Here at the d'Alzon Library, we try to keep up with the latest news related to student learning, information or digital literacy, and resource evaluation.

On the first of each month, we'd like to share with you some of our favorite recent reads. Enjoy!

Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds: New Discoveries about the Human Mind Show the Limitations of Reason. By Elizabeth Kolbert. The New Yorker. February 7, 2017.

The author discusses three books, from the fields of cognitive science and psychiatry, that explore how personal beliefs affect our processing of factual information.

Critical Pedagogy, Critical Conversations: Expanding Dialogue about Critical Library Instruction through the Lens of Composition and Rhetoric. By Andrea Baer. In the Library with the Lead Pipe. December 7, 2016.

This article explores critical pedagogy in the field of composition and rhetoric and how it could inform critical pedagogy in library instruction.

On Solid Ground: A Preliminary Look at the Quality of Student Learning in the United States. Association of American Colleges and Universities. 2017.

This report introduces a nationwide effort to examine direct evidence of student learning on key learning outcomes - critical thinking, written communication, and quantitative literacy - that both educators and employers agree are essential for student success.

Make Just One Change: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions. By Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana. Harvard Education Press. 2011.

The authors believe that students need to be taught the skill of question formulation and offer a concrete Question Formulation Technique which can be adapted to many different classroom settings. This technique calls on students to use divergent thinking, convergent thinking, and metacognitive skills which ultimately lead them to become "independent thinkers and self-directed learners."

All I Know is What's on the Internet. By Rolin Moe. Real Life. January 17, 2017.

This writer, from Seattle Pacific University, argues that information literacy is not the antidote to fake news, because the institutions for teaching it can't be trusted either.

Yes, Digital Literacy. But Which One? By Mike Caulfield. Hapgood. December 19, 2016.

This writer, from Washington State University, argues that in the area of digital literacy, we are not teaching students what they really need to know about evaluating online sources.

Stanford Researchers Find Students have Trouble Judging the Credibility of Information Online. By Brooke Donald. Stanford Graduate School of Education News Center. November 22, 2016.

Researchers at Stanford's Graduate School of Education discuss their recent study, Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning, which shows a surprising lack of ability among young people to judge online information.

Why Students Can't Google Their Way to the Truth. By Sam Wineburg and Sarah McGrew. Education Week. November 1, 2016.

Researchers from Stanford University discuss their assessment of young people's ability to judge online information. "At every level, we were taken aback by students' lack of preparation."

How Many Grains of Salt Must We Take When Looking at Metrics? By Angela Cochran. The Scholarly Kitchen. February 8, 2017.

Looking at different article or journal metrics including Crossref, Web of Science, SCOPUS, and Google Scholar, the author decides how many grains of salt one should keep in mind when using their data, from a pinch to a bathtub of salt.