’” mandated by teachers
regardless of individual feelings on the or texts (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005, p.
frames, the elimination of standards, or the 122). Curricula driven by disembodied
notion of “threshold concepts,” is that the truths—or a banking model of education1—
Framework is creating larger conversations in tandem with instilling skills in students
around pedagogy. Whether we have already that employers deem will meet their
been teaching this way, or whether it is demand, can be referred to as a skills
brand new, librarian educators are re- agenda. This skills agenda in higher
examining our practices as a field in the education and the pedagogy it entails
expanding discourse. What I want to focus invalidates a curriculum designed with big
on through this re-examination is what the questions.
Framework can enable us to do with our
teaching, and how we can change Many extant instructional design models
expectations surrounding library instruction. became popular after being developed to
It is our “mission” to ask questions as efficiently and systematically instill specific
Tolokonnikova says, both as teachers and as abilities in military and industry personnel.
learners; and the asking of questions should The goal was quick indoctrination of
guide our pedagogy. procedural skills, not necessarily to develop
deeper understanding, and certainly not to
A pedagogical focal point of the Framework engage in inquiry. From my experience in
is on bigger ideas of information literacy, by studying instructional design, McTighe and
way of using Wiggins and McTighe’s Wiggins’ model is one of the few that are
Understanding by Design instructional more appropriate for educational settings. L.
design model (2005) to guide teaching Dee Fink also has a great model based on
practice. Instructional design via big ideas, “Designing Significant Learning
uncovered with essential questions, helps Experiences,” which focuses on creating
lead students to knowledge through inquiry. learning through integrated course design.
The philosophy behind essential questions In other words, it takes a variety of
according to the most recent, titular volume overlapping teaching and learning
by McTighe and Wiggins (2013), is to approaches to make learning significant.
What Fink refers to as foundational
stimulate thought, to provoke knowledge, application learning,
[THOUGHTS ON THE FRAMEWORK]
137
Pagowsky, A Pedagogy of Inquiry Communications in Information Literacy 9(2), 2015
integration, the human dimension of asking big questions or having larger
learning (caring), and learning how to learn dialogue because this form of pedagogy is
(metacognition), must all be inextricably not viewed as the most efficient means to
linked for impactful instructional design the end. The way we use technologies to
(2005, p. 9). Skills cannot be taught in enact this efficiency falls in line with these
isolation or as a driving force. This means perceptions. However, teaching certain
that according to Fink, and to McTighe and students information literacy skills through
Wiggins, teaching holistically is critical for a banking approach but encouraging others
the learner to truly gain knowledge and to pursue inquiry creates, in essence, an
deeper learning—and I agree.2 information literacy caste system. Bryan
Alexander broke down what he refers to as
Across higher education, opposition to the “Gilded Age Campus” into the
teaching this way is undergirded by anxiety following strata: “face-to-face for the 1%,
about whether a holistic pedagogy built on distance learning for the middle class, and
big ideas will result in students getting jobs. MOOCs for everyone else” (2014).
