Assessment for Librarians

The following outline describes a suggested pathway for presenting a professional learning workshop on the topic of "Assessment for Librarians." We encourage you to adapt the materials, outline, and activities to meet the needs of your librarians! If you do lead a workshop on this topic, we'd love to hear about it and any additional suggestions you have to make the content meaningful for school librarians. Drop us a line at webinarSLC@abc-clio.com.

Outline

Part I: Prework

What Is Effective Assessment and Why Should We Assess Students in the Library?

Objectives:

• Participants will be able to identify three characteristics shared by effective assessments.
• Participants will analyze past assessments they have participated in or given for effectiveness.

Time: 60-90 minutes, self-guided

Materials:

• Resource List: Assessment for Librarians

In preparation for your in-person session, share the following resources (via the linked Resource List above) for librarians to complete on their own time. In total, the prework should take between 30-60 minutes to complete.

1. Review the workshop syllabus
2. Complete a pre-workshop diagnostic assessment
3. Watch Barbara Stripling's introductory video
4. Watch Lesson 1 "What Do We Mean by Assessment in the Library?"
5. Complete "Past Assessments Reflection" in the workshop packet
6. Watch Lesson 2 "Why Do We Assess Student Learning?"
7. Complete "What's Your Why?" in the workshop packet

Part II: In-Person Session

What and How Do We Assess?

Objectives:

• Participants will reinforce their understandings of three characteristics of effective assessment.
• Participants will collaboratively determine how specific library skills can be assessed in the library.
• Participants will build their toolbox of diagnostic and formative assessment strategies.

Time: 60-90 minutes

Materials:

• Presentation template (Google Slides)
• Resource List: Assessment for Librarians
• Name stickers, pens/markers (1 per participant)
• Method to project presentation slides and videos

Preparation:

• Divide name stickers into three piles. For the first pile, write "timely" on each sticker, leaving room for participants to add more text. Repeat with the additional two piles, writing "authentic," on one set and "reflective" on the other.

In-Person Session Outline:

Icebreaker

The icebreaker serves to welcome participants into the space and get them talking with each other about some of the foundational ideas of the workshop.

Activity: Timely, Authentic, and Reflective

As attendees are entering the space, give them each an identifying sticker with one of the labels "timely," "authentic" or "reflective;" split the group as evenly as possible into the three categories. Ask them to add a definition to their sticker (as relates to assessment) and then converse with other people about what they wrote. Would they change anything about their definition?

Reviewing Prework

Begin the formal time together with any introductory remarks, a roadmap for the session, and a quick review of the concepts covered in the prework that also gets participants moving.

Activity: Yes/No

1. Designate one side of the room as "Yes" and the other side as "No"
2. Read out/show an example assessment (available in the presentation slides) and have participants move to the Yes side of the room if it seems like an example of something "authentic, timely, and reflective;" and move to the "No" side if doesn't fit all three
3. Ask people to share out about their positions
4. Repeat for several examples (see slideshow)
5. Point out that this activity is an example this is formative assessment, which will you'll be discussing in more detail later in the session

New Content: What Do We Assess?

After the two short warm-up pieces, dive into the meat of what it is that librarians assess. Present the information—librarians assess skills, not content—by showing Dr. Stripling's video, "What Do We Assess?", using her transcript as a script, or creating your own presentation. Be sure to include examples of effective assessment to make the concepts concrete. This should take about five minutes. Follow-up this with a 25-minute activity that helps participants identify skills they'll be teaching in their librarian and use collective brainstorming to align the skills with corresponding assessments.

Activity: Librarians Assess Skills

1. Ask librarians to write down a list of 5-10 skills that they want students to learn over the course of this year in their library.
2. Together, create a combined list from ideas shared from the whole group; group like skills together – ex: inquiry related; reading related; information literacy related, etc.
3. Have librarians choose the area that is most compelling to them at this moment – have them form groups of 2-4 people who also chose that area, preferably who work with students in a similar grade range
4. In their groups, they should brainstorm together, in relation to the grouping of skills they are working on:
   • Clearly define what it looks like when a student has mastered the particular skill for their grade level/stage of development
   • What strategies do they currently use to teach or could they use to teach students each of these skills?
   • How could students show where they are in development of each skill? (assessment) Are these methods timely, authentic, and reflective?
   • Where will they add this assessment into their instructional plan for the year? Record it!

New Content: How Do We Assess?

This next segment focuses on diagnostic assessment—conducted at the start of a unit—and formative assessment—implemented throughout a unit. Again, present the information using Dr. Stripling's videos "Diagnostic Assessment" and "Formative Assessment," use the transcripts, or create your own presentation. Together, they'll take about 10 minutes; you can also use the first activity below to break up the seated time. Spend more time on whichever area of assessment you think your librarians could use the most support; or, if time is limited, bundle the two presentations, and then let them choose which activity to participate in.

Activity: Dynamic Data for Formative Assessment

1. Share the article "Dynamic Data and Assessment," Cynthia Stogdill and Lynn Kleinmeyer
2. Ask people to choose one or more of their suggestions and explore the tool (requires online access)
3. Share out their experience: when might they use this tool in their library?

