3. agenda
1. The Frames: Backward Design &
Information Literacy
2. Outcomes
3. Evidence
4. Assignments (Strategies)
5. Evaluating Student Work
6. What’s Your Take-Away?
4. Part 1 – The Frames:
Backward Design
&
Information Literacy
5. w i g g i n s & m c t i g h e
c o n c e p t s & c o n t e n t
s t r a t e g i e s
o u t c o m e s
T Y P I C A L D E S I G N
6. w i g g i n s & m c t i g h e
o u t c o m e s
e v i d e n c e
s t r a t e g i e s
B A C K W A R D D E S I G N
7. w i g g i n s & m c t i g h e
B A C K W A R D D E S I G N
8. I N F O R M A T I O N L I T E R A C Y @ C C L
Information Literacy at the Claremont Colleges: Engaging Critical
Habits of Mind
Information literacy is the ability to use critical thinking to create
meaningful knowledge from information. The information literate
Claremont Colleges student:
• Engages in a process of inquiry in order to frame intellectual
challenges and identify research needs;
• Accesses, evaluates, and communicates information effectively;
• Provides attribution for source materials used;
• And develops insight into the social, legal, economic, and ethical
aspects of information creation, use, access, and durability.
9. Critical Habits of Mind
1 Inquiry - interpreting assignments, developing a research strategy,
questions, and thesis to facilitate strategic information discovery and access,
research tool and source selection
2 Evaluation - resource analysis, inference, and revision of research strategy
3 Communication - synthesis, integration, contextualization, use, and
presentation of evidence in scholarship and creative work
4 Attribution - providing clear source documentation in writing as well as
media and other non-textual work in order to engage in a scholarly
conversation
5 Insight - critical understanding of the social, legal, economic, and ethical
aspects of information creation, use, access, and durability
I N F O R M A T I O N L I T E R A C Y @ C C L
13. • Students will know major themes of the American
West, such as migration and settlement
• Students will engage with major scholarship on the
period
• Students will practice basics of historical research
methods
WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS FOR YOUR STUDENTS?
14. When students enter class...
• They don't know the history of the period
• They don't know how to find scholarship on the
American West
• They don't know the important scholars of
American West or the major arguments
• They don’t know historical research methods
WHY WOULD THESE GOALS
BE DIFFICULT FOR STUDENTS TO ACHIEVE?
15. What do we want
our students to
BE ABLE TO DO?
L E A R N I N G O U T C O M E S
16. L E A R N I N G O U T C O M E S
• Specific
• Observable
• Measurable
• Completed by the learner
17. • Demonstrate their understanding of
historical research methods
• Develop an argument in response to the
ideas of one of the authors read in class
regarding the uniqueness of the American
experience
WHAT DO YOU WANT STUDENTS
TO BE ABLE TO DO?
18. Develop an argument in response to the ideas of one
of the authors read in class regarding the uniqueness
of the American experience
Students will be able to
• Clearly define the expectations of the assignment
• Engage with the ideas of scholars
• Evaluate sources and determine their appropriateness to the
assignment
• Revise the question based on the scholarly conversation and
determine a reasonable argument
• Select appropriate support scholarship based on the final
question and argument
• Integrate their own and scholarly ideas into an effective
argument
USEFUL OUTCOMES ARE SPECIFIC OUTCOMES
20. HOW WILL WE KNOW
if our students understand
the big picture?
if our students have achieved
specific learning outcomes?
E V I D E N C E
21. E V I D E N C E
• Observable
• Measurable
• Action verbs
• Not necessarily text-based
C H A R A C T E R I S T I C S
22. NOT
the assignment itself
OR
a specific measurement of
how much students have achieved
or how well students have done
E V I D E N C E
23. BROAD OUTCOME
Develop an argument in response to the ideas of one
of the authors read in class regarding the uniqueness
of the American experience
SPECIFIC LEARNING OUTCOME
• Students will be able to engage with the ideas of scholars.
EVIDENCE
• Students will correctly cite secondary scholarly sources not
assigned in class.
• Students will use sources that are consistently appropriate
to their argument.
E X A M P L E O U T C O M E + E V I D E N C E
24. Learning Outcomes
What we want students to be able to do
Evidence
Observable, measurable indicators that students
have achieved a learning outcome
Research Assignments
Activities that guide students to produce evidence
VIEWING THE PIECES IN CONTEXT
29. WHAT IS SCAFFOLDING?
• A temporary structure used to support
people and material in the construction or
repair of buildings and other large
structures. It is usually a modular system.
• The sequential support given during the
learning process with the intention of
helping students achieve learning outcomes.
30. WHY USE SCAFFOLDING?
Scaffolding…
• Explicitly identifies everything students should do to
complete the assignment.
• Allows for more intervention at the point where it’s
most useful.
• Creates assignments that build on one another.
• Ensures that students include all the steps you want to
see.
• Increases consistency in grading since students will be
less likely to take the assignment in different directions
based on their individual interpretations of what they
think they are supposed to do.
31. What if you want your
students to do research, but
you don’t plan to assign a
research paper?
