assessing the impact of active learning in the classroom: an action research project

Assessing the Impact of Active Learning in the Classroom An Action Research Project

Bianca Rodriguez Discipline: Library Science Director: Dr. Karen Blondeau

by

Assessing the Impact of Active Learning in the

Classroom

An Action Research Projecdt

Bianca Rodriguez

Discipline: Library Science

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CLEAR GOALS

LEARNING OUTCOME STATEMENT

Students that participate in kinesthetic/active learning teaching strategies will score higher on an

informal information literacy assessment than students taught using a traditional lecture method.

ABSTRACT

Traditional lecture based library instruction sessions, an experience often consisting of students sitting

quietly and listening to a librarian lecture on a myriad of topics in library science, could be perceived as a

less than stimulating experience. This may be especially true for today’s Millennial students who tend to

get bored and lose interest easily, have the uncanny ability to see through busy work, and prefer

engaging activities to a professor's pontificating. The purpose of this action research project is to

examine the educational impact of incorporating active learning techniques into library instruction

sessions.

During the Spring Term 2011 semester, the author collaborated with a West Campus faculty member

who requested single session library instruction to prepare her four SPC 1608 classes for their

informative speeches. The author's instruction included content on the library database NewsBank and

the citation style MLA.

Four speech classes were given library instruction – two taught using a traditional lecture based format

(these were the base classes) and two taught incorporating active learning techniques (these were the

pilot classes). At the end of the library instruction sessions, all four classes were given an information

literacy assessment. Additionally, the speech professor allowed the author to review the works cited

pages students submitted after presenting their speeches. The assessments and works cited pages were

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scored with rubrics, and results were compared between the two lecture based sessions and the two

active learning sessions.

Students were identified as Beginning, Developing, or Competent based on the scores of the information

literacy assessment and Works Cited scores (with Beginning as the lowest scoring and Competent as the

highest scoring).

For the two active learning based classes, 64% and 78% of the students scored as Competent on the

information literacy assessment. For the two lecture based classes, 56% and 39% scored as Competent

on the information literacy assessment.

The works cited scores were not nearly as varied within the two groups. For the two active learning

based classes, 58% and 73% scored as Competent on the works cited pages. For the two lecture based

classes, 54% and 82% scored as Competent on the works cited pages.

RESEARCH QUESTION

Will students that participate in active learning teaching strategies score higher on an information

literacy assessment and works cited pages than students taught using a traditional lecture method?

ADEQUATE PREPARATION

STUDENT PERSPECTIVE

Many students come to me informally days after a library instruction session and confide they feel lost

when replicating search techniques or attempting to create MLA citations on their own. From all

appearances, it seems the majority of students follow my lectures in class – but when these same

students come to me later and ask for help, I can see Bloom's Taxonomy at work. If I ask them to show

me what they remember from class, they have trouble beginning, yet they recognize what I taught them

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once I show them how. These students are clearly at Bloom’s remembering stage, when my goal was to

get them to the applying stage.

These observations prompted me to look for a solution. After reviewing educational literature and

speaking to colleagues, I came to believe that actively involving students in the learning process held

promise. By shifting from pure lecture (with the focus on the instructor) to active learning based

teaching (with the focus on the students), there was a chance my students could comprehend and retain

more.

Before making such a sudden change in my teaching style, I decided to gather input from the main

stakeholder group, the students. After providing library instruction to four randomly selected classes

(outside of the four test SPC 1608 classes), I gave an informal survey to 59 students. At the end of the

sessions, I asked them the following open ended question:

I am investigating ways to improve library instruction. What teaching style or teaching techniques help

you learn best?

View the student responses and my reflections [LO1 Artifact 1].

COLLEAGUE PERSPECTIVE

A common concern many academic librarians have is that teaching faculty usually cannot spare more

than one classroom session for library instruction and librarians need to teach everything that has to be

covered in 50-75 minutes. Librarians must change the only factor in their control – how effectively and

efficiently they teach their content.

Valencia College is a premier learning college, and tenured and tenure-track faculty that are employed

at Valencia are among some of the finest educators in the Florida State College System. I have found

that many of my colleagues are willing to share their best teaching practices. Wanting to learn more

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Docs/StudentResponses.pdf

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about active learning and lecturing, I contacted four Valencia faculty members, two professors and two

librarians, to discover some of what they are doing in the classroom.

