Week 7--Bonus

Assessment Principles and Practice in the School Library

Hosp, J. L., and S. P. Ardoin. "Assessment for Instructional Planning." Assessment for Effective Intervention 33.2 (2008): 69-77. Sage Journals Online. Hammill Institute on Disabilities, Mar. 2008. Web. 22 Feb. 2011. .

“The skills that are assessed are teachable. A skill is teachable when it is possible to design instruction that will increase a student’s performance of that skill. For example, it is possible to teach a student to read more quickly or with expression. It is not possible to teach a student to be taller” (p.71).

This sentence captured the essence of why I want to become a media specialist. There are so many skills that media specialists can teach students that will give them skills that they will use for the rest of their lives. These skills are very measurable and unlock information to any interest they have.

Imparting library skills on students is easy to create activities for, easy to scaffold and can be remediated as needed. When looking at the three reasons students perform poorly on page 72, my brain continuously fired away thinking of ways to motivate students and instill perquisite skills necessary to do the work. For example, a library scavenger hunt may be very exciting for an elementary school student but would probably get a big eye roll from an 8th grader. By midway through 7th grade students are motivated by learning tricks that help them streamline research projects. As students move to high school they may need more involved library skills, which is a great way to show them the benefits of tools such as interlibrary loan and worldcat.org. At each level instilling these skills will build the necessary scaffolding for the student to master the next level of skill.

The other exciting aspect of teaching library skills is that students are allowed to show their mastery through doing rather than taking a test or writing an essay (although there are times when writing an essay about using the library might be a great assessment). Library skills also lend themselves to the development of interventions because a library is a place where each search is new. The librarian can always assist the student in modifying his or her search or to expose the student to ways to connect information.

As I continually assess where I am going as a teacher, I become excited when think of the ways I can help students increase their knowledge. Although it is still a goal far in the future, I am always picturing ways to make the library usable for students. As an adult the constant assessment of how I am doing will allow me to better assess what my students are learning.