Australian School Library Association > Policy > Policy Statement - Resource Based Learning and the Curriculum

Policy Statement - Resource Based Learning and the Curriculum

Resource based learning is a methodology that allows students to learn from their own confrontation with information resources. Such active learning provides a means by which teachers are able to tailor information resources, learning activities, the location of those activities and expected learning outcomes to the needs and abilities of each child.

Through resource based programs students develop the skills necessary for gaining intellectual access to information, acquire knowledge and understandings and use resources for personal growth and fulfilment. In particular, these programs provide students with opportunities to:

• develop the capacity to recognise a need for information, to know how and where to find it from a range of sources, and how to select, organise and communicate it to others;
• acquire the skills required to analyse, interpret, systhesise and organise information as well as the language and communication skills of reading, writing, viewing, speaking and listening;
• develop as critical thinkers and creative problem solvers while building on a dynamic view of themselves as confident and discerning information users;
• extend their cultural understandings and their information competencies in increasingly complex contexts, using a range of information sources, formats and technologies as an integral part of their learning;
• use resources including literature, to further their personal growth.

The knowledge, understandings and the necessary skills for learning are introduced developmentally and incrementally. In developing these abilities, teachers and teacher librarians work cooperatively to combine a knowledge of the curriculum, a knowledge of individual students' needs and competencies and a knowledge of information sources, resources and technologies.

(Source: Australian School Library Association and Australian Library and Information Association, Learning for the future: developing information services in Australian schools, Curriculum Corporation, 1993)

Adopted November 1994