Information literacy skills and concepts are required to be used beyond the classroom, yet the focus in frameworks, standards, and writing situates them within traditional academic disciplines and not for daily life or the workplace. This denies the learner population the understanding of how these skills and concepts relate to their chosen vocations and personal interests. Excluding students outside of traditional academic fields reinforces an artificial divide between “white and blue collar” workers which serves to benefit the capitalist structures we are inevitability subject to; removing these divisions and thinking of information literacy beyond these fields would work towards empowering and giving autonomy to all learners.
The Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) is a polytechnic institution in Calgary, Alberta that offers apprenticeship, certificate, diploma, and baccalaureate degree programs. SAIT focuses on preparing students to work in key industry sectors in the province. The institution has traditionally built strong relationships with industry to remain agile to their needs and industry has increasingly expressed the desire for students to learn “soft skills.” This has resulted in an on-going conversation about how to teach and assess these skills.
In this session, we will outline past research and describe our approach to shaping the conversation on campus. We will explain how we have advocated for critical information literacy for applied learners in the curriculum and classroom, explain what we are currently doing in this area, and outline what we plan to do in the future.
