The Power of Sharing Assessment

Even in schools with lively cultures of assessment, school library-focused assessment might still be a new idea. Best practices for school library assessment today provide crucial information to learners and instructors, and its execution is an ongoing process of experimenting, refining, and building. To the school community, however, it might be news that gathering information about what students do in the library program extends way beyond the tracking of overdue books! In order for your school to fulfill its mission, your library should play a vital role. Let’s capture and communicate the data to prove that it does. The rationale and resonance should extend beyond the library. It’s important not to assume that colleagues and school leaders will understand the why and how of school library assessment. They need to hear of your measured success.

In sharing your practices on assessment and generating support, an approach modeled on advocacy-based communications may be fruitful. After all, sharing student learning in the library is already part of the constellation of advocacy efforts. When you communicate about assessment, identify the target audience and consider their priorities—in other words, the stakeholders’ “connection[s] to themselves, their jobs, or their children” (Kachel, DelGuidice, and Luna 2012). Then present content with intention, through messages and angles that address stakeholder priorities AND serve the library program. Here are some ways to introduce school library assessment to two critical groups: administrators and teachers.

Principals

A culture of assessment is typically fostered by leadership (Lakos and Phipps, in Farkas, Hinchcliffe, and Houk 2015). But what if the leaders don’t yet share the value of assessment in the school library program? Start with the priorities angle: what matters to your principal? Student achievement is likely high on the list, possibly with needs specific to your school, such as academic progress of students who are English Language Learners, or particular areas of literacy.

Request a short face-to-face meeting (arranged at a convenient time for both of you), and have this principal’s concerns in mind when you explain your approach to library assessment. Instead of a vague overview, have a focal point for the conversation, such as a recent learning project or a question for which you’d like some advice. With a few examples by grade level or topic, share your practices and goals, and be sure to emphasize the learning part. When discussing assessment with principals, share your concrete examples, such as exit tickets or exemplar student work. Be purposeful in designing student feedback in an archivable format. Even something such as a simple Survey Monkey link with a few questions will help provide you with concrete evidence for your portfolio.

As a regular practice beyond meetings, document evidence of student learning in the form of a report. As Hartzell describes, be strategic and thorough. Include specifics such as learning objectives and be explicit in the library’s contribution to avoid your work being “absorbed” by other people or programs in the school. Provide circulation statistics and technology use in the context of student learning for lessons, not in isolation (Hartzell 2003). Use eye-catching and easy-to-make newsletters and reports created with Smore or Canva, and “app smash” to embed students’ media products, such as digital storytelling, videos, or interactive posters. A conscious effort to capture and share photos of students engaged in learning in the library will go a long way to paint a picture of the library as a vital learning space. 

Be careful not to suggest that you know all there is to know about school library assessment. Be open to your principal’s recommendations, particularly those that would align the library program with other assessment efforts in the school. In a study of academic instruction librarians’ assessment practices, the majority of participants reported that their knowledge of assessment came from learning they did on their own (Sobel and Sugimoto 2012). This may be true for you, or it may have been awhile since you’ve had formal training in assessment techniques. Take the opportunity to mention professional development opportunities like conferences or webinars that would strengthen your skills, while at the same time adding to the school’s repertoire of assessment strategies and practices.

Teachers

Accountability and assessment are closely linked concepts, but the interpretation and implications of these tenets of education may differ between librarians and teachers. For teachers, student assessment outcomes may be part of teacher evaluations, depending on the district or state. Even as policies are shifting in terms of the relationship between teacher evaluations and student test scores, accountability to students and parents, the school, and the profession is measured and demonstrated through assessments of varying types. Teachers’ view of assessment likely includes high stakes and for many, personal commitment and professional pride.

For librarians, a similar set of expectations holds true, in that assessment offers evidence of student achievement. Librarians are accountable to the school community, possibly through instruction, and also through learning opportunities that the program, collection, and other resources and services foster. But there’s a distinct layer to accountability for the school library, in that assessment can also demonstrate the value of, or the need for, the entire operation of the library program by the professional school librarian. These are also very high stakes. The library program and the librarian’s position may ride entirely or in part on evidence that students are learning. Adding more potential complexity to this picture is that librarians may depend on teachers to co-plan lessons so that they have something to assess.

So how might we marry these two sets of perspectives on accountability and assessment—with the aforementioned advocacy orientation in mind? Remember: we’re aiming to bring together stakeholders’ needs with the librarian’s strengths and library’s assets, in ways that are beneficial across the board. How can a school librarian explain her stance on assessment, while providing value to the classroom teacher?

