Week 3: Reflection -- Week 4: Reading Response

Week 3: Reflection

This week in class, we watched and discussed a few of our screencasts and discussed the information literacy articles we found and read before class.

Some of the positive points of our screencasting critiques included enthusiasm, suggestions of ways to use the tool, pacing, and clarity of instruction. Quite a few of us also learned of new tools from our classmates' screencasts. I definitely agree with my classmates that in that exercise, preparation was key, as well as the ability to edit my screencast.

Our discussion of the information literacy articles we had found and read revealed a huge breadth of investigations into information literacy, which makes sense considering the diversity of anticipated career paths in class. One point that seemed to figure into each small group discussion, however, was the need for collaboration - between faculty and librarians in academic libraries, between school and public librarians, and between public librarians and community members and organizations. The need for a library's patrons and community to recognize the value of the library and the services is especially important now, with many libraries facing continuing budget cuts, and the rapidly changing field of technology. We touched on the concepts of transliteracy, the ability to understand and communicate through many different media and platforms, and metaliteracy, (which I understand to be) a sort of unifying set of concepts that cross boundaries among multiple literacies to create a blueprint for understanding the information contained in different media environments.

Week 4: How People Learn, Ch. 6, and Sadler article

How People Learn, Ch. 6: The Design of Learning Environments

This chapter discusses learner-centered environments, knowledge-centered environments, assessment-centered environments, and community-centered environments and how they intersect and create a framework for learning. Along the way, formative assessment and the connection between educational television and student success are touched upon. Learner-centered environments build on prior knowledge to conceptualize new information, take into account the cultural norms of the students, and build connections between the language students use outside of the classroom and inside of the classroom. In a knowledge-centered environment, the curriculum begins with students' prior knowledge, as in a student-centered environment, but goes on to concentrate on the information that helps students to understand the subject, thinking critically about the information presented and seeking to understand in layers rather than just memorizing facts. Assessment-centered learning environments "provide opportunities for feedback and revision...congruent with one's learning goals." Formative and summative assessment both play a large part in these environment, though traditional assessment techniques frequently fail to measure deep understanding of the material, instead focusing on the memorization of facts and procedures. Community-centered environments encompass the classroom as community, the school as community, and the larger community to which the school belongs, including the global community. The ideal learning environment must balance all of these elements.

D. Royce Sadler, Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems. 1989.

Sadler focuses on the concepts and skills necessary for students and teachers to assess work qualitatively and make improvements. The nebulous nature of qualitative assessment makes the conceptualization of this process somewhat challenging, but Sadler breaks it down into manageable chunks. Formative assessment must include both feedback and self-monitoring. The concept of metacognition has come up in our readings before, and I'm sure it will again. Sadler emphasizes the importance and challenges of the student's understanding of what quality work is and the uselessness of comparisons among students, instead advocating the use of standards and exemplars to show high and low quality work. Students must take ownership of a goal to begin effectively evaluating their performance. One part of the article resonated particularly for me - the idea that "if the rate at which expectations are raised is consistently greater than the rate of improvement, the inability of the student to keep pace results in little or no sense of accomplishment even though improvement may actually be occurring."

Throughout both of these readings, I kept thinking how much sense all of this made, and how hard it can be to actually implement strategies informed by these concepts. At the same time, I'm not sure how many of these ideas would be implemented in the sort of short-term instructional environments most often found in library settings. I'm looking forward to class to hear what everyone else is thinking!