Remember, that for learning to take place some form of catalyst is usually required. Humans do not absorb all knowledge simply by a process of osmosis. That catalyst may be an event, or a change in learner circumstance, but most often a learning and teaching event and a teacher will create that opportunity. Your role as teacher/trainer/facilitator will shape the learning experience in your session – the activities used and your own behaviour will affect the end result.

The nature of learning is still the focus for much academic discussion, but rather than summarize huge amounts of current debate, we will focus here on some key issues and themes.

Fundamentally, you must always remember that learning takes place at different levels and in different ways. In order to maximize the impact of your learning and teaching work, you need to have a clear idea of what you are trying to achieve in your session and design your learning activities to reach these aims.

Bloom's taxonomy of learning (1956) is a framework that can be used to help guide your thinking about how you want your learners to progress and develop. Bloom's taxonomy has three domains: the cognitive (relating to knowledge), the affective (values and beliefs) and the psychomotor (physical skills). These relate to ‘knowledge, attitude and skills’ structures which you may see underpinning many approaches to learning and evaluation.

Each domain has a series of levels that act as ‘building blocks’ for learning. Information literacy sessions are likely to involve all three domains, but will normally focus on the cognitive domain – the acquisition and use of knowledge. The psychomotor domain involves things like use of a keyboard and mouse and ability to navigate websites. The affective domain is often a key part of introductory sessions where the librarian may be trying to change the learners’ views of the library – seeing it as a more valuable resource, or changing the learners’ perceptions of the value of information skills (how many learners are often overly confident in their information skills, feeling they have little to learn?) or even in helping to overcome the learners’ own negative perceptions of whether it is right and appropriate for them to be in a library.