Class
In class this week we viewed a few screencast from a couple classmates and I must admit I was impressed. I know I personally recorded mine 10 times or so before I ended up with my final product; however, the few we watched blew mine out of the water. They were so professional and helpful. My best didn’t even compare to theirs. I guess I need to practice more or download software that allows me to really edit my screencast.
We also we split into groups and tried to define information literacy without the terms “use information”. It was interesting and more difficult than originally anticipated because each one of us had different ideas what information literacy is. Some definitions were theoretical while others were practical. We all agreed, in the end, that “understand” should be included.
Not to sound like a goody-goody, but each class get more interesting and informative. I've never taken a class that instructed methods of teaching.
Readings
Formative Assessment and the Design of Instructional Systems
This article discusses two main concerns--formative assessment and feedback. The author states that even with good feedback from teachers, students’ work does not improve, therefore, formative assessment is needed. Formative assessment can be defined as the concern "with how judgments about the quality of student responses can be used to shape and improve the student's competence by short-circuiting the randomness and inefficiency of trail-and-error learning" (120).
In order to improve their work these things need to happen:
- Students "must develop the capacity to monitor the quality of their own work during actual production" (119).
- Students "have the evaluative skill necessary for them to compare with some objectivity the quality of what they are producing in relation to the higher standard" (119).
- Students "develop a store of tactics or moves which can be drawn upon to modify their own work" (119).
In the end, there should be a move from feedback from teachers to student being self-monitoring.
I personally prefer articles that are more practical versus theoretical which is what this one was. Maybe students do not change their work for various reasons that do not have to do with the way they judged. For instance, in the past I’ve ignored the assessment of teachers and did not change my work because I did not feel they were right. Some assessments are based on one’s opinion and I do not always agree with the teacher’s opinion. In another example, I was too lazy or did not wish to make the improvement in my work. It wasn’t worth the few extra points to exert more effort. While I respect many of the points this article makes, I do not agree with them all.
Chapter 6: The Design of Learning Environments
This chapter assesses the four different learning environments
1. Learner-centered environments connect students’ previous knowledge to current academic assignments.
2. Knowledge-centered environments help students to learn skills to understand and organized knowledge.
3. Assessment-centered environments states that feedback is important and teachers should attempt to understand their students and help them build self-assessment skills. Formative assessments and feedback fall in this category.
4. Community-centered environments advocate a sense of community and that everyone has similar learning values and objectives.
I have to wonder, can librarians really provide all of these things—learning environments and formative assessments? It seems like a large job. While these articles offer theoretical examples can these all be applied to everyday life? It's a lot to digest.
Oh wow, I totally forgot the information literacy without "use" part. Yeah that was pretty interesting, reminded me of grade school when we'd have to come up with definitions of a word that don't use the word or a synonym. It's still kind of hard, and it's interesting to see what different people think something means, especially when we're all saying the same thing, or something leading to the same thing, in different ways.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of the instructional/learning-centered readings and activities are probably most helpful to those of us who are definitely planning on going into SLM or academic libraries. But there's a lot of potential for integrating those skills into one-shot workshops in public libraries, too, and even if the opportunities don't exist right now, I think that's part of what an SI education is about: we're going into the field with lots of new and exciting ideas! :)
ReplyDeleteI think the term learning environment sounds more intimidating and unachievable than it actually is. It seems that a lot of what was taught in 647 about reference interviews takes the different learning environments into account. By asking clarifying questions we are finding out relevant background information that we can then use to help explain, thus making a learner- centered environment. Any explanations we provide about how to do a search make it knowledge-centered. However, I'm still not clear about how assessments fit, even after class.
ReplyDeleteGreat point about how sometimes feedback doesn't really impact the student or provoke change. I see that, too. Sometimes I give feedback and the option to redo and only one student will take me up on it, generally a student who was already strong to begin with. But I think it communicates something valuable, so I keep doing it.
ReplyDeleteQuick note to Katie J -- we'll talk a bit more about assessment in class on 2/14.