Procedures for Educative Assessment

IDEALA - Week 2 Activity - Part 1

In week 1, I established learning goals for my credit course, Library 1A: Introduction to Library Research.  As a reminder, my main learning goal is:

"A year (or more) after this course is over, I want and hope that students will confidently and capably find and use a variety of sources of information in order to understand their research interests and provide answers and solutions to their research questions and problems."

1.  Forward-Looking Assessment

Option 1:

Imagine that you are enrolled in a college course, in which the professor requires you to engage in a debate about a problem that impacts college students, such as exploitation of college athletes.  To win the debate, you must convince your audience (professors and classmates) that your understanding of the problem is strong and your potential solution is realistic.  Your description of the problem and solution must be based on scholarly sources of information.

Option 2:

Imagine that a good friend regularly drinks excessive amounts of alcohol.  Unfortunately, she has not listened to you when you suggest that she needs help.  Write a letter to your friend about the problem of alcoholism among college students.  In order to gain her attention, be sure to identify current research studies on this problem.  Summarize what you read, identify the authority of the sources, and explain how they relate to her problem.  End your letter with suggestions for where your friend can get help for her problem.

2.  Criteria & Standards

Finds Scholarly Source:

• Acceptable: Finds a journal article; Weakly connects source to research topic
• Exceptional: Finds a journal article; Strongly connects source to research topic

Summarizes Source:

• Acceptable: Summarizes the source in complete sentences; identifies the main point
• Exceptional: Summarizes the source in complete sentences; identifies the main point and sub-points; identifies argument found in the source

Evaluates Authority of Source:

• Acceptable: Identifies the authors' background and credentials; Connects authors' credentials to the research topic
• Exceptional: Identifies the authors' background and credentials; Connects authors' credentials to the research topic; Identifies possible bias based on the authors' credentials or vocabulary

Describes Relevance of Source:

• Acceptable: Indicates the source is relevant to research question; Identifies how the source helps answer question
• Exceptional: Indicates the source is relevant to research question; Identifies how the source helps answer question; Identifies gaps that are not answered by this source

3.  Self-Assessment

Group Assessment:
In class, students can work in groups of 2-3 to identify strengths and weaknesses in each others' work.

Individual Assessment:
Students apply the professor's standards and criteria to their own work.  If they rate their performance low in any criteria, they should reflect on what aspects of the standards are unclear to them.

4.  "FIDeLity" Feedback

Frequent:

• Give individual and group work in class.
• Assign similar work as homework.

Immediate:

• Grade and return work promptly (by the next class period).

Discriminating:

• Develop rubrics for standards and criteria for homework. 
• Discuss the assignment, standards, and criteria with students.  
• Provide examples of tasks in class and post examples online for students to review at home as needed.

Loving:

• Identify strengths in my students' work.  
• Focus grading on one standard, rather than on all standards, so that students can develop at least one standard well.