Our Approach

Critical Digital Pedagogy

We approach our teaching through the lens of Critical Digital Pedagogy, which applies principles and theories of critical pedagogy to digital pedagogy, and pushes back against instrumentalist views of digital tools in educational settings. Critical digital pedagogy wants educators and students alike to understand their agency as teachers and learners in digital environments: what responsibility they have to one another, what data they share or is taken from them, how they may be surveilled, how to make informed decisions, and how to use the tools available to them for liberatory purposes.

A note on Information Literacy

Information literacy is an important educational concept that is advocated and taught by academic librarians and their partners in higher education. The Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) defines information literacy as a "set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information is produced and valued, and the use of information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning." We believe that incorporating digital pedagogy within information literacy instruction is essential as it both complements and supports the main concepts or "frames" of information literacy.

Recommended Readings

Critical Pedagogy

Accardi, Maria T. Feminist Pedagogy for Library Instruction.

Freire, Paolo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 

hooks, bell. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. 

Platforms

Collier, Amy. Digital Sanctuary: Protection and Refuge on the Web?

Gilliard, Chris. Pedagogy and the Logic of Platforms

Collaboration

Haley Di Pressi, Stephanie Gorman, Miriam Posner, Raphael Sasayama, and Tori Schmitt, with contributions from Roderic Crooks, Megan Driscoll, Amy Earhart, Spencer Keralis, Tiffany Naiman, and Todd Presner, Student Collaborator Bill of Rights

Information Literacy

"Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education", American Library Association, February 9, 2015.

ACRL Instruction Section's "Information Literacy in the Disciplines Guide"