An obvious strategy might be to share information directly, as part of offers to co-teach and co-assess student work, either in a fully realized collaboration, or in a stand-alone library lesson that complements instruction in the classroom (or iterations that fall between). It is helpful to make it explicit that librarians wish to engage in formative and/or summative assessment. Sharing techniques and goals can add to our toolboxes and enlighten colleagues about teaching and learning in our respective disciplines. It can be tempting, however, to overemphasize that librarians “make teachers’ lives easier” by sharing in assessment processes. As in many collaborative processes, many hands can make light the work. But the rationale is deeper than a chance to divvy up grading.

With teachers’ and librarians’ respective high stakes as a motivator, we might also reflect on the diverging and converging skill sets of librarians and teachers. Consider your (potential) collaborator as the subject area knowledge expert, in terms of both concepts and skills.  As school librarian, your expertise is centered in processes and application. (Of course, across subject areas, educators teach a blend of content knowledge/skills and thinking/application. Vocabulary skills aid comprehension of text. Problem solving in math builds on foundations of mathematical procedures). Though this delineation is a simplified approach to the dynamic and often organic process of collaborating and co-teaching, it provides a practical inroad for explaining assessment from the school librarian’s vantage point.

In designing a district-level model for curriculum and assessment, Shoemaker and Lewin apply a “two sides of the same coin” metaphor to describe core knowledge and strategic processes. This picture is helpful here. On one side of the coin are key conceptual ideas that characterize core knowledge; the learning outcome is comprehension. For purposes of this illustration, consider this the classroom teacher’s side of the coin. On the other side are the strategic processes, “a set or series of interconnected actions that combine skills and strategies to produce a particular result,” for which the desired outcome is application (1993).

In many ways, the librarian’s expertise is all about process and application. We refer to the processes as multiple literacies: information literacy, transliteracy, digital literacy, and others. Librarians don’t aim for students to comprehend what it means to evaluate information or narrow down a research question. Librarians want students to do it: work to apply core knowledge, in context, with increasing independence. In assessment efforts, librarians want to see how students are making decisions and how they are using information to respond to an information need. They want to see how students interpret conflicting data or redirect course when a research plan doesn't work. School librarians want to foster students’ self-assessment of their skills and dispositions, so that they might monitor their learning and identify preferences, strengths, and next steps. 

Here we have win-win potential in injecting library assessment into content learning: teachers (and students) “get” the full balance of knowledge and process. When communicating to teachers—and principals—what your school library assessments are designed to do, emphasize that librarians want students to apply their information literacies as part of their core knowledge development, not in isolated “library activities.” Present this perspective and examples (across the collaborative spectrum) to teachers, and aim for a deeper rationale in sharing ideas than “helping out with grading.” Ask to hear about the processes and concepts that underlie their essential questions, and identify alignment with the multiple literacies at the heart of school library standards and assessment.

Conclusion

Student assessment in the library can become part of a school’s culture of assessment, but stakeholders have to know about it and invest in it for that to occur. Daniel J. Ennis writes of assessment culture in the academic library context that it’s not just about doing assessment, but liking it (Farkas, Hinchcliffe, and Houk 2015). It might be the case already that you’re “liking assessment” in your school library. You might have rubrics that provide vital information to you and your students, useful survey feedback for building the collection or planning projects, video and media products that reflect a range of learning outcomes, and other data from your interactions with students and teachers. As much as you like what you have going, assessment of school library learning might just become stronger and better aligned with school curriculum with the support, buy-in, and the motivation from your colleagues and school leaders.

Works Cited:

Gorran Farkas, Meredith, Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, and Amy Harris Houk. “Bridges and Barriers: Factors

Influencing a Culture of Assessment in Academic Libraries.” College & Research Libraries 76 no. 2 (March 2015): 150–69.

Hartzell, Gary. Building Influence for the School Librarian: Tenets, Targets, & Tactics. 2^nd edition. Linworth Publishing, 2003.

Kachel, Debra E., Margaux DelGuidice, and Rose Luna. “Building Champions in the School Community.” In Activism and the School Librarian: Tools for Advocacy and Survival, Deborah D. Levitov, ed., 85–98. Libraries Unlimited, 2012.

Sobel, Karen and Cassidy R. Sugimoto. “Assessment of Learning during Library Instruction: Practices, Prevalence, and Preparation.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 38 no. 4 (July 2012): 191-204.

Shoemaker, Betty Jean Eckland and Larry Lewin. “Curriculum and Assessment: Two Sides of the Same Coin.” Educational Leadership 50 no. 8 (May 1993): 55-57.http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/may93/vol50/num08/Curriculum-and-Assessment@-Two-Sides-of-the-Same-Coin.aspx