1. Fall 2011
Assessment of
Information
Literacy
Learning

2. What is assessment?
• Definition
– Assessment is the process of identifying,
gathering and interpreting information about
students’ learning. The central purpose of
assessment is to provide information on
student achievement and progress and set the
direction for ongoing teaching and learning.
– Assessment provides information for those
involved in the teaching and learning process
to compare what is known and can be
demonstrated against standards.

3. Why assess learning?
• To find out if they get what we’ve
tried to teach them
• To find out if we taught them well
enough
• To find ways of improving our
teaching
• Other reasons?

4. Principle of Assessment
• Supporting learning
• Assessment supports learning by
focusing on the process of children
and young people moving from
where they are in their learning
towards their desired goals.
Assessment can also be used to
identify and plan any support they
will need to achieve these goals.
• Principles of assessment

5. Forms of assessment
• Assessment takes many forms
in schools and classrooms:
– Formal and informal observation and
discussion with students
– Formal assessment tasks
– Formative monitoring and adjustment of
teaching
– Summative assessment at key points
– Comparing evidence of achievement with other
students
– Comparing evidence of achievement against
syllabus standards

6. The fundamentals of effective
assessment
• The British National Union of
Students presents its principles:

7. More principles of effective
assessment

8. Despite what it says about its use in higher education, this
document contains a good summary of what assessment is all
about!

9. Is Assessment in an LMC effective?
• Practice does not fit theory:
– Theoretically, the level of involvement
in planning, teaching, and assessment
should be no less than a partnership
with other educators. However, the
current practice of the instructional
(including assessment) and curriculum
roles in many school library media
centers does not reflect the present
theoretical and epistemological
expectations of assessment in school
librarianship articulated in professional
literature and national guidelines . . .
– Thinking beyond the Disjunctive Opposition of
Information Literacy Assessment in Theory and
Practice School Library Media Research,
vol. 7, 2004

10. What’s the problem?
• Impediments:
– Lack of time
– Role perception conflict
– Lack of teacher interest in
cooperation
– Too many students to serve
• Thinking beyond the Disjunctive Opposition of
Information Literacy Assessment in Theory and
Practice
– Others?

11. What is Authentic Assessment?
• Definitions
– A form of assessment in which students
are asked to perform real-world tasks
that demonstrate meaningful application
of essential knowledge and skills -- Jon
Mueller
– “. . . Engaging and worthy problems or
questions of importance, in which
students must use knowledge to fashion
performances effectively and creatively.
The tasks are either replicas of or
analogous to the kinds of problems faced
by adult citizens and consumers or
professionals in the field.” -- Grant
Wiggins -- (Wiggins, 1993, p. 229).

12. What Roles Can Library Media
Center Staff Play in Assessment
Development?
• Work with classroom teachers to
develop learning goals and standards
• Develop resources and assessment
tasks for classroom teachers
• Design your own assessments

13. The Co-Role of the LMS
• Expanding the assignment and creating
a learning environment that allows
authentic learning activities to become
possible
• Facilitat[ing] the activity with the
teacher so that many learning
environments can be made available to
students
• Provid[ing] input and evidence in the
evaluation of the students[’] ability to
process information into meaningful
communication
– Authentic Assessment by Daniel Callison, School
Library Media Activities Monthly 14, no. 5 (January
1998).

14. Types of authentic assessment
1. Observations:
– checklists of desired behaviors,
rubrics that identify criteria for
successful performance and describe
different levels of performance, and
rating scales that place levels of
performance along a continuum.
• From Working Smarter: Being Strategic About
Assessment and Accountability by Violet H.
Harada, based on Ann Davies, Making
Classroom Assessment Work

15. Types of authentic assessment
2. Products:
– checklists that list criteria for
proficiency, rubrics that describe
various levels of proficiency, and
graphic organizers that organize
and synthesize students’ work.
• From Working Smarter: Being Strategic
About Assessment and Accountability by
Violet H. Harada, based on Ann Davies,
Making Classroom Assessment Work

16. Types of authentic assessment
3. Conversations:
– formal and informal conferences,
logs to record thoughts and feelings
about the content and process, and
notes and letters to self-assess and
seek feedback.
• From Working Smarter: Being Strategic About
Assessment and Accountability by Violet H.
Harada, based on Ann Davies, Making
Classroom Assessment Work

17. Creating rubrics
• Ultimately, a good rubric is a
promise to the learner that the
elements outlined in the rubric are
the valued, and therefore gradable,
elements.
• When developing a rubric, I
encourage my graduate students to
think about the areas in which they
would like the student to develop
proficiencies and then articulate
how they will know that the student
has developed these proficiencies.
– Building Rubrics into Powerful
Learning Assessment Tools

18. Authentic Assessment?
• School Librarianship Exam
– Time: 3hrs
1. Explain how you would amuse 478 small,
wet children for 57 minutes on a rainy
lunchtime . . .
2. Your principal has instructed you to
improve library usage rates amongst the
maths classes within the next 2 weeks.
3. Create a poster that explains how senior
students can have fun in the library.
4. An irate parent confronts you with a
complaint regarding a lost book, and
pulls a knife on you.
– Warrior Librarian Gold Edition 2001

19. How did
you do?