Building Trust and Empowerment through Assessment

“Well, now that we have seen each other,” said the unicorn, “if you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you.” —Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Most educators regard assessment as necessary to good instruction. Through assessment, we see what our students have learned. Ironically, what many educators do not realize is that assessment reveals as much about us as educators as it does about students. Students are taking our measure by looking at how we assess their learning. We “see each other” through assessment. We must ensure that the picture we construct of our students and the simultaneous understandings they gain about us are authentic, complex, and focused on our primary mission—to empower all students to be independent learners. We can reach that level of mutual understanding by clearly defining the why, what, and how of our assessment.

By establishing this relationship of understanding, we accomplish an even greater goal—we build trust with our students. They will believe that we are focused on enabling them to show what they know and can do, rather than on what they do not know and cannot do. We will believe, truly believe, that all our students can develop the skills, knowledge, and attitudes to succeed.

Why Do We Assess Student Learning?

Assessment will be unfocused and meaningless unless we have a clear purpose; we must know why we assess student learning. Librarians use assessment as an enabling mechanism that moves students forward, not a checking strategy that interrupts their learning to stop and look back. In other words, the real value of assessment is not in measuring what students already know, but in provoking thinking and motivation in students to build on what they know to learn in the future.

To achieve the purpose of assessing to lead to further learning, assessments must be authentic; they must connect to the real world, involve thinking in themselves, and require “disciplined inquiry” (i.e., involve deep rather than superficial thinking that is based on prior knowledge and is communicated through robust products) (Newmann 2007).

Authentic assessment has an empowering impact on students, librarians, and teachers. Because the assessments are designed to cause students to think while they are completing them (rather than simply parroting what they have already learned), they enable students to think critically and creatively. Students are expected to build on their knowledge to create new understandings, or, to think with ideas (Ritchhart et al. 2011). For example, by teaching students to analyze a website, determine point of view, and reflect on the impact of point of view on their interpretation of information, librarians are preparing students to think critically about the information that surrounds them every day in the real world.

Well-designed assessments enable students to demonstrate their competence—their knowledge and skill development. Perhaps more importantly, they enable students to see their own thinking and develop self-confidence and trust in themselves as learners. Students become reflective learners able to think about their own thinking processes (metacognition) and monitor and regulate their own learning strategies and attitudes.

Beyond the enabling impact on the learners themselves, assessments enable librarians and teachers to guide students’ thinking. Librarians who begin a learning experience with diagnostic assessment are able to calibrate their teaching to match the needs of the students before them, allowing them to start from where students are and build from there. Formative assessments integrated throughout an instructional unit allow teachers and librarians to determine how students are progressing in their skill and knowledge development. Sustained diagnostic and formative assessment enables librarians to individualize instruction, create an environment of success, and solidify relationships with students built on trust.

What Do We Assess?

Once we are convinced of the importance of assessment, especially authentic assessment, then we must decide what to assess. That decision conveys a message to our students about what is important. Imagine the difference in students’ understanding of what is important about the organization of a library if, on one hand, our assessment asks students merely to name the Dewey areas versus an assessment that requires students to build their own understanding of an organizational scheme by sorting and categorizing various objects and pictures.

As the role of the school librarian has shifted to a heavier focus on teaching, librarians have developed frameworks of skills that are essential for learning in the content areas. Those skills comprise the curriculum of the library. They are taught most effectively when integrated throughout content learning experiences and assessed independently of content knowledge. One such framework, the Empire State Information Fluency Continuum, was developed by librarians in New York City and then adopted by school library systems across the state (NYCSLS). Particularly useful to teachers and librarians are the graphic-organizer assessments developed for the priority skills at each grade level. These formative assessments can be adopted and/or adapted to enable educators to look at how students perform the skills they are taught.

Check Your Attitude!