3 This concern can seep into information Although distance learning technologies and
literacy instruction as we have been moving MOOCs have the potential to be used
away from banking skills and more toward innovatively, this concept of a Gilded Age
big ideas over time, as information literacy Campus shows how a skills agenda is often
instruction has traditionally been attached to raced and classed: as most directed to whom
skill-focused pedagogy, particularly so in its Alexander references as “everyone else.” To
previous iteration as bibliographic teach only skills, face-to-face pedagogy is
instruction. Simultaneously, information not considered efficient. If a skills-based
literacy skills are appealing for employment. curriculum can be neatly boxed into
Altering pedagogy could be perceived as modules, standardized, and shopped out to
negatively impacting that belief as well as online platforms, it provides a more cost
any formal accreditation outcomes4 efficient way for lower income students to
associated with employability. gain immediately applicable skills in the
short term. In the long term, it allows for a
more profitable way for institutions to
This urgency for employable skills seems to collect tuition from more students while
be particularly emphasized where students saving money by investing more heavily in
from marginalized groups are concerned. the cheaper and undervalued labor of
This reasoning assumes that learning for contingent faculty.6
these students, particularly those coming
from poor and racial minority backgrounds, With this in mind, we cannot think about the
is solely a means for obtaining jobs and that Framework in isolation from what is
they do not have time for or interest in happening in higher education across the
inquiry. Misperception of poor learning country, such as the corporatization of
ability5 is often paired with the assumption instruction, standardized learning, and
that students’ primary interest is in institutional defunding coupled with the
obtaining jobs. This provides false evidence escalation of higher student debt. These
that there is no time in the curriculum for examples create fear that transforms into
[THOUGHTS ON THE FRAMEWORK]
138
Pagowsky, A Pedagogy of Inquiry Communications in Information Literacy 9(2), 2015
scapegoating pedagogy, which creates a focused on foundational ideas about that
perceived and urgent need for these changes ecosystem.” What has occurred is a
to save higher education. This indictment is feedback loop of fears surrounding—and
the result of neoliberalism, which is hot created by—neoliberalism, but
topic terminology appearing all across neoliberalism has become such an invisible
critical examinations of academia as of late. and pervasive force it has been removed
However, popular term or not, this from the equation. It is a silent partner in
reactionary change in higher education’s our consciousness. In this sense, the global
mission affects how universities, knowledge economy is represented as an
departments, programs, and information independent force for which no one is
literacy instruction functions. In responsible. Lack of ownership and
contextualizing neoliberalism, Nicholson responsibility for the global knowledge
explains, “economic exchange becomes the economy make the world seem uncertain.
defining relationship between students, Workforce skill demand is constantly
staff, and the institution. Demands for a changing, which would cause phenomena
skilled workforce to support the global such as staggering rates of unemployment
knowledge economy have resulted in the (Moltó Egea, 2014, p. 271). A skills agenda
massification of higher education and a is then believed as essential, perhaps a last
curricular shift toward vocationalism” bastion of hope to combat this uncertainty
(2015, p. 330). And although vocationalism and the subsequent, looming, and
pursued through a skills agenda especially devastating rates of unemployment. Such
affects marginalized groups, it is being fears push higher education to readily adopt
increasingly pursued throughout higher a skills agenda, often employer-driven,
education for a majority of all student which then is neatly subsumed by yet
populations. Maybe we can invoke the term another Matryoshka nesting doll of
“trickling up” here. neoliberalism.

As a skills agenda becomes more pervasive Aligning education in this way, as Gerrard
in higher education, the belief grows explains, “may unquestioningly adopt a
stronger that we are preparing all soon-to-be lower status, vocationally oriented
graduates to meet demands of the global education in which learning is tied to
knowledge economy, and to find jobs. specific workplace and employer
However, this global knowledge economy is requirements, leaving students unexposed to
characterized as uncertain and demand fuels the system of meaning within which this
anxiety about unknown needs. Even the knowledge is embedded” (2015, p. 78).
Framework feeds into these fears—albeit Gerrard wrote this perspective specifically
for the reverse of a skills agenda to instead concerning another marginalized
teach with big ideas and questions. The population: homeless students. A focus on
Framework states that, “the rapidly skills for this demographic is a particularly
changing higher education environment, effective example of the rhetoric
along with the dynamic and often uncertain surrounding the need for jobs, as here it is
information ecosystem in which all of us assumed there is certainly no time or need
work and live, require new attention to be for a pedagogy of big ideas or inquiry:
[THOUGHTS ON THE FRAMEWORK]
139
Pagowsky, A Pedagogy of Inquiry Communications in Information Literacy 9(2), 2015
homeless students would simply need skills and disempowerment is compounded for
for jobs—and more urgently than anyone librarian educators, as we exist almost
else. doubly within the infrastructure of higher
education. We must not only navigate the
These fears propelling neoliberalism and restrictions neoliberalism puts in place on
therefore the higher education market also the academy, but also navigate them
affect educators, as we are the ones teaching through the lower hierarchal status of
skills and/or inquiry. Kiedrowski points out librarian educators.
