Week 2 - Post 1
Procedures for Educative Assessment
I am teaching a one-shot mini-session this Tuesday for one of our 2nd year science courses. I only have 30 minutes with the students. So, I thought I would use this week's assignment to help me decide what my goals are for this session in order to use the time most effectively. The supplemental reading, Create Student Learning Outcomes for Library Instruction, had some really interesting information that changed the way I was thinking about this assignment.
Key points from the supplemental reading:
--When creating SLOs - answer the question, 'what will the students learn today?' rather than 'what will I cover today?'
--Avoid the following phrases when creating SLOs - since these cannot be assessed or measures:
While I really like the idea of Educative Assessment, I am having a difficult time with goals and assessment that are targeted enough to fit into one of these very truncated one-shot sessions. Many of the examples seem like great homework, but 'forward-looking' seems harder for a 5-10 minute exercise.
1. Forward-Looking Assessment
Example 1: You are submitting a grant to a large funding institution. As part of this grant, you must provide keywords to categorize your grant.
a. List five keywords that describe your grant application broadly. For instance, if you are working on identifying a gene that is responsible for the forelimb length in bats, you might select: limb development, evolution, Chiroptera, morphology
b List five keywords that describe your project specifically. Using the same example as above, you might select: prx1, prrx1, Carollia perspicillata, lacZ expression
c. Using the keywords you came up with to describe your project, search for additional articles about your grant application topic in Google Scholar, Web of Science and PubMed. What keywords were most effective, and which were not as effective?
Example 2: You are working for a corporation that provides environmental risk management consultations. A client in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is concerned by the threat of global warming and how that might affect the client's palm oil plantations.
Using the search strategy model from class, please answer the following questions:
a. What are main concepts in the scenario above that you would include in a Google Scholar search?
b. List at least 2 synonyms for each concept you identified in part a.
c. Develop a search strategy that includes at least two concepts and three keywords. Use AND and OR to create a strategy.
d. Search two databases on the Environmental Studies page. What keywords were most effective? Which would you remove from your search? Based on your results, would you change your keywords to include new terms that weren't in your original search?
2. Criteria & Standards
a. Students will demonstrate in-depth understanding of their research topic and information needs through the careful generation of broad concepts related to their topic, as well as subject specific terms that demonstrate a focused understanding of key concepts.
i. Exceptional understanding: Students will have clearly defined broad categories related to their project and information needs.
ii. General understanding: Students will have defined general broad categories related to their project and information needs.
iii. Poor understanding: Students have difficulty identifying concepts and categories related to their research topic.
b. Students will demonstrate in-depth understanding of their topic through the generation of alternative keywords and synonyms that describe their information needs.
i. Exceptional understanding: Students will have clearly defined broad categories related to their project and information needs with a variety of additional keywords that show a broad and narrow understanding of their topic.
ii. General understanding: Students will have defined broad categories related to their project and information needs; however, not all categories may have additional keywords or synonyms. The categorization shows that students have a basic understanding of broad and narrow concepts related to their topic.
iii. Poor understanding: Students have difficulty identifying concepts and categories related to their research topic. Few synonyms are identified, showing a lack of understanding of broad and narrow concepts related to their topic.
3. Self-Assessment
a. Students will search for articles/information on the internet using customary search terms. Require students to search for the same topic, but not use any of the same keywords.
b. Think-pair-share: After students come up with concepts and related keywords/synonyms, pair students with each other to brainstorm on additional concepts and keywords.
4. FIDeLity Feedback
During class sessions, I usually ask for students to report back what worked and didn't work. With only 15 minutes for the exercise and assessment, it is hard to give each student individual feedback during the class. One strategy may be to follow up with students after class to ensure they have an opportunity to get additional feedback during a short session.
Frequent: I would circulate during the class to ensure that all students are coming up with categories and terms.
Immediate: Sharing exercise with classmates would give everyone an audience and feedback on the work.
Discriminating: I can go over one student's work for the whole class to show how the criteria and standards are used in evaluation.
Lovingly: Always provide positive feedback - reassure students that this process takes time and practice. Always provide opportunities for students to get individual help.
Procedures for Educative Assessment
I am teaching a one-shot mini-session this Tuesday for one of our 2nd year science courses. I only have 30 minutes with the students. So, I thought I would use this week's assignment to help me decide what my goals are for this session in order to use the time most effectively. The supplemental reading, Create Student Learning Outcomes for Library Instruction, had some really interesting information that changed the way I was thinking about this assignment.
