Assessment

Because I agree with Wiggins and McTighe that "understanding is about wise performance - transfer and use of big ideas" (250) I definitely believe that assessment is a core part of educational design. And assessment refers not just to teachers/librarians putting an arbitrary grade on work, but perhaps more importantly assessment is measured best by students' self-assessment - their reflection not just on what they learned, but on how it applies to past and future learnings, and also their reflection on the entire learning process and how they best learn (in order to ensure that they become Bruce-defined "informed learners.")

Wiggins and McTighe write, "Effective assessment is more like a scrapbook of mementos and pictures than a single snapshot. Rather than using a single test, of one type, at the end of teaching, effective teacher-assessors gather lots of evidence along the way, using a variety of methods and formats" (152). Thinking of assessment in this way opens the door for teacher librarian involvement in everyday curriculum. Libraries can be an ideal part of the school community for "outside-the-box" approaches to assessment that call on assessment projects that do more than simply quiz students on what they've learned. The high school TL I work with as part of my school fieldwork is a model for how to build assessment tools for library research that also tie in with larger class learning activities. By demonstrating an ability to create valuable assessment tools, a TL can instill in teacher's the idea that librarians are educators too, and can instill in student's the idea that their is something of value to be learned and reflected on in the library.

Students Must Form Their Own Understandings

It seems from both the McTighe and Wiggins readings, and from Bruce, that what is important in understanding information, that we as teachers should strive for with our students, is getting students to understand what their needs are in understanding information. Are they, as Bruce would classify them, "cyclic," "sequential," or "simultaneous" (63) and how does this affect how they gather and process information? McTighe and Wiggins suggest ways of framing questions that allow students to look within and find answers that will lead to their ultimate understandings. Also, work should be assessed in a non black and white fashion - students shouldn't be led to believe that they are "right" or "wrong" but instead should be given clear analysis of their work that continues to ask them questions.

This idea of essential questions is particularly intriguing to me as it begins to point me in a direction of first of all, how to better engage students with questions that will interest them, but also how to frame lesson plans around essential questions that lead to students' own understandings of materials.

Both Bruce's and McTighe and Wiggins' discussions of understanding through engaging students in their own learning experience supplement the AASL standards well. To me, the AASL standards are a decent launch pad for getting teachers/librarians to understand what is needed to qualify a student as "information literate" but they are also easy to gloss over and in terms of assessment, could easily fall into the traps that McTighe and Wiggins' describe - where students are able to complete work successfully, but don't form a lasting impression/understanding of what they've accomplished. But thinking about how to frame the standards with essential questions, projects that engage them at every turn and form broader understandings, and assessment that makes them reflect on what they've learned can help not just define information literacy, but create information literate students.

Information Literacy - Mea Culpa

One of the biggest biases that exists in approaching "information literacy" in the 21st century is that information literacy somehow refers to simply how to best use the internet, web 2.0, whatever other new technology has come along. I myself have been guilty of throwing the term "information literacy" around and meaning only teaching students how to search databases beyond google. But as I'm developing my own lesson plans in my school fieldwork this semester, and, more importantly, teaching students, I'm learning that "information literacy" means so much more. As Wiggins and McTighe would put it - focusing on only the new technologies side of information literacy is looking at only the basic ideas, and not delving into the core of what information literacy is.

The best definition of information literacy I've found, that helps me uncover the big ideas about information literacy, is from the ACRL. They state that information literacy “is an intellectual framework for understanding, finding, evaluating and using information -- activities which may be accomplished in part by fluency with information technology, in part by sound investigative methods, but most important, through critical discernment and reasoning” (emphasis mine). To me, its the critical reasoning that students put to practice on what they learn that makes them information literate. To know how to create a website, for example, is one step forward, but understanding when a website will best express their ideas, or when it becomes more than a lot of cool stuff but instead is a perfect expression of what they've learned and are trying to teach others, that's when a student is information literate.

But that being said, as Bruce points out, "Today's digital or virtual environments make it harder for people to be 'information savvy'" (16). So ignoring the way that technology influences learning is equally dangerous and focusing too much on the basics. The key is to find the common ground between being information literate and being technically literate - to plan lessons that draw on the core idea that students need to know how to navigate through information and critically analyze it using the latest technology. I think the AASL standards are a great launchpad for teachers/librarians to approaching this merging of big ideas. They focus in on the importance of simply understanding how to understand what you're learning, but also put an emphasis on the needed skills of 21st century learners.