Reflections Questions from Session 2

I'd like to ask you to comment in our blogspace on the reflection questions which Deb Gilchrist posted at the end of the May 8 interactive session.

How can you use programmatic assessment to help plan and build your IL program?

Which programmatic outcomes are you most interested in developing to help improve your program and ultimately enhance student learning?

How can you help build a "culture of evidence" for your IL programs?

What parts of this seem most difficult and why?

Academic Integrity Outcome

AAHE Principle #1:
The Assessment of student learning begins with educational values.
I think this is an important principle and our speakers mentioned the significance of gearing our outcomes and criteria to the mission, goals, and values of our individual institutions.
One of our core values at ECSU is integrity. Faculty, staff, and students are expected to behave ethically and honorably. Student learning encompasses both intellectual and character development.
In writing my outcome, I focused on this core value of integrity and integrated it into Information Literacy within the ethical use of information (academic integrity).
Outcome:
Applies academic standards of integrity in order to use technology, information, and information resources legally and ethically.

Program outcome....

I have been reading and rereading the nine principles, and have settled on No. 3, which talks about how assessment works best when the programs it seeks to improve have clear, explicitly stated purposes. My thought is that once we officially establish our program outcomes, we will be able to more easily explain the benefits of learning the information literacy competency skills (jargon our faculty doesn't quite understand) to their students, in their subject area.

We currently have outcomes created for individual instruction sessions, but nothing for the entire program, so I hope I am going in the right direction for this. I know what I want to accomplish every time I walk into the classroom, but am struggling to make sense when trying to apply current practices that we follow. So, my outcome is as follows:

Librarians will initiate and develop collaborative efforts with faculty in all academic areas in order to create student-centered lesson plans which integrate information literacy competency skills with course content and required research assignments.

My attempt at Outcomes Design

In coming up with this outcome, I focused in particular on the sixth principle outlined on the AAHE list: “Assessment fosters wider improvement when representatives from across the educational community are involved.” This is definitely an area our library needs to work on. Last spring, several faculty members got together to discuss their frustration with students’ poor selection of sources and even poorer integration of these sources into their writing. Librarians encourage students to think critically about selecting sources that are most appropriate to their needs. Writing faculty want to help students learn how to integrate sources into their writing in a meaningful, non-derivative way. The two steps—source selection and source integration—are intimately related, but we have not made that connection explicit for students.

Without further delay, here is the outcome I’ve written. Comments and suggestions for improvement would be most appreciated!

Librarians will collaborate with faculty and staff at the Writing Center in order to create multiple opportunities (tutorials, handouts, reference/writing consultations, instructional design tips for faculty, etc.) for students to learn about, understand, and use principles of good source selection and source integration when researching and writing their papers.

Welcome! - From Steve Gilbert, TLT Group

I hope you enjoy this blog and find it useful as a means of exchanging ideas and info in conjunction with the TLT Group's online workshop about Information Literacy and Assessment. We're grateful for the continuing relationship with our co-sponsor, ACRL for this online series and for the leadership of Deb Gilchrist and Anne Zald.

Here's a link to the Web page that offers a variety of resources for this workshop.

Thanks for your participation.
Steve Gilbert
President, TLT Group

Week 1 Recommended Activity

Write an outcome for your program, drawing upon one of the 9 principles. Start with that you think most important to work on at the current stage of development of your program.