Tools for the Assessment of Learning

Accountability is huge today!! Teachers and administrators are fully engaged in providing evidence that Susie and Johnny can meet the achievement levels set by state standards. Where are library media specialists in this scenario? The curriculum of the school library media program is typically based on information literacy standards, but which standards? The Information Literacy Standards for Student Learning (AASL/AECT 1998) are the national standards, but do states or school districts have standards? Before library media specialists can assess students, they need to identify the curriculum and/ or standards that students are expected to apply as they gather and use information for projects, research papers, and personal interest.

Many state standards include knowledge and skills relevant to information literacy. Some standards include library media as a separate content area, while others have integrated library media skills and knowledge throughout all content areas. For example, Information Literacy: Florida's Library/Media Curriculum Connections is a separate document with guidelines for information literacy skills across all grade levels. Ohio and North Carolina have similar documents. The Illinois Learning Standards include information literacy within the English Language Arts Performance Descriptors as one of the strands. When state standards do not include separate library media standards, library media specialists sometimes conclude that there are no standards for their program, but that is inaccurate. A close examination of content areas within state standards usually identifies relevant standards. Library media specialists in Indiana developed a Correlation of the Information Literacy Standards (AASL/AECT 1998) and Indiana's Academic Standards. This document correlates each of the Information Literacy Standards with the content standards. References to resources within INSPIRE, the Indiana virtual library, are noted in red text below each relevant standard. The value of this document is priceless because it enables collaboration between classroom teachers and teacher librarians to increase student achievement.

Teacher librarians can achieve the same type of correlation by working with classroom teachers to map the curriculum using the Information Literacy Standards as part of that process. Curriculum mapping shows the connections between the content area curriculum and the library media curriculum.

What Is Assessment?

Information Power positions the school library media program within the context of constructivist learning theory and authentic learning. This approach engages students in problem-solving and inquiry projects that require students to be critical thinkers and decision makers (AASL/AECT 1998). The traditional testing approach evaluates students' ability to regurgitate information, but it does not provide evidence of their applying a process or thinking skills.

Assessment is the process of gathering evidence to show student understanding of information literacy. Assessment documents focus on thinking rather than on evaluating or measuring rote knowledge. The tools of assessment can range from an observation to a checklist or a portfolio. Library media specialists use assessment tools to assess a skills lesson or a project that is the culminating activity for a complex lesson or unit.

Formative assessment takes place throughout a learning activity. A library media specialist who is teaching a lesson on using an index might stop at various places in the lesson and ask questions to check for understanding. Students might be engaged in gathering information, using a specific database, or recording information on a log template. The library media specialist meets briefly with small groups to talk about their note-gathering process. Each of these is an example of formative assessment, such as checking for student understanding at various stages in the lesson.

Summative assessment assesses student learning at the end of a learning activity. For example, students are studying weather patterns and they gathered local weather data over multiple weeks. Working collaboratively with the classroom teacher, the library media specialist demonstrated several weather websites and helped design an organizer that would enable students to organize their data showing patterns and trends in weather systems. The weather organizer and a written report documenting the results were the summative assessments for this unit. The assessments demonstrated knowledge of both the science and information literacy standards.

What Are Assessment Tools?

Assessment tools enable both learning and assessing. Many tools facilitate the learning process and provide evidence of new skills and understandings. Tools can include logs, checklists, rating scales, organizers, matrices, concept maps, brainstorming webs, and rubrics (Harada and Yoshina 2005).

Logs and Reflection

Students write logs to show the steps or process they follow to complete a task or project. For example, students are studying deserts and need to gather information about the animals and their habitats. Working in small groups, they culminate the project by creating a diorama depicting the ecosystem within a specific desert. Students keep a daily log of their research process. Each day their teacher asks them to write a log entry in response to a prompt (see Figure 1).