In addition to skills assessment, librarians have the obligation to consider the development of dispositions and attitudes toward learning. Dispositions were identified as an important component to learning in the AASL national standards, Standards for the 21^st-Century Learner (AASL 2007). Because dispositions are difficult to assess, they are not simply identified or defined in the standards, but are described in terms of visible actions that would demonstrate successful attainment of the disposition. For example, the dispositions of initiative and engagement are described in this way:  “Display initiative and engagement by posing questions and investigating the answers beyond the collection of superficial facts” (AASL 2007). One way of assessing initiative and engagement, then, is to note when students ask questions and probe deeply to find the answers.

Graphic organizers and other forms of visible thinking allow librarians and teachers to see into the thought processes of the students and intervene at the point of confusion, rather than late in the learning process. This intervention at the point of need strengthens the relationship of trust between students and librarians.

How Do We Assess Student Learning?

The most effective way to measure students’ understanding of the library curriculum is to ask students to apply the skills and attitudes we are teaching. We do not ask students to define or describe a thinking process; instead, we ask them to actively perform the skill to make sense of information and form their own ideas. Many librarians construct graphic organizers for a dual purpose—to lead students through the active steps of performing the skill and to provide a transparent and assessable record of their thinking process.

As a result of this active-learning approach, librarians rarely assess through testing. Instead, they use both formal and informal measures that gauge students’ understanding. Informally, they might use strategies like a thumbs up or down, observation, or student oral responses to questioning. More formal measures include graphic organizers, reflection logs, process folios, and written responses to questions and prompts.

One of the goals of our instruction is to help students develop their ability to monitor their own learning; therefore, librarians may integrate reflective techniques into their assessment strategies. For example, reflective notetaking often replaces traditional notetaking; students are expected to capture their reactions to their notes by adding questions, comments, and personal connections alongside the notes.

The most robust use of self-reflection, and consequently the most impactful, is the use of reflection logs throughout the process of inquiry. Librarians have discovered that students who maintain a research journal or process portfolio develop a deep understanding of the content they are researching as well as the skills, attitudes, and emotions they have employed/experienced along the way.

How Do We Use Assessment Data?

Librarians can use assessment data to develop and refine their instructional program. State tests, although not administered by the librarian and not specifically targeting the skills taught by the librarian, can provide a moment-in-time slice of insight into the whole school or district performance on English/language arts or math skills.

Often more valuable for librarians, however, are the assessment data compiled by the librarians themselves. As they collect data from diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments, librarians must ask themselves how they can improve their instruction, how they have mapped the curriculum to provoke steady and sustained development of skills across grades and classes, and how the skills taught through the library align with the content curriculum in each subject area.

The final obligation of librarians is to use assessment data to tell the story of the library’s impact on the learning and lives of students, collaboration throughout the school, expectations for skill development as well as content learning, and a school climate of engagement and empowerment. The most effective advocacy is created by using real evidence to tell a powerful story.

In Conclusion. . .Why Would We Not Assess?

Assessment through the library builds trust between the librarian and students, trust that leads to commitment and self-confidence to pursue a higher standard of learning. Sustained assessment enables the librarian to empower students with essential critical and creative thinking skills and positions the librarian to assume a leadership role in teaching and learning.

Works Cited

American Association of School Librarians (AASL). Standards for the 21st-Century Learner. AASL, 2007. http://www.ala.org/aasl/standards-guidelines/learning-standards (accessed October 29, 2015).

New York City School Library System (NYCSLS). Empire State Information Fluency Continuum. https://www.engageny.org/resource/empire-state-information-fluency-continuum (accessed October 29, 2015).

Newmann, Fred M., M. Bruce King, and Dana L. Carmichael. Authentic Instruction and Assessment. Prepared for the Iowa Department of Education, 2007. http://centerforaiw.com/sites/centerforaiw.com/files/Authentic-Instruction-Assessment-BlueBook.pdf (accessed October 29, 2015).

Ritchhart, Ron, Mark Church, and Karin Morrison. Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners. Jossey-Bass, 2011.