Our latest Plug & Play Meeting in the Harvard College Library (yesterday) featured Cassandra Volpe Horii (Bok Center for Teaching and Learning) and Katie Vale (Academic Technology Group) discussing “Learning Assessment Tools & Techniques. ” Susan Gilroy (Lamont Library, HCL) discussed some early findings from focus groups with Harvard undergraduates as part of the Project Information Literacy study. Fantastic presentations all around!
Agenda:
Learning Assessment Tools & Techniques
“With all the buzz about (and demand for) assessment these days, it’s easy to rush headlong into data collection without first defining our purposes. To address this problem, we’ll develop a framework of inquiry as the guiding force behind intelligent assessment and use it to generate sound assessment questions. We’ll also demonstrate how to relate questions to specific and measurable learning outcomes, and give examples. Finally, we’ll discuss how to select appropriate assessment tools and techniques that are aligned with one’s questions and objectives, and showcase examples that range from low-tech and in-the-moment, to quantitative survey methods, to qualitative analysis techniques assisted by technology.”
Project Information Literacy
Project Information Literacy is a two year, multi-phase national study based at the University of Washington’s Information School. Its goal is to investigate the ways undergraduates on different college campuses conduct research for course work but also how they seek answers to the “everyday research” questions that arise in their daily lives. Harvard was selected to participate in the first phase and on October 28. Lamont Library will host two focus groups, led by PIL’s principal investigator, Dr. Alison J. Head. In this short presentation, we’ll review what the researchers asked and what the students revealed. We’ll also tell you what we learned by watching how pros get focus groups done.
About PnP
Plug and Play, hosted by the Harvard College Library, is a monthly gathering of Harvard librarians, campus technologists, faculty, students and invited guests interested in discussing current/emerging teaching, learning, and research technologies in libraries. Visit PnP online (Harvard access only): http://hcl.harvard.edu/plugplay
This PnP workshop sounds enlightening! I hope to hear more about it.