Library Instruction: Outcomes & Assessment

A commonly used classroom assessment technique, the one-minute paper is used at the end of class and consists of three questions:

1. What is the most significant thing you learned today?
2. What question is uppermost in your mind at the end of today's session? Or, list one thing that you still don't understand.
3. If you could change something about today's session, what would it be?

The main advantage to using the one-minute paper technique is that it provides rapid assessment of whether the instructor's main idea for the lesson matches what the students perceive was the main idea. It also gives students a change to reflect on what they've learned and construct knowledge before running out the door, and helps build atmosphere of trust between instructor and student (Whittard, 2015).

Polling can be used not only as a way of engaging students, but as a means of rapid assessment as well. For example, you can:

• Poll students before or at the beginning of a class to determine existing knowledge or skill level.
• Use polls during a class or at the end to check comprehension.
• Use responses to look for common misunderstandings and modify future instruction accordingly.

Make sure you have a good handle on the technology before attempting to use it in the classroom. Also, choose a response type that is appropriate for the amount of time you have for the lesson (e.g. multiple choice vs. open response). Finally, for assessment purposes, your poll questions should relate to the learning outcomes of the lesson.

Poll Everywhere is a good option that allows students to respond with their own devices.

Evaluating student coursework for evidence of learning is perhaps the most authentic way of assessing information literacy. Of course, this requires collaboration with a faculty member. Two recommended ways of approaching this are to:

• Create your own rubric to evaluate student work. Ask your faculty partner to share student coursework from assignments that require demonstration of skills or knowledge of concepts taught in your instruction session(s). Requesting anonymous versions of the work may encourage buy-in. Use your rubric to assess evidence of information literacy. Refer to the RAILS site for guidance on developing IL rubrics. In the future, ACRL will also be adding Framework-based rubrics to the new Framework Sandbox.

• Ask your faculty partner to consider information literacy when they grading student coursework, and to share the results with you. If it is your first time providing instruction for a course, ask the faculty to consider whether or not they saw an improvement in the quality of work over previous semesters.

Pre- and post-quizzes can be administered to measure success in achieving desired learning outcomes. This method is one of the more direct ways of assessing learning, but it requires some extra work and buy-in from faculty partners. 

Sample Pre and Post Quizzes:

More Pre-Assessment Tools:

We use pre-assessment techniques both to gauge what the students already know and/or as a way of flipping the classroom and getting some instruction in before a session. This helps make the best use of in-class time.

• Flipped assignments:  students asked to search both an online reference tool and some subject-specific databases before class. The students email their information to both the library instructor and the faculty member who use it to understand the level of the students’ research skills and then gear the library instruction session accordingly.
   
• Tutorial & Quiz/Assignment Before Session:  Prior to the library instruction session, the students engage in one of our tutorials and corresponding assignment.  Assignments are submitted to the library instructor before the session.  The tutorial primes the students for the instruction session and enables the librarian to spend less time on demonstration and more on answering questions and having the students do their own searches.

Assignments for classroom use by instructors

• Purpose: Add these assignments to your classroom activities, assessments, or tutorials.
• Work with your liaison librarian: If you like, contact your liaison librarian. We will work with you to come up with best ways to incorporate them into a course.
• Formats: Editable PDFs that students can complete and upload to D2L.
• Related tutorials: These assignments build on concepts in our Tutorials for Information Literacy.

• Moving Through the Research Process: A detailed planning guide that takes students through all the steps of a research project.

• Plan Your Search Strategy: Guides students through the process of using keywords in a search strategy.

• Rethinking Your Search: Guides student through a process that helps refine and change a search that isn't working the first time.

• Following a Citation Trail: Guides students through the process of using relevant citations to find more articles.

• Practice Your Fact-Checking: Guides students through steps to evaluate the credibility of an online source.

• Be a Fact-Checker: Guides students through evaluating a popular (non-scholarly) source for possible use in a research paper.

• Analyzing & Integrating Scholarly Articles: Guides students through six steps to analyzing a scholarly article.

• Citing Your Sources in APA Format: With a citation of their choice, students learn to quote from it, paraphrase it, and add it to a reference list in APA format.

• Citing Your Sources in MLA Format: With a citation of their choice, students learn to quote from it, paraphrase it, and add it to a works cited page in MLA format.

• Identifying the Elements of a Citation: This online form asks students to identify correct elements to cite from videos, online music, social media, and more.