Looking Forward

Check in with participants by using a formative assessment tool, such as an exit slip, learning log, reciprocal teaching, or other idea from the Assessing Information Fluency handout. Then, spend about 10 minutes reviewing the self-study expectations (see below and the associated slide in the presentation), including assigning/choosing peer-review partners and explaining any applications they should use to share their materials. If time allows, outline what will happen at the next session, as well. Thank everyone for their active participation!

Part III: Self-Study

Incorporating Assessment into the Plan

Objectives:

• Participants will develop a plan to implement diagnostic and formative assessment into upcoming instruction.
• Participants will build relationships with their fellow librarians through peer-to-peer feedback.

Time: 2-4 hours, self-guided, over the course of 1-3 months

Materials: Curriculum maps

After participating in your in-person session that focused on identifying skills that can be assessed in the library as well as methods for diagnostic and formative assessments, your librarians should be ready to dig into how they can apply these strategies in their own library program. Present the following directions to your librarians, explaining that the steps should take them between two and four hours between now and the next session. Adapt the components to fit the time and technology parameters of your situations.

Self-Study: Incorporating Assessment into the Plan

Develop a plan to implement diagnostic and formative assessment into upcoming instruction.

1. Using what you've covered in pre-work and introductory session (you can also review the ideas by watching Dr. Stripling's videos), go through your curriculum map and add or adapt diagnostic and formative assessment elements into your plan
2. Summarize the changes you've made in a paragraph to be shared; what challenges did you have or areas could you use additional ideas for?
3. Meet with your designated partner and go over your summary and questions; provide each other feedback and problem solve together.
4. For the next session, bring an example of project from another teacher that you've been involved in in some way but where you think you can offer more; include as much detail about the final product as possible. Share digitally in advance of the session.

Part IV: In-Person Session

Summative Assessment

Objectives:

• Participants will problem solve dilemmas presented by their peers.
• Participants will learn how to apply the REACTS taxonomy to summative assessment.
• Participants will create a rubric to help as sess a student project.

Time: 60-90 minutes

Materials:

• Presentation template (Google Slides)
• Resource List: Assessment for Librarians
• One envelope and four index cards per attendee

Outline:

Reviewing the Self-Study

This activity, adapted from "Brown Bag It" as described by Melba Smithwick in Education World (https://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin/admin365.shtml), brings people back into the content area and allows participants to crowdsource solutions. In this case, they can focus on any areas they struggled with when developing their assessment plans during the self-study portion of the workshop. You may want to review directions together before getting it underway. As they are going through the exercise, go through the examples they brought in to use in the next activity.

Activity: Brown Bag Solutions

1. As participants enter, hand them an envelope with 4 index cards in it. Have the directions slide displayed.
2. Ask them to draw an animal and write a name for the animal on the front right corner of the envelope; they don't write their own name to keep anonymity.
3. Reflecting on the work they did for the self-study portion, also on the front of the envelope, they should write down a sticky/troublesome area for them, where they weren't completely happy with the diagnostic or formative assessment that they incorporated into their curriculum map and why.
4. Collect the envelopes, shuffle them and redistribute.
5. Each participant reads the question on the envelope they received, writes a response on one of the index cards (signed or unsigned) and passes it to their left. Repeat three more times.
6. Collect the envelopes and spread on a table for people to come collect.

New Content: Summative Assessment

Build on the work participants have done thus far by introducing one final type of assessment: summative assessment, where we can measure knowledge and skills at the end of a process of learning in order to determine the amount and quality of learning. Share Dr. Stripling's video, use her transcript as a script, or create your own presentation to convey the essential elements of summative assessment. Then, utilize the project examples brought in by the librarians to facilitate the final activity.

Activity: Going Beyond Bibliographies

1. Divide participants into groups of 3
2. Give each group one of the examples shared of a project
3. Instruct each group to
   • Work together to identify the skills, thinking, and presentation elements that they, as the librarian, could help assess
   • Consult REACTS taxonomy for ideas
   • Write up a rubric for assessment related the areas they identified that librarians could help with
4. Distribute groups' work to everyone

Looking Forward

Close out the workshop with an opportunity for participants to share a concept or strategy that has stuck out to them from their time exploring the role of librarians in assessment. Then, describe any methods of continued application that you've chosen to pursue (see below) to help folks stay committed to applying what they learned to their practice.

Part V: Continued Application

Putting the Learning to the Test

Objectives:

• Participants will apply what they learned to their library practice.
• Participants will continue to explore new ways to assess student learning.

Time: 60-90 minutes

There are many ways to continue following up with the concepts covered in this workshop over the course of the year. Determine what works best for your community of librarians to help them actively apply and reflect on their own learning.

Suggested Follow-Ups

• Create Reflection Teams, where participants can check in with each other periodically throughout the year to share about their use of assessments in the library and reflect on what went well and what can be improved
• Ask participants to share a quarterly written reflection with you on their assessment practice
• Share out additional resources for them to explore on their own each month, including the "How Can We Use Assessment" video and activity.
• Provide a way to collect feedback from participants, including what areas they'd like to learn more about