View the following Valencia College faculty members’ thoughts on active learning and lecturing:

Professor Nicole Valentino, East Campus English Professor [LO1 Artifact 2]

Librarian Mark Bollenback, East Campus Librarian [LO1 Artifact 3]

Professor Mayra Holzer, West Campus Speech Professor [LO1 Artifact 4]

Librarian Diane Dalrymple, Winter Park Librarian [LO1 Artifact 5]

Reflection on my colleagues’ feedback:

All four of my colleagues agree that active learning is beneficial as a teaching tool and they use it as

often as possible. This actually surprised me because prior to this project, I rarely used active learning

and had not realized how prevalent it was in the college classroom (I imagined it was only for K-12). A

common theme I heard from these colleagues was that active learning works best in small segments

interspersed throughout a class period. This was reassuring to me as I think small segments would be

much more manageable for someone that is new to active learning.

One very important recommendation was that students should be debriefed after any active learning

activity so they understand what they were supposed to learn from it. This was something I had not

considered before and will make sure to do now – I want every activity in class to have meaning and not

be seen as busy work.

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/ColleaguePerspective/NValentino.pdf

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/ColleaguePerspective/MBollenback.pdf

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/ColleaguePerspective/MHolzer.pdf

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/ColleaguePerspective/DDalrymple.pdf

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Additionally, I was relieved to hear that none of the interviewees said or implied that lecture was

necessarily a “bad thing.” Instead, they said that lecture should be used to its best advantage, such as

times one is introducing new topics or explaining instructions.

I also learned that sometimes an activity can go really well with one class and then for no apparent

reason at all, falls flat with another class. There will always be dynamics not under my control, and the

best thing is to try a different approach next time, rather than completely abandon the activity.

Finally, I think the best advice I received was that instructors should not aim to be the “star” of the class,

but instead allow the students to be the stars. It’s okay to give up some control of the class and allow

the focus to be taken off the instructor – it will totally be worth it when the students are engaged.

EXPERT PERSPECTIVE

In January, 2000, the Board of Directors of the Association of College and Research Libraries (the

national professional association for academic librarians) approved the “Information Literacy

Competency Standards for Higher Education”. These five outcomes serve as the standards by which

academic librarians measure the student level of information literacy attainment (ACRL). In 2007

Valencia Community College adopted Information Literacy as one of its six General Education Outcomes,

with the college libraries naturally selecting information literacy as their departmental learning

outcome. The librarians are in a unique position to assist teaching faculty with helping students attain

this general education outcome by tailoring library instruction session outcomes to the specific

informational literacy needs of their classes (Avery).

As beneficial as they are, library instruction sessions are often viewed by students as a combination of

dry lectures mixed in with a dash of busy work -- students often tolerate these sessions but may not

particularly enjoy them (Walker). Millennial students in particular find the lecture format to be dull and

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prefer class sessions that incorporate active learning (Partridge and Hallam). And, regardless of age,

many students will remember more by doing and exploring, rather than passively accepting information.

Current teaching pedagogy reflects this -- there has been a shift from teacher as focal point and an over-

reliance on content heavy lectures to student centered teaching and the use of active learning

instructional techniques (Huba and Freed).

Still, there is a resistance on the part of many instructors to use active learning techniques, even if

students would remember more and actually enjoy learning. Typical responses are that active learning

techniques take too much time to plan and implement. Many instructors do not want to take time away

from prepared lectures and are concerned required content will not be covered in depth. Academic

librarians particularly cite these problems as they often get just one classroom session to teach their

content. Interestingly enough, research shows that although a lot of content may be covered during

lecture based sessions, students don’t remember the majority of it! By taking the time out to employ

some active learning techniques, students may remember more of what is covered, even if less content

is presented (Silberman).

Some proponents of the lecture based teaching method may argue that college aged students do not

require interactive learning environments (like the K-12 students do). However, research shows college

aged student attention spans are still short and the ability to sit still is limited. Quite often, lectures

appeal only to auditory learners and regardless of preferred learning style (even auditory), student

attention span decreases with every passing minute. By using different types of delivery methods

(auditory, visual, and kinesthetic) instructors have a better chance of meeting the learning needs of all

students and keeping students interested and engaged for longer periods of time. Another interesting

point is that by using a variety of teaching techniques, the instructor is showing a respect for different

learning styles and different types of students (Silberman).

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Of course, even if instructors experiment with active learning and address different learning styles, how

will they know if the students benefited? That is where assessments play a role. Assessments are not

only a way to see how much students learned, but are also considered a powerful way to promote

learning. With carefully written assessments, students can discover where there are gaps in their

knowledge and educators can pinpoint what content should be addressed in teaching (Huba and Freed).

