Constructivist Pedagogy
Teaching for Transferability
- More specifically, I have what educational discourse calls a constructivist approach. Instead of imagining that students show up to campus as empty vessels waiting to be filled with knowledge, a constructivist understands that students bring many tools, lenses, and mental maps with them, then tries to recognize, build from, or refine what students already do.
- As part of that constructivist approach, I create opportunities for students to reflect on what they're doing, the assumptions it might involve, how effective it seems to be, and what other approaches might lead to better outcomes. Encouraging this type of deliberate reflection, sometimes called metacognition, helps students subsequently transfer their learning to a wide range of situations.
CWI's Research Basics Badges
Context
"Flipped" instruction
Baseline knowledge
Portability improves student experience
Nearly 45,000 badges earned between Jan. 2017—Mar. 2021
Okay! Having given you a sampling of my background and general approach, let's move on to my process for creating and assessing a multimedia learning object. Here is CWI Library's Research Basics badge set. I'll explain how we developed this set, then detail what I revised after we assessed its efficacy. The instruction need this addresses is the baseline knowledge needed to successfully use the library.
- We chose a "flipped" model of instruction, in which students encounter material before an in-class session, then build from that knowledge through practice during the in-class session.
- Prior to creating these badges, we provided formal instruction almost entirely during face-to-face sessions. We worked most frequently with 3 courses: Communications 101, English 102, and our first-semester course, CWI 101. 2 of these courses had small research components—one for a speech and the other for a paper—but none of these courses is a prerequisite for the other. Some students take all three in their first semester, and some take them years apart. This created a frustrating student experience, since we needed to repeat the baseline knowledge for each session. We can't control student enrollment from within the library, but we could control when students encounter these foundational parts of library instruction. By moving the basics outside of class time, we decreased unproductive repetition and made time for increased depth of instruction and active learning.
- The badges have been widely adopted
CWI's Research Basics Badges
Content
"Crossed the Threshold"
"Source Sifter" (formerly "Website Crusher")
"Found It!"
"Asked a Librarian"
Now let's talk a bit more about the actual content of these various badges.
- CtT is an overall introduction to library services, resources, and staff
- FI demonstrates fundamentals of where and how to search for books and articles
- SS / WC aims to provide students with tools and strategies to effectively evaluate sources
- AaL addresses library anxiety by having students actually contact the library for a secret password. This lets students actively practice contacting us before they recognize that they need help. It hopefully also addresses the student experience of believing that "asking for help" indicates individual weakness rather than showing that you are committed to learning. Many students arrive on campus with a deficit mindset rather than an assets-based or growth mindset, and this is one way that we hope to intervene in that aspect of the overall student experience.
CWI's Research Basics Badges
Development
ADDIE Model
A nalysisD esignD evelopmentI mplementationE valuation
Angiah L. Davis. Using instructional design principles to develop effective information literacy instruction: The ADDIE model C&RL News , Vol 74, No 4, 2013.
Although I can't be sure we used this precise acronym back in 2016, we worked with our Center for Teaching and Learning's instructional designers and basically followed the ADDIE model as we developed the Research Basics Badge set.
- Analysis of instructional problem
- Design of instructional strategies and activities
- Development of content and assessments, including selecting appropriate technologies
- Implementation, including testing prototypes and actual Instruction
- Evaluation, both formative (to measure during instruction) and summative (to measure after instruction)
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CWI's Research Basics Badges
Details
ADDIE Model
Analysis : Foundations without frustrationsDesign : "Flipped" model & in-class activitiesDevelopment : Blackboard for portabilityImplementation : Tested prototypes with library student workersEvaluation : Currently emphasize summative evaluation
Angiah L. Davis. Using instructional design principles to develop effective information literacy instruction: The ADDIE model C&RL News , Vol 74, No 4, 2013.
- Analysis: As I've described before, our main problem was how to get students to build foundational library skills without experiencing it as frustratingly unproductive repetition
- Design: We chose a flipped model with a range of multimedia content followed by in-class activities that would address the assignments of different courses, as well as some relevant elements of the ACRL Framework. For instance, with the Communications class, we worked through the information lifecycle, explaining that "information creation is a process." We also discussed selecting popular sources for the assigned speech. With the English class, we worked through searching for articles and understanding scholarly peer-review. Our activities particularly referenced "searching as strategic exploration," "scholarship as conversation," as well as "authority is constructed and contextual."
- Development: We briefly considered platforms outside of our Learning Management System, like Mozilla's "Open Badges" project. Ultimately we decided on Blackboard based on overall ease of use, likelihood of professor adoption, and portability across courses at CWI.
- Implementation: We asked some of our library student workers for feedback on prototypes. In particular, we asked them to take the quizzes to make sure that the questions were phrased appropriately.
- Evaluation: At the moment, formative evaluation only happens within the badges to the extent that a student reflects on their own learning as we pose questions to them. Learning is measured by the quiz at the end. This is partially due to technological constraints of Blackboard, and partially due to our initial emphasis on having in-class activities. In the future, I'd hope to use H5P interactive elements for formative assessment, particularly as we've noticed that professors will assign the badges for classes without an accompanying in-class instruction session.
