Led by Sarah Pavey, PhD, FCLIP, FRSA, this webinar is designed for international school librarians and qualified librarians who want to deepen the theoretical foundations behind their practice and understand how visual literacy can transform students’ research and thinking.

You’ll explore how the brain processes visual information and why this matters for teaching information literacy today. Sarah will unpack six core visual literacy skills and show how they directly support critical thinking, enquiry, and independent research across subjects and year levels.

Using examples from international and multilingual school contexts, the session highlights how visual approaches can break down language barriers, support EAL learners, and act as a powerful equaliser in research-based learning. You’ll also see how Accessit’s Visual Search can be used to curate rich, visually led collections that guide students from curiosity through to evaluation.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this webinar, participants will:

• Understand how the brain processes visual information and why this is essential for effective information literacy instruction.
• Recognise six core visual literacy skills and how they connect directly to critical thinking and academic enquiry.
• Explore practical visual strategies to support international and multilingual learners by reducing language barriers in research tasks.
• Apply visual literacy principles to Accessit’s Visual Search to build curated research collections that integrate books, PDFs, multimedia, research guides, exemplar work, and more.
• Develop approaches to scaffold the research process through purposefully designed visual collections that guide students from first engagement to critical evaluation.