To capture the full scale of learning, students should be assessed for cognitive (what do students know),

behavioral (what can students do), and affective (how do students perceive their abilities) learning.

Historically, and much to the chagrin of educational researchers, cognitive tests are overly relied on by

teachers (Avery). Reliance on cognitive tests can be attributed to the fact that they are far easier to

grade and gathering statistical data is simple. Cognitive tests, such as multiple choice and true and false

questionnaires, test recall of factual knowledge rather than analysis or synthesis of knowledge. They

often assess lower order thinking skills and of course, students could always guess the answers (Avery).

Performance based assessments, on the other hand, assess higher order thinking skills by measuring

what students can do – what many educators consider authentic learning. Performance based

instruments such as open ended questions, fill in the blank, and essay assignments do a better job of

assessing what students can do. Granted, performance based assessments are nowhere near as easy to

grade as cognitive tests, but a well designed rubric, although challenging and time consuming to create,

will aid the instructor in grading performance based assessments fairly. Performance based

assessments and rubrics provide a lot of feedback to students and standards for work products.

Students can better prepare their work as clear standards are set for work products and they can self-

assess and self-correct their work before they turn it in (Avery). A real coup for teachers is that rubrics

allow for more accountability in scoring (Huba and Freed).

Note: View the Works Cited page [LO1 Artifact 6].

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Docs/WorksCited.pdf

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SELF PERSPECTIVE

I chose active learning as the focus of my action research project because I have been interested in

becoming a much more dynamic, engaging instructor. Like many other less seasoned faculty members,

I know my subject area well, but I do not hold a degree in education or have training in educational

methods. Until I began TLA, I essentially relied on providing lectures -- I had not even heard of a one

minute paper or a think pair share. After participating in the Year-1 TLA sessions and interviewing some

of my Valencia faculty colleagues (see the "Colleague Perspective") I was surprised to see how much

others already knew about active learning and what they were trying out in the classroom. This was a

real eye opener for me, and although I felt like I was behind everyone else, it propelled me to discover

as much as I could about this method of instruction.

I have reflected on my first years of teaching and wonder if part of me felt content being a "good

enough" instructor. After all, my students could sit through a lecture and comprehend what I taught

them. They could answer questions on a multiple choice cognitive based assessment if I chose to give

them one. To me, that seemed like a successful instructional session, even though I was totally

neglecting the needs of the kinesthetic and visual learners.

I may have also avoided the use of creative, engaging teaching methods in the classroom as my

confidence as an instructor was fairly low. I was fearful of trying new techniques with students and

lecturing, monotonous as it was, felt “safer.” When considering new teaching techniques, I would go

through a whole series of “what ifs” in my head – what if the teacher doesn’t like me using time to do

this activity, what if the students think the activity is corny, or what if I don’t explain the rules properly

and it doesn’t go as planned? I know that in order to progress as an instructor, and to meet the needs of

students with diverse learning preferences, I must ignore those “what ifs” and move forward with

confidence.

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APPROPRIATE METHODS

STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES

1. The student will be able to identify keywords from a research topic.

2. The student will be able to use features of the library database NewsBank.

3. The student will be able to recognize characteristics of credible, objective sources.

4. The student will be able to identify bibliographic elements within articles.

5. The student will be able to complete citations in MLA format.

PERFORMANCE INDICATORS

1. The student will be able to identify keywords from a research topic.

Select keywords and key phrases from a research statement

Select appropriate synonyms and alternative terms to include in a search

Revise search terms to retrieve more precise results

2. The student will be able to use features of the library database NewsBank.

Select drop down fields to search specifically within parts of an article, such as

Lead/First Paragraph and Date

Use search limiters (such as articles type or newspaper title) to retrieve less, more

specific results

Retrieve articles using the Email and Print tools

Generate citations by using the Bibliography tool

3. The student will be able to recognize characteristics of credible, objective sources.

Review source type, title, section of paper, and content of an article to ascertain

objectivity or bias

4. The student will be able to identify bibliographic elements within articles.

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Identify author, title, source, pages, date, and name of the database within a record

5. The student will be able to complete citations in MLA format.

Use the Bibliography tool in NewsBank to generate citations

Use the library’s MLA guides online to compare and edit the generated citations as

needed

Complete a Works Cited page with minimal errors, including proper heading, spacing,

indentation, and order of elements

INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES OF SLOS

Note: The following instructional strategies are designed for the two active learning library instruction

sessions (the pilot classes). Students in the two lecture based library instruction sessions (the base

classes) were taught the same content (as outlined in the student learning outcomes [LO1 Artifact 7]),

but through lecture -- none of the active learning activities included below were used.

