IN-PERSON New Schools of Thought

Abstract

Traditional methods of teaching information literacy rely on building an understanding of authority, audience, currency, and bias, as well as fact-checking and cross-referencing. Those basic methods, however, have not kept pace with the habits of information users, nor a multitude of widely-used techniques designed to trick the eye and mind, such as artificial intelligence, altered images, and media manipulation. Rather than relying on the traditional time-consuming and difficult processes that many students already ignore or only grudgingly follow, educators would do well to arm students against misinformation and improve their critical thinking by focusing not on the facts presented but the way the students individually process those facts. By teaching students to examine how and why they value, organize, and either accept or reject information, instructors can prepare them to engage more deeply with their data and address it from multiple perspectives in their output, whether that output is a research paper or a design. This method also trains them to be attentive to persuasive methods of disinformation, such as tribalism, false dichotomies, and the exploitation of altruism. This paper will summarize changes in information literacy instruction at the University of Houston’s Architecture, Design, and Art Library and offer a framework for presenting the qualities of misinformation, methods of disinformation, and the psychology of information processing.