Review of Teaching Information Seeking: Rethinking How We Teach Research in the Information Age

[1] Jon Ostenson’s Teaching Information Seeking: Rethinking How We Teach Research in the Information Age is a text engaged in the praxis of reimagining how writing instructors teach students how to seek, engage with, analyze, and write about information they find online. Ostenson’s book is explicitly digital, focusing heavily on the impact that algorithms, Google, Wikipedia, mis/dis-information, and generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT have had on how we all seek out information. Ostenson uses the first half of the book to detail and unpack what it means for students to become information literate, while the second half of the book takes instructors through practical ways to engage students in activities and practices that help students achieve information literacy skills.

[2] In chapter 1, Ostenson emphasizes his argument that we should move away from the more academically-focused term “research” and instead shift to “information seeking,” connecting his argument and method to scholarship about learning transfer. To Ostenson, framing “research” in the classroom as a merely academic task “is unlikely to invite our students to think about classroom learning in terms of how it might apply to other contexts” (p. 8). He utilizes definitions from those in the field of library sciences to lay out his definition of information-literate seekers, which include that those seekers must “have knowledge and strategies” for knowing when they need information and how to find it. Information seekers also must “embody certain dispositions and values that guide them” in their search for and dissemination of information, be “guided by a critical understanding of the systems” in which the information they are seeking is produced and circulated, and finally, be “enabled to form and share” and synthesize their opinions on the information they’ve encountered (p. 15).

[3] In chapter 2, Ostenson integrates the idea of threshold concepts, pieces of information that represent “a key understanding for our students” that are “transformative,” "irreversible," “integrative,” and a source of “troublesome knowledge” (pp. 18-19). Ostenson then lays out his seven threshold concepts for information seeking (ranging from “authority is constructed and contextual” to “information is part of the attention economy”). Not only must students understand and develop practices informed by these threshold concepts, he notes, but they also must develop and embody dispositions that aid in their information seeking. Dispositions, which range from “curious” to “intellectually humble”, are key to the work of information seeking, and Ostenson argues, can be taught through reflection, shared language, and modeling by the instructor (pp. 33-36).

[4] In both chapters 2 and 3, while Ostenson sets up threshold concepts and dispositions that might stand despite our ever-changing and technologically shifting times, the author does make note to include references to generative AI chatbots as part of a potentially successful information seeking process (and the pitfalls of hallucinated sources). Additionally, Ostenson takes time to unpack how algorithms have greatly impacted the ways that we encounter, search for, and ultimately engage with information, including the rise of dis- and mis-information.

[5] Ostenson concludes part 1 of the book by laying out the kinds of classroom setups and assignments that can best aid us in the task of teaching information seeking. While outlining the historical supremacy of the research paper, Ostenson argues we can and should do things differently, specifically that we should “design assignments that embrace curiosity, leverage students’ prior experience, emphasize the process, and build in reflection” (p. 42). Ostenson’s example of this is an inquiry project, which asks students to focus on curiously answering a question with the information they’ve discovered, rather than making an argument supported by information. Ultimately, the first half of the text concludes by suggesting all teachers use contract grading as an aide to emphasizing the importance of process over product, and that we “dogfood” our courses, which for educators, means that we should be engaging with and attempting pieces or whole parts of the projects we assign our students. In these two practices, Ostenson posits, we have the opportunity to model to our students the dispositions and practices they need in order to be information literate.

[6] In the second half of the book, Ostenson focuses mostly on classroom activities, rather than larger projects, that instructors can use to help students develop information literacy skills . Three particularly interesting moments come when Ostenson addresses the usefulness of Wikipedia (chapter 5), generative AI (chapter 5) and algorithmic literacy (chapter 7). Of generative AI in particular, Ostenson argues that writing instructors embrace the use of generative AI in the FYC classroom, noting that he believes AI chatbots can “help students learn to embrace wonder and curiosity” while also helping “build background knowledge and become familiar with an issue or topic” (p. 64). He also notes that many students’ personal searching experiences now involve generative AI of some kind, and that by bringing gen AI chatbots into the classroom early in the beginning stages of inquiry, we can “help students see when and how to use” tools like generative AI chatbots in other contexts (p. 65).

[7] Overall, this is a text that could be particularly useful to an FYC/FYW practicum or teacher training. In a move that will feel especially useful for newer instructors, in the practice-based second half of the book, Ostenson uses italics to indicate the way he will verbally scaffold and demonstrate activities and assignments to engage students’ information literacy skills. These scripts might help newer teachers conceptualize how they will present new ideas to students. The book engages in practical suggestions for teaching information seeking online, especially the chapters that touch on algorithmic literacy and how to cultivate that in FYW students. As generative AI continues to change the landscape of FYW and writing in higher ed more broadly, we know that instructors need to be detailed and particular in how (and if) they encourage student use of generative AI in the classroom. The book might have taken more space to detail this with greater nuance, especially given the ethical and environmental concerns many in online literacy education have about genAI tools. However, novice and veteran instructors alike may find the text’s shift away from “research” writing and towards teaching students information literacy a valuable perspective. Especially given Ostenson’s emphasis on transfer and relying on student experiences, this text provides both a useful foundation as well as practical activities that all online, hybrid, and F2F instructors could use to help students develop information literacy skills in an age of algorithms.