During the lecture based sections, instructional demonstrations of two databases (NewsBank and

Biography in Context) were performed for the students. Students were given some hands-on practice

time with the databases, but no time was allotted for practicing citing sources. Students in the lecture

based classes were shown the citation generator buttons in the databases and the library's MLA guides

online.

Additionally, the lecture based students were provided a narrative handout [LO1 Artifact 8] rather than

the guided worksheet [LO1 Artifact 9] used in the active learning library instruction sessions.

Many of the following active learning techniques were adapted from the book Active Learning: 101

Strategies to Teach Any Subject, by Mel Silberman as well as the Leadership Valencia workshop

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/ClassDocs/SLOs.pdf

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/ClassDocs/LectureGuide.pdf

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/ClassDocs/ActiveLearningWorkSheet.pdf

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Creativity Camp for Trainers: Are You Tired of Lecturing?, facilitated by Joanna Branham, Brent

Nakagama, and Joe Nunes.

ACTIVE LEARNING INSTRUCTION STRATEGIES

1. Start the library instruction session by introducing the student learning outcomes for the class

[LO1 Artifact 7].

2. Explain the guided worksheet [LO1 Artifact 10 - VIDEO] that is handed to the class (see the

actual worksheet here [LO1 Artifact 9]). Note: The worksheet was based on the Silberman active

learning strategy #26, Guided Note Taking.

3. Brainstorm potential informative speech topics with the class. Ask a few students to volunteer

their selected topics to use in an exercise and record the topics on the board. Ask the class to

assist the volunteer students with narrowing their topics down to a manageable focus. Guide

the class discussion using open questions. Note: This guided discussion activity was based on

the Silberman active learning strategy #29, Guided Teaching.

Meets SLO 1

4. After the selected students’ topics have been narrowed, ask the rest of the class to go through

the same process with their own topics and record their narrowed topics on their worksheet.

Have a few students volunteer their narrowed topics and brainstorm appropriate keywords [LO1

Artifact 11 - VIDEO] that can be used for online searching.

Meets SLO 1

5. Have the remainder of the class pair up to do a Think Pair Share activity [LO1 Artifact 12 -

VIDEO], where partners help each other develop appropriate search terms. Call on a few groups

to share their narrowed topics and the selected search terms. Note: The Think Pair Share

activity was displayed in the Creativity Camp for Trainers workshop.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI4HSmwDZ3E


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skLGAEFuLZA

http://youtu.be/jI1dkww6f8A

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Meets SLO 1

6. Have students attempt to learn how to use the database NewsBank [LO1 Artifact 13 - VIDEO] on

their own by asking them open questions and guiding them to actively discover how to use the

database. After their initial review, provide an instructional demonstration of the advanced

search features. Note: This student self-teaching activity was based on the Silberman strategy

#41, Learning Starts with a Question.

Meets SLO 2

7. After conducting a database search, discuss the search results with the class. Lead a discussion

by asking the class open questions about the characteristics of credible, fact based sources that

would be appropriate for the informative speeches.

Meets SLO 3

8. After demonstrating advanced search techniques and tools such as printing and emailing

articles, allow students hands-on guided practice time to use the database NewsBank. Circulate

the room and ask students individually if they have any questions or need assistance.

Meets SLO 2

9. After the practice time, show the class how to identify bibliographic elements within articles

[LO1 Artifact 14 - VIDEO]. Do a ball toss activity (students toss a Koosh ball to select the next

students to answer a question) to garner student participation in identifying elements within a

selected article on the screen. Note: This active learning technique was displayed in the

Creativity Camp for Trainers workshop.

Meets SLO 4

10. Next, demonstrate use of the NewsBank citation generator tool and compare the citation results

to the library’s MLA guide online. Using the ball toss activity, have students critically examine

database generated citations [LO1 Artifact 15 - VIDEO] to identify errors in the citations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3UjGRoAJUI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiDsI156_cA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-lI3tqOTEQ


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Meets SLO 5

11. Ask a student to volunteer their selected article so the class can work together [LO1 Artifact 16

- VIDEO] to cite the source in MLA style.

