I stumbled across a blog post on “Bottom-Line Performance” recently – an interesting discussion of whether it’s more important for 21st century students to learn facts or skills. While you can make a case for either, it seems that in library instruction we’re generally teaching students skills (database search techniques, information literacy, evaluation of online resources, etc.) rather than facts. The Bottom-Line Performance blog piece is online here:

“The Right Questions to Ask”

That post links back to related posts by Dave Ferguson and Stephen Downes. Ferguson, in particular, writes elegantly on Downes’ idea of “21st Century Skills” as a sort of operating system of the mind. You can link to those posts here:

“21st Century Skills: An OS for the mind”

Downes includes an analogy about learning to drive:

“Take driving, for example. If our knowledge of how to drive depended on a set of facts, then at a certain point it would become impossible, because while we could teach people how to drive on common streets and in common situations, as we drive further and further away from home, in newer and different vehicles, our knowledge becomes less relevant, until eventually we are simply unable to drive. If, instead of focusing on the ‘facts’ of driving, we think of driving as an activity or skill, then we are able to adapt, and develop new abilities, and new knowledge, mastering the ability to drive in strange places as we progress.”

This analogy, along with the phrase “operating system for the mind,” strikes me as particularly relevant for library instruction. Rather than teaching students a set of discrete facts, we’re tasked with providing them with skills and knowledge that can be applied to finding information in library databases and online searching, whether here at CSU or in their professional and personal lives after graduation. Hopefully, the skills that we teach will not only be useful today, but also in the future when the technological landscape will almost certainly be different.