Inquiry-Based Learning in LIS Education: Enacting Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL)

Abstract

Making the inquiry into student learning a key component in Library and Information Science (LIS) education and increasing learning by fostering individual inquiry and developing a community that will support such an inquiry fits well within a field of LIS where dealing with inquiries on a daily basis is a major part of our work, providing more flexibility and developing and engaging in different communities of inquiry with people from all walks of life. The authors are trying to explore and demonstrate a strong connection between inquiry-based learning (IBL) concepts in LIS education and a development of scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL). Building the parallels between the Ernest Boyerâ s paradigm of scholarship and John Deweyâ s cycle of inquiry, they put forward an argument that inquiry-based learning in LIS is a new approach to a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in LIS education. Presentation consists of the following parts: (1) A short overview of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning which will include some background information, definitions and characteristics of SOTL including Boyerâ s paradigm followed by a brief overview of the SOTL-related activities at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) as well as a Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) (2/3) Inquiry and inquiry based learning and how we bring an inquiry approach to LIS education. A description of inquiry related work and activities at GSLIS including newly launched Community Inquiry Initiative (CII) linking them to SOTL (4) Report on the results of a pilot study of the students taking the Community Inquiry (CI) track courses