Teaching Information Skills in the Information Age: the Need for Critical Thinking

A recent report by the Boyer Commission on undergraduate education concluded that universities have too often failed, and continue to fail, their undergraduate populations [1]. Students are graduating without some of the basic skills they need to function in the professional world, such as knowing how to think logically, write clearly, or speak coherently. Thousands of students, they note, graduate without having tasted the basics of research [2]. The report challenges universities to rethink their traditional instructional models, to move to a model of inquiry-based learning wherein the student is involved in research from the beginning. Everyone (faculty and student) involved in the teaching-learning experience should recognize that they are both discoverers of knowledge and learners: