On Formative Assessment, Gamer Profiles, and Not Throwing the Baby Out with the Bathwater

In last week’s class, we engaged in a fun exercise where we listened to an episode of This American Life while filling out a role sheet from Pam Goble and Ryan Goble’s Making Curriculum Pop. I got both the role of intuitor and the role of the gamer respectively. In the intuitor role, I listened for the different emotions experienced at certain scenes in the program and then made assertions as to why the person in that scene was feeling that emotion. In the gamer role, I drew panels depicting an IF/THEN situation in the episode and I had to particularly pay attention to the rewards that my video game character received. I ended up drawing a box with a question mark on it (a lá Super Mario Bros) and having a “good info” item and a “bad info” item come out of it. In our group discussions about the roles, we had a great time sharing our experiences and ultimately concluded that the roles that made you think to a significant degree were best left as a post-exercise reflection activity.

The stick figure is Ben, just so you know.

            I was a bit frustrated with our sluggish conversation on information literacy, as I have a lot of passion about this topic, but it seemed like everyone else was not in the mood for an extended conversation. Furthermore, I object to the simple answer that in order to combat “truth decay,” we simply have to promote the more “trustworthy sources.” With the huge changes that have occured in the media landscape in the past few decades, I do not think we can keep relying on this dichotomy of “trustworthy sources” and “untrustworthy sources.” It is why I am skeptical of The News Literacy Project, as it seems to make the argument that prestige journalism from The New York Times, CNN, and The Washington Post will solve the crisis of fake news by promoting its more worthy content. I would argue that “prestige journalism” in not inherently trustworthy just because it comes from a particular source. By putting these outlets on a pedestal, it equates the words expressed in their media channels as fact and encourages the media consumer to forget that they are being sold a product.

According to the American Library Association, two of the main frameworks of information literacy are Authority is Constructed and Contextual and Information Has Value. [1] Without knowing the “publishing practices” of these companies and having “informed skepticism” of the authority these companies tout, a media consumer is left ignorant to the reasons why they are receiving the information they are receiving. Or not receiving. If Jeff Bezos and Amazon, for instance, have an immensely profitable contract with the CIA, why should I trust the Washington Post’s reporting on the CIA? [2] Or believe it can be critical? I think information literacy should involve being knowledgeable about how that information is created, which entails knowing about the nature and practices of the businesses and professions that disseminate that information.The awareness of corporate ownership and the struggles of modern journalism need to be taken into account by today’s media consumer. This raises questions that had Nora previously brought up: are we as citizens supposed to be these expert researchers or invested researchers like Ben from This American Life? What about those of us without all that extra time? Ultimately, I think we need to exercise skepticism with most media outlets, cultivating a knowledge of the journalism profession in the process, without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

As for today’s readings, I was thrilled that we were tackling the subject of assessment in instruction. During my evaluation internship at the Minnesota Historical Society, it was of utmost importance to include questions on our exhibit surveys that assessed how much someone learned about a historical topic that they did not know before. The data generated from these questions was used to measure whether the MNHS as an organization was meeting its greater mission of “using the power of history to transform lives,” especially in regards to providing learning opportunities for Minnesotans. I am struggling with whether these survey questions were indicative of formative or summative assessment, as the assessment occurred after a visitor attends an exhibit but that assessment continues (with different visitors) across time. In any case, I appreciated the explanations that Greenstein provides about the differences between summative and formative assessment, defining the latter as asking “what route we are taking to reach the goal and in what way the teacher can assist in the journey.”[3] Knowing that formative assessment is student-focused, instructionally informative, and outcomes-based explains why the thinking of students “must be made visible” and why “feedback must be provided.” [4] Formative assessment involves an incredibly active instructor that needs to be effective by “continually attempt[ing] to learn about their students’ thinking and understanding.”[5] I think one of the great implications of this method is constantly viewing students as sources of data to optimize instruction performance. As our classrooms shift more into the digital realm, I believe it is worth examining how our reliance on data-driven instruction changes the dynamic between teacher and learner.

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[1] “Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.” From the American Library Association website. Accessed January 31, 2018.

[2] Solomon, Norman. “Why the Washington Post’s New Ties to the CIA Are So Ominous.” The Huffington Post.  Published March 15, 2014.

[3] Greenstein (2010). Chapter 1: “The Fundamentals of Formative Assessment,” from What Teachers Really Need to Know About Formative Assessment. Alexandria, VA. ASCD.

[4] How People Learn, p. 140.

[5] Ibid.

Editorializing, Fluency, and the Tenuous Landscape of News Literacy and Digital Reality

In our last class, we watched our classmate’s screencast tutorials on everything from data manipulation in Excel spreadsheets to downloading e-books on Overdrive. I was impressed with the amount of effort everyone put in to make their screencast both instructional and engaging. I found myself wanting to ask questions about the whole process of making the screencast, as the editorial decisions that determined what would be cut and what would be saved fascinated me and drove me mad during my own screencast creation process. I remember the revelation I had making the sound recording that the final product was going to be imperfect and that I wouldn’t be able to include every little thing I wanted to add to the video. The two and a half minute cutoff point reflected the time constraints you actually receive as a library instructor in a one-shot workshop, who has to somehow fit a lesson in under an hour when it could easily take several hours. Being able to edit one’s lessons and “kill your darlings” is fundamental to effective instruction (no matter how imperfect you think it is).

