Making Learning Happen: Students’ Development of Academic and Information Literacies

Abstract

This chapter considers students’ development of academic and information literacies. Literacy practices have been articulated as ideologically shaped social processes that transcend a simplistic notion of mechanical skills to be learnt, and developing key literacies can be seen to impact upon not just students’ growth in this area, but on their formation of a wider learning identity. However, there may be challenges for students as they develop these literacies. This chapter explores some of the ways students might experience their learning and the relationship between academic and information literacies, and students’ identities. With financial, social and external pressures reconstructing the very nature of what it means to study at university, this chapter argues that the way staff work to make learning happen deserves re-examination.