Help students evaluate their own learning ~ Using constructive feedback in library instruction Jill Nathanson Mei Ling Lo

Background English 201: Research in the Disciplines  Writing program: English 201: Research in the Disciplines  Over 100 sections per year; over 1000 students each semester (both in-person and hybrid)  Libraries previously tailored guides to each discipline/topic and provided multiple sessions  Duplication of effort in libraries and no standard instruction for students

Flipping the Classroom  Initial library learning outside of the library classroom  One library guide, organized by steps in the research process  Videos and reinforcing activities  Students should have some library background prior to library session  Library session focused on hands on searching Note: Flipped classroom learning could occur in writing classroom with professor or on students’ own time.

Demo

Reinforcing Activities  Designed to reinforce concepts in videos and on each page of the library guide  Separate Word documents that need to be opened and followed BUT Initial feedback showed that the word documents were considered mundane and boring. They weren’t used in class or assigned The instructors and the students did not understand why the answers they had picked were not the best answers

Time for a Change  Reinforcing activities need to be:  Interactive  Enjoyable  Educational  Designed to provide immediate feedback to students  Not meant for assessment feedback that is useful, positive, encouraging and easy to understand Constructive feedback

We avoid using the words such as “assignment”, “quiz” or “assessment”.

Initial Activities – Fall 2014

demo Goal: To provide real-time constructive feedback upon selecting an answer The questions are scenario based. They are based on our interactions with the students.

Is it scholarly? Let’s find out…

To Assess or Not to Assess  Didn’t want students to think they were being graded  Wanted to encourage students to select answers even if they thought they might be wrong  The activities could have been done in a group setting  Wasn’t sure how to manage data from multiple sections and possibly from students outside of these classes

Benefits  Assessment data would have shown us areas where students were struggling  Data by section could help adjust what was taught in that particular section  Overall data could lead to changes in videos and the library guide

Changes for the future  Gather usage information  Collect overall results  Consider having students submit section numbers  Use the videos and the quizzes for student workers in the libraries

What software did we use to create the quizzes? Adobe Captivate claims that it supports HTML 5 in addition to Flash format. HTML 5: Are we there yet? Over the past 3-4 years, browsers have adopted HTML5 features at different speeds

Are there other options?

Allow results to be submitted using SCORM standard, It does not allow lengthy feedback, other than “correct”, “incorrect” etc.

Allows multiple choice, fill in the blank, short answers, true/false questions No drag and drop, hotspot questions

immediate-feedback

Questions? Comments? Thank you Jill Nathanson Mei Ling Lo