33. Learning Outcomes
What we want students to be able to do
Evidence
Observable, measurable indicators that students
have achieved a learning outcome
Research Assignments
Activities that guide students to produce evidence
Evaluating Student Work
Measures extent/quality of student achievement
VIEWING THE PIECES IN CONTEXT
35. How do you evaluate
students’ research skills?
36. is conducted during the
course and provides
information useful in
improving or shaping student
learning.
F O R M A T I V E A S S E S S M E N T
37. occurs at the end of an
instructional unit or course
and measures the extent to
which students have achieved
the desired learning
outcomes.
S U M M A T I V E A S S E S S M E N T
39. INDIVIDUAL OUTCOMES
• Develop an appropriate research
question
• Engage with the ideas of
scholars
• Revise the question based on
the scholarly conversation and
determine a reasoned argument
• Select appropriate support
scholarship based on the final
question and argument
• Integrate your own and scholars'
ideas into an effective argument
• Attribute sources appropriately,
be consistent in using
bibliographic style
OUTCOMES GROUPED
• Make a reasonable
argument/claim
• Evaluate/select
appropriate sources
• Effectively integrate
and synthesize sources
to support
argument/claim
Building a Rubric – Outcomes
40. • Evaluate/select
appropriate sources
• Initial
-- Sources chosen seem random,
only direct quotations are cited,
and citation style is inconsistent.
• Emerging
-- Most sources are appropriate to
the argument. Occasional missteps
in citation make some sources
difficult to identify.
• Developed
-- Sources are consistently
appropriate to the argument and
are cited correctly.
Evidence in Rubric
41. Developing a Rubric
Outcomes Level
Initial - 1 Emerging - 2 Developed - 3
Make a reasonable
argument/claim
Evaluate/select
appropriate sources
Sources chosen
seem random, only
direct quotations
are cited, and
citations are
inconsistent.
Most sources are
appropriate to the
argument. Some
missteps in citation
make some sources
difficult to identify.
Sources are
consistently
appropriate to the
argument and are
cited correctly.
Effectively integrate
and synthesize
sources to support
claim
43. Learning Outcomes
What we want students to be able to do
Evidence
Observable, measurable indicators that students
have achieved a learning outcome
Research Assignments
Activities that guide students to produce evidence
Evaluating Student Work
Measures extent/quality of student achievement
B R I N G I N G I T A L L T O G E T H E R
Editor's Notes
I would also like to welcome you and ask that you introduce yourselves, your college and department, and perhaps a little about the course you’ll be thinking about in today’s workshop.
Here’s a brief overview of what you can expect in today’s workshop. As you can see, here and on the agenda in your notebooks, we’ll be covering a variety of topics. Using the frame of backward design, you’ll be developing learning outcomes, evidence, assignments, and assessments. Our presentations will focus on student learning in the frame of information literacy. We know that there are also other frames that you will be thinking about as you work through this process: for example, course content and effective writing. But backward design and information literacy are the 2 frames we’ll emphasize today. Throughout the workshop you’ll have several opportunities to ask questions and work individually on your course assignments.
This is just an example of an outcome that you might want to see in student writing. If you were going to translate this into outcomes related to information literacy, what would this look like?
“Establishing stakes,” taking into account what kind of scaffolding needs to happen
Publishable quality
The “big picture”
These specific learning outcomes = what you want to have in mind
So you’ve identified your learning outcomes and the evidence that will let you know students have learned. Finally, you are ready to think about the assignments you want your students to do to provide that evidence.
As this slide illustrates, learning outcomes provide the base from which evidence and assignments develop.
For example, in a library workshop with students, one of my LOs might be that students can create an effective database search query from their topic/question. Strategy following instruction: ask each student to write a search statement for their topic on the board.
See scaffolding handout, with Bean list of difficulties.
One of the challenges for students is to clearly understand and accomplish all aspects of an assignment. And if they don’t accomplish all those pieces, then you don’t have the evidence you want to know whether or not they have learned what you wanted them to learn.
Scaffolding assignments so students must go through the appropriate steps in the process and not just turn in a single finished product can make a lot of difference in their success
The scaffolding handout offers a suggested sequence for scaffolding assignments in the research process. There are many different options, depending on the evidence you want to see that reflects student learning.
And as you think about scaffolding a sequence of assignments, also think about the various places in that process where support from a librarian might be especially valuable for your students.
There may be times when you don’t want to assign a formal research paper or project, yet you want students to be able to situate their thinking on an issue within a scholarly conversation. Consider an alternative assignment that asks students to demonstrate some of the same learning. The alternative assignments handout offers several ideas.
Although we often think that assessment means grading and comes at the end, assessment is most valuable for students if it comes throughout the learning process and can help them focus on improving in areas where they are weak. This can also guide your day-to-day planning when you see things that many students seem to be struggling with.
You may assess evidence that students have achieved your LOs in a variety of ways. Back to my example with search statements—my assessment won’t carry a grade, but I will observe levels of success and point out some search statements that look especially effective and ask for fixes for some that have problems. This
For those assignments that you will grade, it’s very valuable to plan your assessment at the same time you determine the evidence you want to see and the assignments that will allow you to observe the learning. That can be as simple as notes to yourself on what an A/B/C/D will mean for each LO/evidence, to something as forma and sophisticated as a rubric.