Source Evaluation Badge
"Website Crusher" (original version)
Video posing the problem
Present using Wikipedia as a springboard
Present CRAAP Test as an evaluative model
Demonstrate applying the CRAAP Test
Quiz
Here's an overview of the original badge on source evaluation, which I revised heavily after our assessment project. It used the CRAAP Test as our model for source evaluation. This badge continued using a scenario established before I arrived to CWI, presenting students the imagined context of writing a speech on immigration to the United States. This was a common topic at the time for student speeches and papers. The "teaching the conflicts" has been well-established in writing courses since at least 1993, when Gerald Graff wrote a book encouraging it. The assessment that we've done suggests to me that there are crucial differences between what students retain from semester-long courses and individual library learning objects or instruction sessions. So if I were to create an entirely new badge as of today, I'd avoid building it around any controversial topic that an individual students is likely to experience.
Source Evaluation Badge
Overall Assessment Process
IRB approved study of student learning
"Badgers" & "Non-Badgers"
Quantitative & Qualitative
Screencast of search, then "think aloud" interview
Scored selected sources according to rubric
Coded interviews according to CRAAP facets
How did we perform assessment? For this particular set of learning objects, we worked as a team. We designed a study of student learning and received IRB approval. We selected students enrolled in our first-semester course, then divide them into groups whose classes assign the badges and those who have not been assigned them. It's designed for both quantitative and qualitative assessment of the learning outcomes. We present a student with two research scenarios for hypothetical course assignments, then have the provided computer record a screencast of their search process. After they're done searching, we conducted a "think aloud" interview in which they narrate their process and describe their mental strategies. We created a rubric based on how aspects of the Information Literacy VALUE Rubric could appear for these particular prompts, then scored the students' sources according to the rubric. Finally, we created transcripts of the interviews and coded them according to the facets of the CRAAP Test.
Source Evaluation Badge
Overall Assessment Findings
Quantitative
Some notable gains, less impact in others
Greatest increase in "Reflects awareness of library value"
"Badgers" also more likely to seek out sources through library
No distinction between "badgers" and "non-badgers" regarding source evaluation
What did we find? I don't have time to go into all the details, but we did find some clear patterns.
Source Evaluation Badge
Overall Assessment Findings
Qualitative
Students referred to concepts like credibility or accuracy, but could not effectively apply these concepts
Students struggled to determine credibility and authority
Students seemed motivated by what "caught their eye"
CRAAP facets devolved into a "checklist" of speaking points, not practiced as an evaluation strategy
Unfortunately, our qualitative assessment convinced us that the source evaluation instruction wasn't preparing students to actually perform improved evaluation and selection. I do want to stress that this doesn't mean that the CRAAP facets are to be avoided in instruction, but just that we found that, at least for students in our first-semester course, teaching the CRAAP facets as a test was not sufficient to have students apply those criteria.
Source Evaluation Badge
Source Sifter (created in 2019)
ADDIE Model
Analysis : Source evaluationDesign : Researched emerging models for source evaluation, then selected Mike Caulfield's SIFT MovesDevelopment : Discussed SIFT with faculty and testing model by applying it to known sourcesImplementation : Tested prototypes with studentsEvaluation : Summative
Angiah L. Davis. Using
instructional design principles to develop effective information literacy instruction: The ADDIE
model C&RL News , Vol 74, No 4, 2013.
Here's a quick account of how I applied the ADDIE model to address what we found through our assessment. It currently retains the topic of immigration, mostly because the evaluation process was very clear with some sources that would show up prominently in Google searches at the time. Again, were I to create an entirely new multimedia learning object today, I'd avoid topics that might involve individual student identities or controversial situations.
Source Evaluation Badge
Source Sifter (created in 2019)
Overview of the content, describing learning outcomes and intended time to complete
Source Evaluation Badge
Source Sifter (created in 2019)
1. Google Slides introducing the SIFT Moves, a model that emphasizes lateral searching and recognizes impact of information overwhelm
Source Evaluation Badge
Source Sifter (created in 2019)
2. Two pages with infographics:
Source Evaluation Badge
Source Sifter (created in 2019)
Link to a screenreader-accessible equivalent for the infographicsMaking Images Accessible guide for infographic accessibility
Source Evaluation Badge
Source Sifter (created in 2019)
3. Video demonstrating how to actually apply the SIFT Moves, starting with Google, using the Google Preview feature, using Wikipedia for lateral source evaluation, and considering consensus views of a source when forming your own evaluation
Source Evaluation Badge
Source Sifter (created in 2019)
4. Quiz for summary evaluation, with questions targeted to misunderstandings identified during badge assessment
Revisiting Our Goals
Share my background and instructional approach
Agency
Inclusion
Lifelong Learning
Constructivist Pedagogy
Teaching for Transferability
Showcase a learning object and my process for creating & assessing it
Thank You!
Photo by Alice Donovan Rouse via Unsplash