that neoliberalism functions to disempower
teachers (2013, p. 208). He is writing in the Teaching is de-valued along with
context of K-12 education, but this is librarianship because the work is not
applicable to higher education as well. transparent; it is not clear what we do as
Higher education institutions, and thus educators, nor as librarians. On one hand,
academic libraries, are being positioned as faculty and campus administrators do not
markets where students are viewed as often know what librarians do, and so
consumers. There is a fear that if we do not assumptions are made about our work and
meet the consumer demand for job the level of complexity involved. Likewise,
placement upon graduation, that these teaching is perceived as simplistic
consumers, our students, will make another transmission and appears easy because
choice: one that is not us. This feedback teaching, learning, and pedagogy are not
loop then continues to build where transparent. This assumption of ease is most
education is a market and educators are applicable when the teaching is skills-
customer service providers. This set up, not focused (as is often assumed of library
surprisingly, is appealing to employers who instruction). Loughran points out that this
can then make demands, influence results in fostering “simplistic
consumer need, and direct higher education understandings of teaching and learning that
on what it must do to survive. are counter-productive to seeing teaching as
complex and based on an evolving array of
The nature of this relationship between sophisticated skills and knowledge” (2013,
higher education and corporations confines p. 120). Moving away from teaching
educators in role and subsequent pedagogy. information literacy as solely skills-based
It presides over how we operate and how and making our pedagogy more explicit will
our “value” is quantified and perceived. I not only work to improve student learning,
have presented, written, and edited but can also transform our image to campus.
numerous pieces about librarian identity and Nicholson and Beilin both imagine how
others’ perceptions of us, particularly educators—librarians and faculty alike—
faculty. I want to draw out from this work might work through and around
that because librarians operate essentially as disempowerment through this force of
subordinates to disciplinary faculty in the neoliberalism in the university. As
hierarchy of higher education we should be Nicholson says,
aware of how neoliberalism influences
faculty expectations of us. Faculty [W]e need to find productive ways to
expectations do influence the work we do, talk about our role in preparing
[THOUGHTS ON THE FRAMEWORK]
140
Pagowsky, A Pedagogy of Inquiry Communications in Information Literacy 9(2), 2015
students for work while continuing disempowerment of educators?
to advocate for education and
libraries as public goods. We need to Fabulation is one way we could position the
frame our critiques of neoliberalism Framework in productive visualization and
in higher education in a manner that action. Although my first guess at a
acknowledges the socioeconomic definition upon coming across the term
and political realities of our would have been to say it is the action of
campuses and lobbies for change at making something fabulous, Deleuze’s
the same time (2015, p. 333). appropriation of this process is more
articulate. Murphy and Done interpret
Beilin follows this line of thought as an Deleuze, Braidotti, and Massumi’s
advocate for “promoting a praxis of dual discussions of this process, noting that
success” (2015, Sec. 22). What would this fabulation encompasses an approach to re-
look like, then? A pedagogy of inquiry can imagining in-place systems and structures in
emerge from the Framework through focus order to create change and turn these
on holistic teaching and designing imaginings into reality (2015, p. 524). They
instruction from big questions. Additionally, detail how “for Deleuze, ‘literature is
teaching skills and teaching big ideas do not health’ to the extent that it breaks with
have to be mutually exclusive. Inherently, dominant systems and effects a
students must grasp the bigger concepts to minoritisation of language, opening up lines
effectively apply lower-level and more of flight or escape and resisting ‘everything
granular skills, and to see connections that crushes and imprisons’” (p. 550). So
between these skills. Teaching inquiry and engaging in fabulation could be a way to re-
asking big questions can also help students invent our discourse in higher education and
become aware of what they do not know. academic libraries. It works to dissolve
What Holmes tags as a “psychology of binaries, to disrupt judgment, and to
ambiguity” is something both students and question of what we prescribe value. It
educators should not just accept but pursue, could be not only a way to break down the
because learning is messy (2015, p. 2). We perception of mutual exclusivity between
