Critical pedagogy is a concept based on the work of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. Key concepts include:

• The engagement of students
• Critique of "banking" education, where the educator is filling the students' heads with knowledge
• The educator is not a neutral, impartial repository of knowledge
• The primary role of the educator is that of a facilitator rather than that of a lecturer
• Ultimately students create their own knowledge in conjunction with the educator

The aim of critical information literacy is to translate what is being taught into practice

An example of critical information literacy is examining the editorial policy/board of a journal for an understanding of a journal's point of view before accepting what's inside the article as knowledge.

Often the emphasis of information literacy is methodology rather than analyzing what it is that is found.

Yet often, most library information literacy sessions are the "one-shot" instructional sessions where all there is time for is "how to search" with little time for critical analysis

One solution is to cut the search methodology aspect and place them into web tutorals and have the educational session focus on developing critical thinking skills.

Another is to provide more student activities although the librarian will have less control over the lesson.

Critical thinking activities include having students evaluate websites, thinking about what are the best resources to use, and having them to pose interesting questions.

Librarian/instructors often wonder whose expectations they are trying to meet, the school's, the students', the professors'/teachers', etc. Often the expectations of different entities often at odds with each other.

With librarians often seeing students once with little to no follow-up, they often do not know the result of their instructional sessions unless the student and/or teacher tell them.

There is an inherent tension between having instructor-students as collaborators and the impostion of an assignment as the purpose behind the information literacy instruction session.