Exploring Innovative Ways to Incorporate the Association of College and Research Libraries Framework in Graduate Science Teacher Education ePortfolio Projects

Abstract

This article investigates ways in which student voice informed design-based research into information literacy instruction. The instruction occurred across a year-long graduate science education ePortfolio culminating project. Library and science education faculty partnered in a two-year project to create communities of secondary science education students, in two cohorts, who used the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education to support their own research and reflections into information literacy. The overarching goal was to improve the course design to help science teachers develop their professional competencies in information literacy to conduct research to support their practice. Examination of students’ responses to research experiences enabled faculty to improve the students’ information literacy experience from one year to another. Findings show that students became more familiar with ways to use the ACRL Framework to interrogate their own and their colleagues’ research processes as they shared their own reflections on research and information literacy. We also found that this was fostered by shifts in when and how the ACRL Framework was introduced. Education students can benefit from knowledge of an information literacy framework to impact the way that they conduct their own professional research, work with students on research projects, and participate in scholarly conversations.