INFORMATION

LITERACY

ASSESSMENT:

FROM THE CLASSROOM

TO THE CURRICULUM

Sara Miller - October 11, 2012

WHAT IS ASSESSMENT, EXACTLY?

Figuring out what you want to know

Figuring out how you can know it

Collecting data to that end

WHAT IS ASSESSMENT NOT?

Vindication: an attempt to prove or justify something

Evaluation: an immediate measure of your worth, value, or

effectiveness

Automatically going to tell you that you suck.

WHAT IS DATA?

Pieces of information that are captured or recorded.

Not just numbers. Qualitative data counts too.

You might already have a lot more sources of data than you

realize.

TODAY’S AGENDA:

Teaching and Learning Assessment

Program Assessment

Institutional Level Assessment

INSTRUCTIONAL ASSESSMENT:

WHAT DO WE WANT TO KNOW?

Is my teaching effective?

Are students learning?

WHAT are students learning?

From another perspective:

Is students’ approach to research changing? How?

Could the way I teach reinforce negative student habits? Could it have a positive affect on changing those?

Really specific:

Can students articulate the differences between a popular and scholarly article?

Does taking students on a building tour increase the likelihood of a favorable attitude toward the library?

TWO TYPES OF INSTRUCTIONAL

ASSESSMENT

Formative helps along the way

Asking: what do you still have questions about?

In-class clicker questions

Summative is assessing after the fact; cumulative.

Paper, project, or bibliography

Final exam

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Outcomes are specific and measurable

Outcomes are guides for a sessions’s structure, content, and

teaching methods (pedagogy)

Outcomes can be talking points for faculty – especially when

expectations for a session are unrealistic.

WHAT’S THE IDEAL?

In an ideal world, what would you like these students to be able to

do?

What steps would they need to take in order to be able to do

those things?

Can you address any of these steps through your instruction?

How many or how few?

How do you know if the students can do them?

(hint: that last part is assessment!)

CATS – CLASSROOM ASSESSMENT

TECHNIQUES

One minute free write

“Muddiest Point”

Class discussion

Worksheets

Think-pair-share or group

review

Concept maps

Groups evaluate source and

present to class

Show two sources, use Poll

Everywhere or clickers to

vote on more appropriate

source

Compare Google vs. Google

Scholar search results

Hoax website experience

Create rubric as a class or

group

Google form

USING COURSE ASSESSMENTS

Final papers or projects

Feedback from students

Pre and post session quiz or questionnaire

REMEMBER:

If you assess the outcome and it’s not met – this is OK

This could mean:

It’s not achievable in the time you are allotted

There are too many other things going on in class which crowd out focusing

on achieving the outcome

It’s not achievable by the current methods being used in class

Or… several other things.

INTERACTIVE TIME

Brainstorm and write down some new ways that you could use

CATs in your own class. You can do this on your own or feel free

to talk to those around you.

PROGRAM LEVEL ASSESSMENT

What do you want to know regarding the work that you do with

your library unit or campus department?

How is my liaison work going? What effect is it having?

Is my instruction lining up with course, program, or other outcomes? Do these

outcomes even exist?

WHERE CAN YOU FIND

OUTCOMES?

Accreditation standards for your discipline

Program outcomes (ex. First Year Writing)

Departmental/Unit mission statements and Gs and Os

MSU Undergraduate Learning Outcomes

MSU NURSING

INSTITUTIONAL LEVEL

ASSESSMENT

What questions exist at the institutional level?

How do the Libraries affect student learning at MSU?

At what point in their education are MSU students learning information literacy

skills?

What value do the Libraries – our services and collections – have for the

University as a whole?

INSTITUTIONAL LEVEL

ASSESSMENT

UG Learning Outcomes – Rubric Assessment

Standardized testing – SAILS, iSKILLS, ILT

Curriculum Mapping

Analytical Thinking – The MSU graduates uses ways of knowing from mathematics, natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, and arts to

access information and critically analyzes complex material in order to evaluate evidence, construct reasoned arguments, and communicate

inferences and conclusions.

Emerging Developing Proficient Exemplary

Acquires, analyzes,

and evaluates

information from

multiple sources

Seeks information from basic

types of sources with minimal

regard for relevance or

quality.

Retrieves information from a

limited range of sources and

identifies biases, strengths,

and weaknesses within those

sources.

Designs and implements

effective strategies to find

relevant sources based on

purpose. Critiques biases,

strengths, and weaknesses of

information sources.

Uses analysis to defend

information choices and reach

original conclusions.

Synthesizes and

applies information

within and across

disciplines

Recognizes multiple

perspectives among sources

of information.

Identifies how information can

be conceptualized differently

within various disciplines.

Examines and integrates

relevant information sources

from multiple disciplinary

perspectives.

Creates a defensible,

compelling work using

multiple disciplinary

perspectives.

Identifies and

applies, as

appropriate,

quantitative

methods for

defining and

responding to

problems

Recognizes the need for and

performs basic quantitative

methods.

Identifies a range of

quantitative methods and

employs them to make

judgments.

Selects quantitative methods

for making sound judgments

and drawing plausible

conclusions based on the

situation.

Critiques biases, strengths, and

weaknesses of quantitative

approaches to reflect on

conclusions and propose

responses to a situation.

Identifies the

credibility, use and

misuse of scientific,

humanistic and

artistic methods

Recognizes a range of inquiry

methods and acknowledges

that they can be misused.

Describes the effective use of

methods and identifies their

misuse in a given contexts.

Judges if methods are credible

and ethical in given contexts.

Selects inquiry methods

ethically and with an

understanding of the

consequences of their misuse.

TO SUM UP

What do you want to know about your instruction, or other liaison

efforts?

How can you tie your work in to your discipline’s goals or

outcomes?

Are there larger forces at work that can guide what you’re doing?

How can you find out?

HELPFUL SOURCES

MSU Undergraduate Learning Outcomes (formerly Liberal Learning Goals)

http://undergrad.msu.edu/learning

Oakleaf, M. (2010). The Value of Academic Libraries: A Comprehensive

Research Review and Report, American Library Association.

http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/issues/value/val_report.

pdf

Angelo, T. A., & Cross, K. P. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: A

handbook for college teachers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

LB2822.75 .A54 1993 c.2