Week 2 Educative Assessment post

1. Forward-Looking Assessment

Since the course I'm working with is a gateway to upper-level Political Science courses, I hope the skills that students learn here will be applicable in other classes and beyond. Forward-looking assessment would be a great way for me to see if the skills might be transferable.  One skill that I am particularly hoping they develop is an understanding of different information types/formats and their usefulness in addressing different information needs.

To measure this, I could provide students with an assessment where they need to evaluate the usefulness of different information types in a real-world scenario as an in-class activity.  I've written an exercise below that is represntative of what I have in mind (though it may take some re-wording or re-thinking).

Scenario given to students:

You are an employee with the Foreign Service recently transferred to the office that manages relationships with Hungary. This region of the world is outside of your area of expertise, and you want to understand Hungarian peoples' attitudes toward to their government to help you better do your job.

Assessment:

1. Identify two resources you would find most useful improving your understanding:

1. A World Bank report on trade in Europe
2. Results from the most recent elections to Hungary's National Assembly
3. A book on revolutions and governance in Central and Europe since World War II
4. A literature review of educational attainment and job satisfaction surveys in Hungary
5. A memoir of a Hungarian survivor of the Holocaust

2.  In a few sentences, please describe why the sources you chose might help you understand the people of Hungary's attitudes towards their government.

[Note: Resources 2 & 3 most directly and completely answer address the information need. The election results are a primary source with current and relevant bearing on the question of attitude towards government. A book on revolutions and changes to systems of government help to contextualize the current political landscape.]

2. Criteria & Standards

I could develop criteria related to my forward-looking assessment that would serve to assess students' performance on that task and their understanding of different information types. The criteria and standards might also later serve as a way to measure their incorporation of resources into the paper they write for Intro to Political Inquiry.

Criteria 1 (related to question 1): How well did the student identify the resources best suited to the information need?

Standard Levels: 
Beginning: Student identified neither of the two most suitable resources from the forward-looking assessment scenario.
Emerging: Student correctly identified one of the two most suitable resources
Proficient: Student correctly identified both of the most suitable resources


Criteria 2 (for question 2): How well did the student describe their reasoning in choosing those sources?

Standard Levels:
Beginning: Student's description of how they chose their resources is absent or does not provide criteria for resource selection.
Emerging: Student's partially describes their process or criteria for resource selection or adequately describes the selection of one resource.
Proficient: Student adequately describes criteria for resource selection.

[I recognize that my second criteria needs some work. I need to be clearer about what is expected at each level]

3. Self-Assessment

The second question in my forward-looking assessment asks students to describe their rationale for the answers they chose, which will hopefully help them to be reflective on their own understanding of the content. After submitting their responses, students could be given time to compare with classmates, too, as a way to further investigate, defend, and reflect on their choices.

With cooperation from their professor, I may be able to ask students to write up a similar reflection on the sources they included in the bibliography for their Intro to Political Inquiry final paper.

4. FIDeLity Feedback: 

Frequent: As it's currently structured, the current library interaction is one-shot, so there may only be one chance for feedback.

Immediate: I am imagining responses to the forward-looking assessment exercise being submitted through Google Forms or a quiz module in the Learning Management System. Feedback for the first question could be immediate, and feedback on the second question could be provided within a day of the session.

Discriminating: Using the criteria and standards developed in Question 2 above, the feedback would be discriminating and give students an indication of their place on a 'Beginning', 'Emerging', and 'Proficient' scale.

Loving: Raising student awareness of the library and increasing the level of comfort with library services is a major goal of mine. One way to create a strong level of comfort with students will be to provide encouraging feedback and genuine care for the students so that they consider me a source of help in the future.