International Journal of Open Educational Resources Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2019/Winter 2020 | Page 190

International Journal of Open Educational Resources
Metaliteracy iSucceed module
This learning resource, offered via Lumen
Learning, consists of five units that
introduce high school and first year college
students to components of metaliteracy.
The units include the following
activities and self-check questions:
• What Does it Mean to Be a Metaliterate
Learner?
• Metaliteracy and Your Role as a
Researcher
• Your Role as an Information Producer
and Collaborator
• Your Life as a Metaliterate Digital
Citizen
• Being a Lifelong Metaliterate
Learner
(https://courses.lumenlearning.com/
isucceed-wm-collegesuccess/)
Metaliteracy learner roles prompts
These questions prompt students to
think about each metaliterate learner
role more deeply, and are designed so
that students will make connections between
what they know and do and the
roles (https://metaliteracy.org/ml-inpractice/metaliterate-learner-roles/).
Metaliteracy and OER:
Collaborative Course
Development for
Critical Thinking
How does one move from the
theory of critical thinking
to teaching it in a particular
course? Where does metaliteracy come
in? The authors of this article have
worked together over four iterations of
a relatively new course, Research and
Method in Political Science, designed to
assist in the teaching of critical thinking
to undergraduates. Created particularly
for transfer students, the course also
meets several competencies encouraged
for students within the Political Science
major—information literacy, advanced
writing, and oral discourse—all of
which have an obvious connection to
critical thinking.
The instructor, confronted with
the challenge of preparing a new class,
sought the assistance of the librarian
to assess the availability of resources.
Collaboration between the course instructor
and the librarian began in the
specific context of developing the information
literacy requirement. The first
time the course was offered, two librarians
jointly taught an introductory class,
with the subject librarian for political
science addressing databases and other
important tools and some key search
strategies, while the author explored
metaliteracy. The course professor then
decided that the metaliteracy framework—with
its focus on alternative domains
of learning, active learning roles,
and the critical thinking competencies
honed by the metaliteracy quests—aptly
fit the bill for future sections of the
course.
While there are clearly many
ways to accomplish the goal of teaching
this kind of class, the instructor chose
to develop a course that would make
abstract policies more concrete. Thus,
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