Scholarship, Practice, and Leadership In Elementary Education
Jenna Curry
University of Phoenix
Information Literacy As It Relates to
Scholarship, Practice, and Leadership In Elementary Education The University of Phoenix Scholar-Practitioner-Leader model (SPL) strives to educate future leaders to use their experiences in combination with what they’re taught to conduct and locate research, analyze data, apply theories, and lead diverse organizations in an ever-changing global world. A thorough and proficient understanding of information literacy is necessary to achieve this goal. Scholars of any age need to know how to obtain, apply, and reflect on the vast amounts of information available to them in an efficient and thorough manner. Through meaningful and relevant instruction we can begin this process as early as elementary school. This will help to avoid the generation of scholars who seek immediate gratification in the form of search engine answers whose validity and authority are assumed and not evaluated (Badke, 2009). In short, experience informs practice, and if a weak scholar emerges than consequently a poor practitioner and furthermore an inadequate leader. This paper will serve to further illustrate these findings and provide an example of how information literacy can be taught at the elementary level and furthermore provide an example of how the author is able to do this in her own setting.
Information Literacy as it Relates to the SPL Model The Association of College and Research Libraries defines information literacy as the ability to recognize when information is needed, locate materials in a time-efficient manner, evaluate sources for reliability, and effectively communicate information in a variety of formats (Information Literacy, 2015). These are competencies that are crucial in education at every level. While they are taught at institutions of higher academia, research shows