Draft:DRAFT - Informed Learning

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Informed learning is a theoretically-based learning approach that focuses on 'using information to learn'.

Informed learning researchers and educators aim to:


 * Understand and enhance the experience of using information to learn.
 * Promote active, collaborative and reflective learning and inquiry through engagement with information from varied sources and perspectives.
 * Foster socially and culturally inclusive information use that is ethical, responsible and safe.

Key principles of Informed learning are that it:


 * 1) Builds on learners’ current informed learning experiences.
 * 2) Support simultaneous learning about disciplinary content and the information using process.
 * 3) Enables learners to experience using information and subject content in new ways.

Informed Learning aligns with the information literacy, library and information science (LIS), and education disicplines; and spans formal education, community, workplace and professional contexts. The experiential and holistic nature of informed learning differentiates it from behaviorally-oriented studies, instruction and standardised frameworks of information literacy that focus on developing and measuring information skills and attitudes. It also offers a theoretical counterpart to socio-cultural and critical approaches to information literacy.

Origins and theoretical basis of informed learning
Conceptually, informed learning builds upon Christine Bruce’s seminal phenomenographic research and conceptualization of the relational model of information literacy:The seven faces of information literacy. This work represents information literacy as the experience of using information to learn, while information use encompasses the breadth and width of human information experience. Research by Bruce, Mandy Lupton and Clarence Maybee demonstrates the variation, or different ways, in which people experience the relationship between using information and learning.

Informed learning translates the relational model of information literacy into a pedgaogical approach.

In the book Informed learning Bruce introduces the underlying theory and presents a range of reflective prompts and strategies for its design and implementation. This book was published by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) in 2008. It was later translated into Spanish and published by Asociación Andaluza de Bibliotecarios (AAB, Spain) in 2013.

In accordance with the phenomenographic tradition of her research, Bruce presents informed learning as a phenomenon with varying structures of meaning, awareness and experiences of information. Her research shows that people's experience of informed learning is relational rather than dualistic. In other words, information and information users are deeply connected and indivisible in the information experience; and individuals experience learning as a change in - or widening of - awareness.

From an educational perspective, informed learning aims to open the door to ‘a complex of different ways of using information to learn’ which Bruce describes as the Seven faces of informed learning. The approach is adaptable to many learning contexts, both formal and informal.



Bruce proposes that with Informed Learning:"teaching and learning must a) bring about new ways of experiencing and using information, and b) engage students with the information practices that are relevant to their discipline or profession."Thus, Informed Learning attends simultaneously to information use and learning, as participants simultaneously expand their information literacy and particular subject knowledge.



Informed learning in practice
Through an experiential learning process of inquiry and reflection, learners simultaneously explore a topic and various information types and formats (sensory, embodied, physical and digital, etc.). Informed learning outcomes include new knowledge, greater awareness about aspects of the world, solutions to social or personal problems, and critical and creative information capabilities.

Informed learning educators include disciplinary specialists, educators, workplace trainers, learning and social support officers, community volunteers, and information professionals. In schools and higher education, librarians and academic teachers often form partnerships to embed informed learning into subjects and courses.

Informed Learning recognises that learners bring varied knowledge and experiences to their information use and learning. The Six frames of informed learning suport curriculum design, teaching, learning and assessment that explore different viewpoints, sources and contexts. In this framework, each frame relates to discipline content and information use being jointly learned.



The following projects exemplify the ongoing research, design and implementation of informed learning in real life contexts.

At the tertiary education level:

 * The book Informed learning applications presents studies of collaboration between librarians and academic faculty to support students' informed learning across different disciplines and countries.
 * The informed learning design model enables educators in higher education to develop curriculum where students learn course content through intentional engagement with information.
 * The Faces of Informed Research offers an information literacy framework that aims to enhance researchers’ capacity to participate productively in collaborative interdisciplinary partnerships.
 * The InfoLit Project is a collaboration of eight universities funded by the University Grant Committee Hong Kong that used informed learning as a framework to identify student needs, create a MOOC, and enhance librarian-faculty collaborations to integrate information literacy into courses.
 * IMPACT learning introduces a research-based informed learning approach to information literacy education led by instructional and reference librarians in academic libraries.
 * Informed asset-based pedagogy draws together informed learning and other pedagogical strategies to create relevant information literacy learning experiences for US community college students as people of color, capitalizing on their knowledge, cultural wealth, and cultural situatededness.
 * A critical incident study reveals the complexity of international students’ experience of using online information to learn; and proposes an inclusive informed learning approach that responds to culturally diverse learners' strengths and challenges. This approach shaped the subject focus and pedagogical design of a Master of Education unit of study at an Australian university.

