Learning Literacies Framework

We have been developing a version of the Digital Literacies Framework (Beetham, 2011) to use in exploring digital and learning literacies development. We call it the Learning Literacies Framework as it encompasses digital, information and academic literacies. The Graduate section is an overview of attributes we might expect of an individual – a Cardiff graduate – at a high level – and the other maps focus on the core tasks that underpin most practices: finding information, managing information, manipulating information, developing (or producing) information and sharing information.

We have also developed an initial exemplar set for a Viewpoints-like card-based toolkit based on this framework to help facilitate conversations between academics and/or professional services to consider how to embed learning literacies into a particular context. This was additional to the required deliverables of the project and an example set only is offered to test the concept. This is based around prompt cards which can be used to guide the conversation. There are five sets of cards representing the five layers in the pyramid: attributes, practices, skills, access and awareness.

The cards are intended to prompt discussion and can be used in any way that is helpful. One possible process is as follows.

The assumption is that the academic or teacher wants his/her students to develop specific attributes through their learning, whether at a course, module or learning activity level. The cards help to identify the learning literacies associated with these attributes. Note that the intention is that the cards support discussion and negotiation by giving prompts at appropriate times.

  1. Select an Attribute card (blue) that best describes the attribute you want your student to develop.
  2. Turn card over and select the practices that are most suitable for your context.
  3. Find the Practice card (orange) for that practice.
  4. Turn the card over to find the Core task(s) that underpin this practice.
  5. Find the Skills (Red), Access (Purple) and Awareness (Green) cards for those Core Tasks
  6. Turn these cards over to find the learning literacies you need to consider and select the most appropriate to your context.
  7. Visit the Knowledge Hub to explore the Tools and Resources for each Core task.