Assessing Learning: The Missing Piece of the Puzzle by Violet H. Harada and Joan M. Yoshina

Assessing Learning: The Missing Piece of the Puzzle by Violet H. Harada and Joan M. Yoshina

            Assessing if our students are really learning is very important and the authors offer five steps of assessment. The first one is to figure out what we want our students to learn. The second step is to create a means of measuring how well the students have succeeded in learning what we want them to learn. The third step is to determine what assessment tool will work best. This might be a rubric or something as simple as a checklist. The fourth step is to provide the students with a hands-on activity that will show how well they’ve learned what we want them to learn. And the last step is to evaluate how well the students have learned and whether or not we need to make adjustments to our lesson in order for them to learn better. I love this article because it gives concrete examples of how to assess a student’s actual learning in the library. For me personally, examples really help to solidify the concepts. Although I have to say I thought the rubric for the secondary school example could use a little work.

            The authors end the article with some words of encouragement and some great assessment resources. They basically concluded that if librarians are going to be an important part of their schools learning and teaching environment, then they must be able to offer real proof that what they are doing works. “Assessing for learning cannot be an afterthought but must be a central part of our mission.” (Harada & Yoshina 2005, 144).

Citations:

Harada, Violet H., and Joan M. Yoshina. Assessing Learning: Librarians and Teachers as Partners. Libraries Unlimited, 2005.

Harada, Violet and Joan M. Yoshima. "Assessing Learning: The Missing Piece in Instruction. School Library Media Activities Monthly 22.7 (2006): Libraries Unlimited. 5 Aug 2009. Web. 7 Jul 2011. <http://schoollibrarymonthly.com/articles/Harada2006v22n7p20.html>.