In tribute

This week's reading got me in a reflective mood. First off, I've been thinking about our last class, and I confess, I appreciate the group discussion. It's a great way to get to know people, which for shy, little ole me is pretty terrific.

I am also impressed with the deviousness of Kristin. How slyly she put into practice this week's reading. Scratching your head? Well, do you recall our sandwich evaluations of our classmates' screencasts? It kind of resonates with the idea Sadler discussed, that learners need to have experience evaluating in order to learn to self-monitor? Sneaky, sneaky...

Speaking of Sadler's article, I would sum it up this way: Give a man a grade, you've impacted him for a day. Teach a man to self-monitor, you've impacted them for life. Well, you know how the old fish saying goes. This is what went through my mind as formative assessment was discussed. The whole idea is to give feedback that changes the learner's ability to change their own performance. That is an amazing gift to give a learner. So, how can I as a public librarian or archivist or special collections librarian give patrons that gift? That's the real question. There is so little time to interact with them. Any ideas? What are your thoughts? 

Now, moving on to the nostalgic phase of my post. The introduction to chapter 6 in How People Learn: "The Design of Learning Environments", talked about how the real change in education is in our expectations, rather than the quality. This was very encouraging, and it made me think back on my education. It wasn't anything special, and I don't know that they had so much focus on methods and environments, and such--teachers taught, you took tests and did assignments, and that was that. And I think I got a good education. I think it was definitely the best education for me. But reading this introduction also made me realize that maybe education is a lot better for a lot of other people now. Sure, it's still not perfect, but maybe it isn't the disaster we think it is.

I also began thinking of the learning environments. The chapter highlighted 4 different environments, and as I read about Community-Centered Environments, I felt a great need to pay tribute to my family, who provided me with a great learning environment to grow up in. Thank you, thank you, my dear family. My mom currently works with kindergartners, and I have other friends who are in education, and frequently, I hear stories that indicate lack of support from the home. Of course, this can't be considered representative--I don't hear about every student in the class--but based on my own experience of a learning-centered family environment, I know this makes a huge difference.

Another element of the Community-centered environment that caught my attention was connecting to the broader community. It's pretty foreign to me to not apply what I learned in school to life and vice versa. When I was in high school, I had a physics teacher that would write tests that had problems like, "An Olympic long jumper is trapped on the roof of a building that's on fire." Then we had to figure out all the physics of getting him onto the roof of the next building. His tests always had at least a couple of problems like that. Very real life application-ish. During my freshman year at college, I drove my roommates nuts by telling them all the things that couldn't actually have happened in the movie we were watching because of physics. And, (another tribute to family) it is dangerous to get any of my siblings talking about what we've read or studied or anything, because we can't stop talking, and we drag the conversation everywhere--school, work, home life, everywhere. So, I really do have a point, and here it is. Community-centered learning takes a community, and it can also give meaning to all that learning we do.

But it takes more than just a community-centered environment. An Assessment-Centered environment is also important, especially assessment meant to improve performance--yes, formative assessment. I think this is a positive change in education. I think it's terrific that alternate forms of assessment are taking hold. I have known friends who felt inferior because they didn't do well on tests, even though they were the ones who were teaching me how to do the homework. It thrills me that tests are no longer the only form of assessment.

Add to that the knowledge-centered environment. I think this is the environment that we most associate with school--fill those children's heads with knowledge. If you leave this environment out of the picture, what are you really doing? This also seems the easiest to accomplish--we know what we are supposed to teach. But to really manage this environment effectively, it needs to go hand in hand with assessment, to make sure there is real knowledge acquisition, and community-centered, to make sure that knowledge has meaning.

Last but not least is the learner-centered environment. This is finding out where the learner is at. This will shape the knowledge we give them. A community-centered environment will help in determining where the learner is at--how they see the world and interpret things. It can give background. It also draws on assessment--we have to find out what learners know and understand and need to know somehow.

Now that we have completed that terrific rundown of the reading, how does it apply outside of a school environment? As mentioned when discussing one-shot workshops, anytime we're teaching, be it a workshop or a class or a screencast, we should consider the learners needs, and assess their knowledge. We also need to give them an environment they feel comfortable in, give them a community, and that can happen in any setting--a library, an archive, or even a webinar. And then we can move forward and get them the knowledge they need.

So, there is my take on formative assessment and learning environments.  hope my spin is in there somewhere. Thank you for sticking it out to the end.