need to become comfortable with being teaching skills and big concepts, but also a
uncomfortable. Holmes additionally points way to re-position our identities as librarian
out that “people tend to think of not educators as we work with disciplinary
knowing as something to be wiped out or faculty and campus at large. We could use
overcome, as if ignorance were simply the the Framework as a jumping off point to
absence of knowledge. But answers don’t transcend our pedagogy and our identity—
merely resolve questions; they provoke new constricted by social, economic, and
ones” (p. 2). If we can agree that inquiry is political orders—to instead shape how we
at the heart of education and of information could teach rather than being stuck on how
literacy instruction, how can we use the we are expected to teach. And likewise, how
Framework to push back against the we could be perceived rather than what
hegemonic agenda of neoliberalism, where expectations already exist. We need to be
there is a perceived urgency for teaching a more explicit about what we do and
skills agenda submerged within the demonstrate how complex our pedagogy
[THOUGHTS ON THE FRAMEWORK]
141
Pagowsky, A Pedagogy of Inquiry Communications in Information Literacy 9(2), 2015
truly is rather than being passive, perceived can help us fathom an escape from imposed
as teaching by transmission. If faculty stagnation, where change is perceived as not
believe librarians are only capable of skills- possible. If neoliberalism creates a false
based teaching through such approaches as sense of helplessness (Deresiewicz, 2015),
demonstrating databases or giving tours, it fabulation might give us an opportunity for
is difficult to work beyond that expectation hope.
in our collaborations. If campus perceptions
of us surround a false conception of our The Framework is not perfect for all, but we
work, incongruent expectations will follow. might be able to use it to create our own
We can use what we create from the stories. We could use the openness and
Framework on our campuses to engage in flexibility of this document to help us enact
new conversations, imagining what could holistic pedagogy, evolve our identities as
be, and putting this pedagogy into action. 7 librarian educators existing within campus
perceptions, and scrutinize what “value” in
In Smith’s 1998 introduction to his our teaching can mean when escaping a
translation of Deleuze’s Essays Critical and skills-based agenda. I am not suggesting we
Clinical, he highlights the conception of just see, hear, and speak no evil about
fabulation by Deleuze as metamorphosing it neoliberalism and it will go away by
from a religious practice as it originally imagining a different reality. We still must
existed, into a transformative process for contend with its existence throughout higher
arts, culture, and revolutionary acts to re- education and be aware of how it governs
create the future and disband oppressive expectations. But we can acknowledge that
forces. Smith explains, just as in teaching a pedagogy of inquiry,
our existence in the academy could be
But ‘fabulation’ is a function that extracts examined through inquiry: something from
from [colonizer ideology] a pure speech act, which we can create our reality. We can
a creative storytelling that is, as it were, the dare to dream.
obverse side of the dominant myths and
fictions, an act of resistance whose political NOTES
impact is immediate and inescapable, and
that creates a line of flight on which a 1. Paulo Freire is credited with creating the
minority discourse and a people can be term “banking model,” to refer to this same
constituted (p. xlv). idea of how teachers or authoritative texts
would deposit skills in students with an
If we consider who neoliberalism silences, expectation of uncritical regurgitation. See
who is awarded power, and what questions Pedagogy of the Oppressed or Freire’s other
and dialogues fade away in the space works for an expansion of this.
between, fabulation can help us bring these
to the forefront. Hamer and Lang posit that, 2. I shared a first attempt in 2014 at
“education ultimately has to (re)envision developing information literacy outcomes
and (re)invigorate a humane social contract, derived from big questions to use in our
one that repudiates neoliberalism from instruction program at the University of
branch to root” (2015, p. 909). This process Arizona:
[THOUGHTS ON THE FRAMEWORK]
142
Pagowsky, A Pedagogy of Inquiry Communications in Information Literacy 9(2), 2015
http://pumpedlibrarian.blogspot.com/ education-dystopia-3-the-new-gilded-age/.
2014/12/acrlilrevisions-next-steps.html.
Association of College & Research
3. And additional anxiety being: if it can’t, Libraries (2015, February 9). Framework
vis-à-vis value demonstration, will we be for information literacy for higher
able to keep our jobs? education. Retrieved from http://
www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework.