Writing prompts are important because they provide a focus for the students' writing and evidence of students' ability to meet the lesson or unit objectives. One of the objectives for the unit on deserts is that "students will locate resources appropriate for their research topic." The writing prompt (see Figure 1) requires students to reflect on their resources and select those that are the most useful. The process of writing a log enables students to think about the steps involved in gathering and using information. This process involves metacognition, thinking about how we think and learn.

Checklists and Rating Scales

Checklists are a list of the requirements, characteristics, steps, and behaviors that result in a positive outcome from a task or project. Checklists are a tool for both students and teacher(s). Students can use the checklist to determine if they followed all the steps and requirements of the project prior to submission. The teacher uses the checklist to assess the project. Typically, checklists include a definite "yes" or "no" indicating the student met or did not meet the requirement. Checklists sometimes include a note column enabling the teacher to write a comment about some or all of the requirements or characteristics (Harada and Yoshina 2005).

A rating scale includes criteria for assessing the process and content that reflects a successful product or performance. The rating scale is similar to a rubric and is useful when it is possible to rate student performance along a continuum. However, the rating scale does not describe the variance of levels for each criterion. Rating scales are easier to write than rubrics, but they do not provide students with as much assessment information.

JoAnn Floyd (2007) created a biography lesson that engages students in creating a timeline of a person studied. The lesson, "Putting It on the Line!", includes an example of a rating scale that assesses the organizer and timeline required as products in the lesson (see Figure 2).

Organizers

Organizers are visual representations of content that show the interrelationships of specific relevant information. Organizers allow learners to deconstruct concepts and visually demonstrate relationships. Hyerle (1996) suggests that the higher orders of thinking, analysis, and synthesis of information require learners to "organize, break down, and reformulate, [which] are the steps upward toward evaluative thinking." Hyerle adds that "even the lowest level of Bloom's taxonomy—knowledge—is defined as the basic organization of content." Information is traditionally presented in a linear manner, which makes it difficult for learners to construct relationships between concepts. Organizers, as visual representations of content, provide learners with the tools to understand relationships.

Organizers, tools of learning and assessment, enable and provide evidence of thinking. Organizers are visual tools, thus there are an infinite number of possibilities for shapes and designs. When an important outcome of an organizer is assessment, library media specialists need to construct the organizer(s) to reflect the learning objectives of the lesson.

Constructivist learning theory places great importance on helping learners make a connection to prior knowledge. Brainstorming webs and KWL charts are organizers that enable a connection with prior knowledge. For example, students who are beginning a unit on immigration might start their learning experience by developing a brainstorming web. The classroom teacher and/or the library media specialist begins the brainstorming session by asking students who they know that has recently immigrated to the United States. The discussion progresses and the brainstorming web develops on the whiteboard as students make connections with their knowledge about people and issues related to immigration.

Thinking Skill Organizers

Examples of thinking skill organizers include classification, sequence, comparison, conclusion, problem solving, and inference.

The "Animal to Animal—A Comparison" lesson engages students in gathering information and developing a chart that compares animals using the criteria of appearance, habitat, diet, and other facts (Aspelund 2007, 16). (See Figure 3.)

The sequence or timeline organizer can be applied to many learning activities. The historical timeline is one of the more obvious options, but the charting of a sequence of events covers a variety of activities, for example, plot of a fiction book or drama, steps of a process, or the important events in the life of a famous person.

One of the more classic shapes for a comparison organizer is the Venn diagram. Two circles overlapping allows for similar characteristics in the overlapping sections with differences in the outer parts of the circles.

Process Organizers

Organizers can be used to facilitate and assess a process. The brain-storming web is a useful tool in the early stages of an information-seeking process. The KWL chart also enables a connection to prior knowledge while incorporating questioning as learners brainstorm what they know and want to know.

Note taking or the recording of information is typically a challenge for students. A note-taking form or organizer provides students with a visual structure for recording information. The T-chart is a two-column organizer that focuses students on concise notes in column one and reflection about those notes in column two (see Figure 4).

Other process organizers include a searching matrix, a planning organizer that lists specific steps for completing the research project with a column for specific strategies, and the date for completing each step.