At school:

 * For professional developmentat an Australian secondary school, teacher participated in action research to explore how the integration of informed learning ideas could transform subject teaching. The lead researcher applied the same principles to designing a whole school reading project.
 * A six-year integrated information literacy project in Taiwanese schools combined concepts from informed learning, especially the six frames, with inquiry-based learning.

In the community:

 * A phenomenographic study yielded insights about the information using and learning experiences of young adults in online communities.
 * Another explored how church communities in Australia experience informed learning in five different ways, contributing to spiritual wellness.
 * A qualitative study about the information experience of village librarians in Indonesia reveals that they use a variety of information, including social media, to learn about their role and how to best meet the information needs of their local community.
 * A participatory project gave supported the design of social living labs for informed learning in the community and interprofessional education.

In professional and workplace contexts

 * Informed systems design incorporates principles of systems thinking and informed learning for an inclusive, participatory design process that advances information exchange, reflective dialogue, and knowledge creation in organizations.

For wellbeing:
Of particular social and cultural relevance in the contemporary information-infused global environment, informed learning research and practice promote social wellbeing and appreciative cultural inclusion. For example:


 * Co-design of the Knowledge Center at University for Business and Technology (UBT) in Kosovo integrated principles of informed learning with those of informed systems and information experience design (IXD) to make Kosovo knowledge visible and enhance national knowledge creation.


 * Information literacy graphically depicts the connections between nformed learning and UNESCO’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
 * Development of collaborative relationships between libraries and cultural community members enabled co-construction of digital knowledge that inclusively shaped interpretations and narratives of the past, present and future, giving voice to underrepresented peoples.

Informed learning and information experience
The experience of informed learning is integral to that of information experience which concerns people's engagement with information and how they relate to it in their daily lives. Information experience is a complex and multi-dimensional construct. While it can be approached from varying theoretical perspectives, information experience theory is inspired by the phenomenological and phenomenographic underpinnings associated with Bruce's relational approach to information literacy model. Informed learning enables people to understand their information experience - about how they are informed, and how to recognise and make meaning of their daily experiences of information in many differing forms. For educators, understanding learners' information experience is a necessary basis for designing informed learning.

Some examples of information experience initiatives, which incorporate or implicitly reflect informed learning principles and promote using information to learn, include:


 * Co-design project at a North American academic library to enhance information literacy and enrich learning conditions in the workplace.
 * Phenomenographic study of variation in ways of experiencing health information literacy.
 * Qualitative investigation of the information literacy experiences of Australia’s humanitarian migrants.

Continuing development
Since Bruce first launched the notion of informed learning in 2008, conceptual and practical development has continued through the collaborative endeavours of researchers located mainly in Australia, the USA and Sweden. The projects featured in this article demonstrate the culturally apprecative nature of informed learning; and the interplay between theory, research, and learning and teaching that foster using information to learn in contemporary contexts of social and technological change. In the words of Christine Bruce: "As we journey in our informed learning work we need to keep in mind that being an informed learner is about being able to maximize the potential of the information environment available in any context. Being an informed learner enables not only productivity and capability, but also innovation and creativity. Informed learners are empowered to help others learn. When being informed, people are being energized, activated to become something new, and bring important changes to our world. Information has the potential to be transformational. As future professionals and leaders, informed learners will be empowered to work to solve problems of poverty, hunger, homelessness, drug addiction, and injustice as well as to help people live and enjoy their lives. Their awareness of information and learning experiences will help them to have influence across social and cultural contexts, digital and physical information environments, as well as commercial and political spaces."

Biographical note: Christine Susan Bruce
Christine Bruce, the originator of the relational model of infomation literacy and informed learning. ....