Threshold concepts and information experience in IL professional education: Curriculum for transformative online learning

<b>Research Context</b> Information literacy professionals are engaged in teaching, mentoring, and collaboration, roles that call for deep understanding of information structures, learning design, and tactics for navigating the information environment. The relatively new construct of ‘information experience’ (Bruce et al., 2014) provides insights into these integrative roles. Indeed, a key element in distinguishing one’s identity as an information professional is that, entwined with our own information experience, we play an facilitative role in the information experience of others (Tucker, 2014). We help others move forward in how they experience information in their communities, workplaces, and professions, and we influence what they find, what they determine to be of value, and even how they contribute to online content and metadata. The information experience construct and the theoretical lens of threshold concepts are considered together as the research foundations in this paper. Threshold concepts in the LIS domain have been explored for professional expertise in the search environment (Tucker et al., 2014) and for information literacy (ACRL, 2016; Townsend et al., 2016), and this sets the stage for rich discussion of the information educator’s roles, as well as to the experiential realm of threshold concepts specific to ontological shift for the educator-as-learner. <b>Session Objectives</b> Education of new IL professionals for the roles described above is taking place in a diverse learning landscape. This paper frames its discussion in the threshold concepts and information experience research literature, then focuses on online education for information professionals in two areas: (1) instructional activities and sequencing of assignments that support learning of threshold concepts; (2) reflective work on how threshold learning experiences affect not only the student but also the IL educator (Cousin, 2010). An advanced course on database search methods, redesigned based on threshold concept research (Tucker, 2016), is used as a case illustration; its online activities and assignments are presented, along with the research-based threshold concepts they actively support; and student responses are reported. A primary objective in the course redesign was creating opportunities for students to discover critical understandings on their own, the result being more wrestling with new content but also more ‘stickiness’ (irreversibility) of concepts learned. Facilitated questions: What activities described in the case illustration might you adapt for use in your own teaching? What other activities in the online learning environment are you using that are especially effective for threshold learning experiences? How have you been affected by your own instruction that is guided by threshold concepts?