CHAPTR 4: The Information Literacy Training Programme
4.4. The Training Programme
The researcher employed the produced SWOT analysis in order to revise her programme by keeping the strengths and avoiding the weaknesses. The actual training programme took place in February, 2009. Twenty professional and non-professional school librarians (the same group as the first and the next phase interviews) were invited by the Ministry of Education to participate in the two-weeks training programme. The official starting time of the course was 9:00 A.M and ended at 3:00 P.M. Although the researcher‘s main aim of the programme was not to develop the school librarian‘s abilities to create an IL programme (Appendix 3) for their schools, she utilised this golden opportunity to provide them with some hints on how to successfully deliver IL programme. The programme, as previously mentioned, was funded and supported by the Ministry of Education in Syria, particularly the Minister, who saw the programme as being a ‗wonderful chance to change school librarian‘s perspectives of the school library and school librarians‘ duties‘.
As previously noted, the researcher added to the Eat an Elephant technique two extra stages —Digest the Elephant, and Feedback—as it was believed that eating the elephant would not be enough; digested further feedback would be required from digestion in order to show the benefit of the meal (the Elephant). For this purpose, the researcher divided the programme to three stages: First, Eat the Elephant (seven days); second, Digest the Elephant (two days); and third, Feedback (one day).
4.4.1. First Stage: Eat the Elephant (seven days)
The Elephant in this case is the IL phenomenon. The researcher divided it into seven pieces, the same number of Bruce‘s faces and delivered theses seven pieces to the participants in seven day. The course used to start at 9:00 in the morning and finished at 3:00 afternoon .Each day has its unique title and main target (see table below)
118 Table 3: Eat the Elephant stage‘s titles
The main tools which the researcher employed to deliver these stages were: presentations, workshops, oral conversations, video shows, audio materials and ICT tools. The first two days were a big challenge to the researcher because alongside her duties she had to play extra roles such as IT technician while the rest of stages were not doughy like the first pieces because the participants started to use each other and extra supports were supplied by the Ministry of Education.
Day Number Day Title Day Main Target
1 IL as using ICT tools and
technologies
Experience the usage of main ICT tools in the school library context (Internet, i.e. email, blog, chat rooms)
2 IL as information resources Experience the usage of main
information resources in the school library context (locally and globally)
3 IL as applications of information
process
Experience the usage of both physical and virtual search tools and strategies in the school library context
4 IL as information management Experience the usage of
information management tools and strategies in the school library context
5 IL as critical thinking and knowledge construction
Experiencing the usage of analysing and evaluating tools in the school library context
6 IL as knowledge extension Experience the cultures difference
and physical communication tools
7 IL as Wisdom Employ all the above experiences
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Fourteen presentations and seven video shows were supplied to provide the participants with different perspectives and conceptions of IL alongside workshops, oral conversations, computer practicing, social support and interaction.
4.4.2. Second Stage: Digest the Elephant
The researcher created this stage to enable the programme‘s participants digest the programme materials; understand and reflect what they have had learned during the programme. She wanted to give them free space for themselves to go back to the programme materials to re-read them which might help them create the initial seeds of the conceptions. In addition, she wanted to give them enough space of freedom to share and communicate openly out of the programme‘s room and without her directions and involvement. It was, also, a good opportunity for her and to other participants, who were less confident and lacking ICT skills, to come closer and work together as one- to- one training which required more time to be spent and much efforts to be given. This stage sprinted in two days duration. The participants and the researcher were working twelve hours a day, from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM while the official time was seven hours, from 9:00 AM to 3:00PM, to prepare the presentations for the feedback day.
This stage required from the researcher much work and effort, though, in different contexts. For example, she was responsible for assisting the participants without leading them, and supporting them in expressing what they think and what they had learned without giving them answers. The role was very difficult because most of the participants were dependent and objectivist learners who believe that learning objectives must be taught by the teacher as the learner receives the concepts, ideas or information. According to Jonassen (1991), objectivist learners believe that they must be told about the world and are expected to replicate its content and structure in their thinking. With this in mind, this programme put them in a new context and required them to adapt to a different teaching style. Some of them were worried, whilst others were not sure about their own productivity. The researcher‘s focus was on inspiring, motivating and encouraging them; she often spent a long time with a number of participants who asked for special support, which required much time and effort—even reaching beyond the programme timescale.
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The researcher behaviourist teaching style was a challenge throughout the programme. This style of teaching works with the aim that information passed from a teacher to a student is basically the correct response to specific stimulus. This means that teachers often instruct their students using a linear step-by-step approach (Entwistle, 1981). However, the researcher‘s new educational experience reminded her at all times that she is not a behaviourist teacher anymore, but that she was capable of giving her audience the opportunities to share, think and learn independently. Furthermore, she designed her materials and presentations ensuring they were attractive and would encourage thinking, analysis and criticism, all of which required hard work and effort. She continuously attempted to achieve advantages of prevalent attitudes in the culture in order to distribute much knowledge and more communication and sharing. She knew that her people love stories, and so she allowed them to share stories, and she made and shared her own to help them gain more knowledge in an enjoyable way.
4.4.3. Third Stage: Feedback Day
At one time, this was a nightmare to some participators who were less confidence with ICT tools and presentation skills. In order to enhance the contribution levels, the researcher allowed two of the participants to create their own ways of participation without using ICT tools. Twenty participants attended this last day and 9 presentations were delivered, moreover, each couple was responsible for providing 15-minute presentations in order to highlight their conceptions of IL. Importantly, before the programme started, 90% of the participants claimed that they did not have presentation experience, which would pose big challenges which they were not ready for; however, surprisingly, by the time that the feedback day arrived, most of them were willing to take on this challenge and accordingly achieved impressive works.
4.5. Conclusion
To sum up, this chapter was presented in order to provide a brief background about the IL training programme provided to the Syrian school librarians. The chapter discussed the benchmarks which influenced the programme design and development. The researcher argued that the pilot programme was clearly useful in terms of improving the actual programme‘s productivity, and also in removing weaknesses from the materials and design. The actual programme was implemented in three stages: Eat the elephant; Digest the elephant; and Feedback. Each stage had its own unique targets and aspects, and required the
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researcher to invest different levels and types of effort and attitude in order to enhance the participants‘ contributions. Once the programme was completed, the participants returned back to their school libraries to practice for three months, and then phenomenographic interviews were conducted. The findings of the first phase interviews are presented in Chapter Five.
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