During the jigsaw exercise, our groups debated the efficacy of information fluency versus literacy. Did literacy have negative connotations that fluency didn’t? Does literacy suggest a winners/losers dichotomy where one “achieves” literacy (aka the information literacy merit badge) whereas a fluency model encourages an ongoing journey towards mastery? Do any of these names actually made a difference? I think one of the more interesting questions that we weren’t able to come up with a full answer to included: who is information literacy for? Often times we focus our info lit efforts on small children, hoping that their enlightenment will help preserve democratic institutions several decades from now. But what about the people in power now? The baby boomers and Gen X’ers? Their capability to sort fact from fiction is not questioned as much as young people. Even though the longstanding trope of a confused uncle forwarding a chain emails about wealthy Nigerian princes exists , we have yet to move toward a solution that targets this lifelong learning dilemma.

However, concerns about teenagers ability to discern valid information on news sites and social media are by no means illegitimate. In our readings this week, we examined reports and studies that raised alarms over the difficulty that young people face in separating fact and fiction online. The Stanford Group Study, for example, found in their assessments that few students had mastery level competency in rating the reliability of sources.[1] Regina Marchi, in her research, looked at news behaviors of teenagers and compared them to older adults, observing that “youth feel at ease zapping from station to station and “snacking” on tidbits of news, gaining superficial knowledge of a broad variety of topics, while older people prefer in-depth knowledge about a smaller number of topics” [2] in newspapers. While observations like these can produce some hand wringing among older generations, I think it is worthwhile to keep in mind that young people develop these behaviors in response to a shifting media landscape as well as the failures of modern journalism. Marchi reported that one teen “felt that blogs offered more local news than did newspapers or TV,” a phenomenon that reflects the lack of investment and appreciation of local reporting within the journalism business/profession.

As our lives begin to move from the analog to the digital, I believe we will encounter even more issues concerning the validity of information.The rampant concern over fake news since Donald Trump’s election to the U.S. presidency often glosses over the fact that we have created a digital environment where the tools to manipulate reality are easily accessible. The power of Photoshop to transform images is on display every single time we traverse social media. Furthermore, this manipulation of reality content  is embedded in our media platforms, with native advertising listicles and PR releases disguising themselves as news articles becoming common practice for content generators. What I find most concerning is how our social media networks are influencing our biases. On Facebook and Twitter especially, posts and tweets that contain a claim without sourcing can be viewed as credible if it has the likes, the faves, and the retweets. Plus, the existence of the blue checkmark, which the Stanford Group claimed symbolized validity, confers a legitimacy that can be problematic, as the case of Twitter verifying an avowed white nationalist back in November demonstrates. Overall, I think we need to analyze the incentives and practices of the companies and institutions that provide our information and recognize that our current digital landscape is putting us down a path where the very nature of reality can be changed with a click.

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[1] Stanford History Education Group 2016. “Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civil Online Reasoning.”

[2] Marchi 2012. “With Facebook, Blogs, and Fake News, Teens Reject Journalistic ‘Objectivity.’”

Effusive Praise and Information Literacy

During class last week, we spent a considerable amount of time building on instructional issues that were raised the previous week, especially the differences between formative assessment and summative assessment as well as the type of teaching you apply to novices versus experts. In our conversations, I really appreciated the reminder that U-M students are not the “typical” library patrons we will come across in our professional lives. This means our instructional strategies have to be different for someone who does not have the resources or privileges to think critically about the information they come across. I also was fascinated with our conversations around giving praise to reinforce behavior as opposed to acknowledging effort. Being told “you’re so smart!” for accomplishing something, whether that praise is sincere or empty, fails to account for the future moments when you fail. Being told “I noticed how hard you tried and I appreciate that” applies to successes and failures in the learning process and fosters encouragement. Over time, being excessively praised can hinder opportunities where you learn something new, because not being good at something discourages you to continue. I think it is important as emerging professionals seeking to gain instructional skills to know these practices that reinforce behavior and to adjust them for the purposes of sustained learning.

For our readings this week, we dove into the concept of information literacy and its relation to the mission of librarians. Some of the broad themes that I perceived included this striving away from passivity in learning. A lot of the words used in these frameworks of information literacy like “empowering,” “collaborative,” “participatory,” etc., encompassed this idea that a person cannot simply be a consumer of information, but they must also be a critic, a creator, and a team-player in the way we engage with information in today’s world. Two of the six anchoring concepts of information literacy, authority is constructed and contextual and information has value, also reflect this idea of being an active agent in verifying how this information came to be. Another theme that I noticed was mentioned by Barack Obama in his information literacy proclamation, when he said that libraries can “help separate truth from fiction and signal from noise.” [1] The characterization of librarians and libraries as the great deciders in society that can determine what is good information and what is bad information is both reverential and slightly dangerous. In the Mackey and Jacobson reading, they quote Christine Pawley as saying that the term “information literacy” is inherently “contradictory” because it creates “a tension between conflicting ideals of, on the one hand, a promethean vision of citizen empowerment and democracy, and, on the other, a desire to control “quality” of information.”[2] It sets up the dynamic of the librarian as the paternal “expert” that can navigate any platform and always knows the truth in any matter, which in turn, disempowers the citizens who are learning to make the right decisions with the information they come across. My lasting question from these readings is: in an era of “fake news”, do librarians still have the authority over interpreting reality as we claim we do?

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[1] Obama, Barack. 2009. "National Information Literacy Awarness Month: A Proclamation."

[2] Mackey and Jacobson. 2011. "Reframing Information Literacy as a Metaliteracy."