Conclusion

Assessment tools give library media specialists snapshots of evidence that demonstrates student understanding of the Information Literacy Standards. Over time the evidence provide a more complete picture of learners' ability to gather, evaluate, and use information to solve problems, make decisions, and think critically. Used in conjunction with the evidence gathered by classroom teachers, library media specialists can show how the library media program supports the content standards and student achievement.

References

American Association of School Librarians/ Association for Educational Communication and Technology. Information Power for Student Learning. Chicago: ALA, 1998.

Aspelund, Carol. "Science: Animal to Ani-mal—A Comparison." School Library Media Activities Monthly 23, no. 5 (January 2007): 15-17.

Bloom's Taxonomy: Sample Questions. http://www.officeport.com/edu/bloomq.htm (accessed January 29, 2007)

Harada, Violet H., and Joan M. Yoshina. Assessing Learning: Librarians and Teachers as Partners. Libraries Unlimited, 2005.

Hyerle, David. Visual Tools for Constructing Knowledge. ASCD, 1996.

Floyd, JoAnn. "Reading/Language Arts: Putting It on the Line!" School Library Media Activities Monthly 23, no. 6 (February 2007): 11-13.

Illinois Learning Standards. English Performance Descriptors and Classroom Assessments. Illinois State Board of Education. http://www.isbe.net/ils/html/descriptors.htm (accessed January 29, 2007)

Indiana's Academic Standards. Indiana Department of Education. http://www.doe.state.in.us/standards/welcome2.html (accessed January 29, 2007)

Information Literacy: Florida's Library Media / Curriculum Connections. Florida Department of Education. http://www.firn.edu/doe/instmat/ilflmcc.htm (accessed January 29, 2007) Library Guidelines. Ohio Department of Education. http://www.ode.state.oh.us/GD/Templates/Pages/ODE/ODEDetail.aspx?page=3&TopicRelationID=340&ContentID=2489&Content=17495 (accessed January 29, 2007)

Additional Resources

Callison, Daniel. "Organizers." School Library Media Activities Monthly 16, no. 5 (May 2000): 36-39.

Graphic Organizers. [Smart Card]. Kagan Cooperative Learning, 1998. http://www.kaganonline.com/Catalog/Smart-Cards1.html

Harada, Violet H. "Building Evidence Folders for Learning through Library Media Centers." School Library Media Activities Monthly 23, no. 3 (November 2006): 15-29.

Harada, Violet H. "Working Smarter: Being Strategic about Assessment and Accountability." Teacher Librarian 33, no. 1 (October 2005): 8-15.

Harada, Violet H., and Joan M. Yoshina. Assessing Learning: The Missing Piece in Instruction." School Library Media Activities Monthly 22, no. 7 (March 2006): 20-23.

Harada, Violet H., and Joan M. Yoshina. "Engaging Students in Inquiry." School Library Media Activities Monthly 22, no. 8 (April 2006): 22-25.

Harada, V. H., and Joan M. Yoshina. Inquiry Learning through Librarian-Teacher Partnerships. Linworth, 2004.

Hyerle, David. A Field Guide to Using Visual Tools. ASCD, 2000.

Koechlin, Carol, and Sandi Zwaan. Build Your Own Information Literate School. Hi Willow Research, 2003.

Organizing Thinking Books 1 & 2: Organizers on CD. The Critical Thinking Co. http://www.criticalthinking.com/getPro-ductDetails.do?code=c&id=06808

Pappas, Marjorie L. "Organizing Research." School Library Media Activities Monthly 14, no. 4 (April 1997): 30-32.

Pappas, Marjorie L. "State Landmarks." School Library Media Activities Monthly 19, no. 9 (May 2003): 22-25.

Pappas, Marjorie L. "Writing Editorials." School Library Media Activities Monthly 19, no. 10 (June 2003): 20-24.

Parks, Sandra, and Howard Black. Organizing Thinking: Books 1 & 2. Critical Thinking Co, 1992.