4. See New Jersey academic librarians’
open letter that speaks to concerns around Beilin, I. (2015, June 2). Promoting and
accreditation, http://acrlog.org/2015/01/07/ resisting student “success”: Critical
an-open-letter-regarding-the-framework-for- information literacy instruction in the
information-literacy-for-higher-education/, neoliberal academic library. Retrieved from
and a good interrogation of this letter and http://capalibrarians.org/wp/wp-content/
other critiques by Jacob Berg, http:// uploads/2015/06/7A_Beilin_paper.pdf.
acrlog.org/2015/01/21/scholarship-as-
conversation-the-response-to-the-framework Deresiewicz, W. (2015, September 8). The
-for-information-literacy/. neoliberal arts: How college sold its soul to
the market. Harper’s Magazine. Retrieved
5. This phenomenon is referred to as from http://harpers.org/archive/2015/09/the-
expectation effects in educational neoliberal-arts/.
psychology, where teacher perceptions of
students (through ability grouping, Fink, L.D. (2005). A self-directed guide to
stereotypes, or other means) influence how designing courses for significant learning.
students are treated, and that treatment in Retrieved from http://
turn influences how students perform. www.deefinkandassociates.com/
GuidetoCourseDesignAug05.pdf.
6. Contingent faculty can include adjuncts,
TAs, non-tenure track faculty, and more, Gerrard, J. (2015). The limits of learning:
who have insecure and unsupported Homelessness and educating the employable
positions. See more about the definition and self. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural
related issues of contingent faculty at http:// Politics of Education, 36(1), 69-80.
www.aaup.org/issues/contingency.
Hamer, J.F. & Lang, C. (2015). Race,
7. We have begun to do this through our structural violence and the neoliberal
Libraries’ instructional philosophy on my university: The challenges of inhabitation.
campus http://acrlog.org/2015/07/16/one- Critical Sociology, 41(6), 897-912.
instructional-philosophy-to-unite-them-all/.
Holmes, J. (2015, August 24). The case for
REFERENCES teaching ignorance. The New York Times.
Retrieved from http://
Alexander, B. (2014, October 2). Education www.nytimes.com/2015/08/24/opinion/the-
dystopia #3: The new gilded age. Retrieved case-for-teaching-ignorance.html.
from http://bryanalexander.org/2014/10/02/
[THOUGHTS ON THE FRAMEWORK]
143
Pagowsky, A Pedagogy of Inquiry Communications in Information Literacy 9(2), 2015
Kiedrowski, J. (2013). The Simpsons as a Wiggins, G.P., & McTighe, J. (2005).
satirical portrayal of neoliberal influence on Understanding by design (2nd ed.).
public education. Pedagogy, Culture & Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Society, 21(2), 195-215.

Loughran, J. (2013). Pedagogy: Making
sense of the complex relationship between
teaching and learning. Curriculum Inquiry,
43(1), 118-141.

McTighe, J., & Wiggins, G. P. (2013).
Essential questions: Opening doors to
student understanding. Alexandria, VA:
ASCD.

Moltó Egea, O. (2014). Neoliberalism,
education and the integration of ICT in
schools. A critical reading. Technology,
Pedagogy and Education, 23(2), 267-283.

Murphy, M., & Done, E. J. (2015). Towards
a Deleuzo-feminist ethics of empowerment
and freedom from logics of judgment.
Gender and Education, 27(5), 539-554.

Nicholson, K.P. (2015). The
McDonaldization of academic libraries and
the values of transformational change.
College & Research Libraries, 76(3), 328-
338. http://crl.acrl.org/
content/76/3/328.full.pdf+html.

Smith, D.W. (1998). [Introduction] “A Life
of Pure Immanence”: Deleuze’s “Critique et
Clinique” Project. In G. Deleuze, Essays
Critical and Clinical (pp. xi-liv). (D.W.
Smith and M.A. Greco, Trans.). London:
Verso.

Tolokonnikova, N., Žižek, S., Dreiblatt, I.,
& Eltchaninoff, M. (2014). Comradely
greetings: The prison letters of Nadya and
Slavoj. London: Verso.
[THOUGHTS ON THE FRAMEWORK]
144