Key points from the supplemental reading:
--When creating SLOs - answer the question, 'what will the students learn today?' rather than 'what will I cover today?'
--Avoid the following phrases when creating SLOs - since these cannot be assessed or measures:
- understand
- appreciate
- know about
- become familiar with
- learn about
- become aware of
While I really like the idea of Educative Assessment, I am having a difficult time with goals and assessment that are targeted enough to fit into one of these very truncated one-shot sessions. Many of the examples seem like great homework, but 'forward-looking' seems harder for a 5-10 minute exercise.
1. Forward-Looking Assessment
Learning Outcome: As a result of this class, students will be able to develop/formulate appropriate, creative keywords and search terms after basic background research on a topic in order to focus their understanding and their search process on targeted information needs.
Example 1: You are submitting a grant to a large funding institution. As part of this grant, you must provide keywords to categorize your grant.
a. List five keywords that describe your grant application broadly. For instance, if you are working on identifying a gene that is responsible for the forelimb length in bats, you might select: limb development, evolution, Chiroptera, morphology
b List five keywords that describe your project specifically. Using the same example as above, you might select: prx1, prrx1, Carollia perspicillata, lacZ expression
c. Using the keywords you came up with to describe your project, search for additional articles about your grant application topic in Google Scholar, Web of Science and PubMed. What keywords were most effective, and which were not as effective?
Example 2: You are working for a corporation that provides environmental risk management consultations. A client in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is concerned by the threat of global warming and how that might affect the client's palm oil plantations.
Using the search strategy model from class, please answer the following questions:
a. What are main concepts in the scenario above that you would include in a Google Scholar search?
b. List at least 2 synonyms for each concept you identified in part a.
c. Develop a search strategy that includes at least two concepts and three keywords. Use AND and OR to create a strategy.
d. Search two databases on the Environmental Studies page. What keywords were most effective? Which would you remove from your search? Based on your results, would you change your keywords to include new terms that weren't in your original search?
2. Criteria & Standards
a. Students will demonstrate in-depth understanding of their research topic and information needs through the careful generation of broad concepts related to their topic, as well as subject specific terms that demonstrate a focused understanding of key concepts.
i. Exceptional understanding: Students will have clearly defined broad categories related to their project and information needs.
ii. General understanding: Students will have defined general broad categories related to their project and information needs.
iii. Poor understanding: Students have difficulty identifying concepts and categories related to their research topic.
b. Students will demonstrate in-depth understanding of their topic through the generation of alternative keywords and synonyms that describe their information needs.
i. Exceptional understanding: Students will have clearly defined broad categories related to their project and information needs with a variety of additional keywords that show a broad and narrow understanding of their topic.
ii. General understanding: Students will have defined broad categories related to their project and information needs; however, not all categories may have additional keywords or synonyms. The categorization shows that students have a basic understanding of broad and narrow concepts related to their topic.
iii. Poor understanding: Students have difficulty identifying concepts and categories related to their research topic. Few synonyms are identified, showing a lack of understanding of broad and narrow concepts related to their topic.
3. Self-Assessment
a. Students will search for articles/information on the internet using customary search terms. Require students to search for the same topic, but not use any of the same keywords.
b. Think-pair-share: After students come up with concepts and related keywords/synonyms, pair students with each other to brainstorm on additional concepts and keywords.
4. FIDeLity Feedback
During class sessions, I usually ask for students to report back what worked and didn't work. With only 15 minutes for the exercise and assessment, it is hard to give each student individual feedback during the class. One strategy may be to follow up with students after class to ensure they have an opportunity to get additional feedback during a short session.
Frequent: I would circulate during the class to ensure that all students are coming up with categories and terms.
Immediate: Sharing exercise with classmates would give everyone an audience and feedback on the work.
Discriminating: I can go over one student's work for the whole class to show how the criteria and standards are used in evaluation.
Lovingly: Always provide positive feedback - reassure students that this process takes time and practice. Always provide opportunities for students to get individual help.
Rebecca, I was also intrigued by the supplemental PowerPoint "Create Student Learning Outcomes" and started by writing SLOs before answering the questions from the Fink reading. I found this to be a useful approach and I hope you did as well. I em especially impressed with your forward-looking assessment situations! Please let us know how your class goes today.
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