Text The Mob

Not to be confused with TxtMob, which is also great, this new tool looks pretty interesting. Create polls that students can text the answers in to! Sort of like clickers, but without the clickers…As far as I can tell it’s free, and it certainly looks easy to set up (similar to Survey Monkey)–check it out!

Geisel WW Tours student data & feedback

Geisel Welcome Week Tours data from 2007 & 2006:

2007, Geisel Tour Survey Results

2007, Geisel Tours, Random Sample of Majors and College Affiliation

2007 Tour Pix

2006, Geisel Tour Survey Results

2006, Geisel Tours, Random Sample of Majors and College Affiliation

Class Evaluation Forms

In 2000, IOC created a shared evaluation form. The idea was to have a tool with which to consistently evaluate library sessions using 8 core questions and have a section for student comments. The goal was to have all library instruction classes - including course-integrated ones by bibliographers - use this form.

Since then, it seems that very few instructors are using the form and many have come up with their own method of assessing or evaluating their sessions. The Biomedical Library, in January 2008, changed to a different form - somewhat similar to a 3-2-1 card plus 3 instructor evaluation questions.

Sample of class eval - old style (word doc)
Sample of class eval - new style (word doc)

Wikipedia Joins Academe to Evaluate Itself

Good News with exciting results ahead I’d guess..

From the Chronicle Of Higher Education

Wikipedia is famous for its philosophy that ordinary people, not just scholars, have expertise to offer the public. But when it comes to evaluating the online encyclopedia itself, Wikipedia officials have apparently concluded that academe is best suited for the task.

The Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, announced today that it will work with a research center — UNU-Merit — run by the United Nations University and the Netherlands’ Maastricht University to conduct its first Wikepedia survey. It will collect data over the next several months on who Wikipedia’s readers and contributors are, why they visit the site, and what they do there. The results are expected to be released this year at the Wikimania conference in Alexandria, Egypt.

“This will help us figure out how to persuade new people to start contributing, and how to keep contributors engaged,” Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, said in a written statement.

Luc L. Soete, director of the research center, said the project fit well with his organization’s mission. He said Wikipedia helped people in developing countries gain access to knowledge. UNU-Merit, based in Tokyo, examines the social and political environments surrounding technological change.

PRIMO Site of the Month!

The Peer-Reviewed Instructional Materials Online (PRIMO) Committee of the Instruction Section of ACRL has announced the Site of the Month interviews for October and November 2007 & have posted them to their committee website.
To read the full interviews and to browse the archive of previous profiles, please go here.

Read details after the jump. Continue reading PRIMO Site of the Month!…

“Muddiest Point” Assessment Exercise

This exercise can be used alone or in conjunction with other techniques. It is simple and easy, yet very informative for the instructor. With this technique, you are asking the students to quickly write down a question they still have about the entire session or about just a segment of the session (i.e., What was the muddiest point in using controlled vocabulary terms?). It is important to provide feedback to the students, so if you don’t have email addresses for the entire class, you may want to ask them to include their email.

To initiate this exercise, hand out an index card or paper on which they can write. Let them know how long they have — i.e., 2 or 3 minutes. Students may also want to know what you will be doing with their responses. When they are finished, collect the responses and be sure to respond with clarifying information as soon as possible after the session.

“One Minute Paper” Assessment Exercise

This is a reflective, in class exercise that can provide immediate feedback to the student and instructor on the student’s overall sense of her/his learning. Additionally, it can be done in conjunction with the Muddiest Point technique. The two questions together could be an easy assessment tool for evaluating the class.

To initiate, give students a large index card or paper and ask them to describe the most important thing that they learned in the class session today. Ask them to write in full sentences, not bullet points and give them about 2-3 minutes to answer the question. Ideally, have your question on display — either on the board, a slide, or written on the paper you handed out. You could phrase the question very simply as, What was one new thing you learned today?

If you have used this technique in class, let us know how it went, tips for how to do it best, etc.

A Meeting Of The Minds?

Wow, can this really make a difference? The Ed Department is giving a huge chunk of money (over two million!) to the Association of American Colleges and Universities, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, and the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges in order for them to find a way to finally have a standard for measuring how students learn… I can’t wait to hear what comes out of this. Read the full story at InsideHighered.com