Meets SLO 5

12. If there is time remaining at the end of class (at least ten minutes), break the students into

groups and play the Research Bowl game [LO1 Artifact 17 - VIDEO] to reinforce concepts

covered during the library instruction session. Another variation using the same PowerPoint

software is to play a MLA Citation game. During the game, the class is split into five teams, each

with a team leader. Each team is given the same article to cite (the citation should be typed

onto the team leader's computer). Teams are only allowed to use the library's MLA guides

online for help -- no citation generating software can be used. At the end of five minutes, each

team leader must read their citation. The team that has the "most correct" citation wins the

game. Note: This active learning technique was discussed in the Creativity Camp for Trainers

workshop.

ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES OF SLOS

Information Literacy Assessment [LO1 Artifact 18]

I wanted to develop an assessment to gauge how much students learned after attending a library

instruction session. Before TLA, I had no experience with developing assessments. To prepare myself, I

read books and online resources about properly developing these tools. One that was particularly

useful, A Practical Guide to Information Literacy Assessment for Academic Librarians, by Kenneth J.

Burhanna, criticized some educators’ over-reliance on multiple choice and true/false assessments as a

means to more easily gauge student learning. I decided that I did not want to use these types of

questions for the information literacy assessment. I wanted to gain a more complete understanding of

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZj1m8dr_wg

http://youtu.be/Txuhao_cyag

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Tools/InfoLitAssessment.pdf

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what the students were able to do after instruction (as opposed to what they knew). I sought out to

design an assessment that addressed the three dimensions of learning: behavioral (what they can do),

cognitive (what they know), and affective (how they feel about it).

Before using the assessment with my pilot groups, I had it reviewed and edited by others. I asked Jeff

Cornette, the Valencia College Managing Director of Institutional Research, randomly selected college

students, and librarian colleagues for feedback on the clarity of the questions. Edits were made based

on their suggestions. I also field-tested the assessment in Fall Term 2010 with four ENC 1101 classes and

four SPC 1608 classes. Edits and adjustments were made to the assessment based on how well the

students answered the questions, how long it took them to complete the assessment, and whether they

had difficulty understanding the questions.

The questions on the assessment were purposely developed to test whether students met all five

student learning outcomes by the end of the sessions. To establish a clear path from the student

learning outcomes to the active learning activities/lecture content in class to the questions on the

assessment, I created a map aligning the three aspects together [LO1 Artifact 19].

Question two [LO1 Artifact 20] (a behavioral question) on the assessment was a fill in the blank question

that required students to write out a narrowed research topic that included key words.

Question three [LO1 Artifact 21] (a behavioral question) showed whether students could use basic and

advanced features of the database NewsBank. This question actually went through the most revision

due to how difficult it was to replicate on a survey what the student saw in the NewsBank database.

After field-testing this question, I made changes to how the question appeared on the assessment. Even

when I conducted the actual action research project during the Spring Term 2011 classes, I was never

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/ClassDocs/MapSPC.pdf

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Tools/questions/q2.jpg


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completely satisfied with how question three appeared on the survey. However, I did tell students I

could clarify the question if they were confused.

Question four [LO1 Artifact 22] (a behavioral question) required the students to identify bibliographic

information within an article and record it in the text fields.

Question five [LO1 Artifact 23] (a behavioral question) had students explain in their own words why the

source they chose was credible and useful for their topic.

Question six [LO1 Artifact 24] (a cognitive question) was the only question that I could not avoid the use

of a multiple choice format (due to class time issues). In question six, the students had to view a

preselected article from NewsBank and decide which of the four MLA citations listed correctly cited the

source.

Questions eight [LO1 Artifact 25]and nine [LO1 Artifact 26] (both affective questions)asked students to

self-report their levels of confidence in locating additional database articles and creating MLA citations.

These questions were included so I could cross-tabulate the scores with two of the behavior based

questions in order to learn more about the students’ self-perceptions of their abilities and whether their

perceptions reflected their actual performance.

Information Literacy Assessment Rubric [LO1 Artifact 27]

In order to score the assessments fairly, I wanted to develop a rubric to score the students' work. As

with the assessment I developed, I also had no previous experience with designing rubrics. To prepare

myself, I read about rubrics in the book A Practical Guide to Information Literacy Assessment for

Academic Librarians, by Kenneth J. Burhanna. I learned from my reading that rubrics are the key to

scoring assessments fairly and objectively. I also learned that I could tie in the student learning






http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Tools/Assessment_Rubric.pdf

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outcomes to the evaluative criteria for the assessment questions – a good way to ensure the SLOs,

course content, activities, and assessment were all aligned.

I decided to be consistent with the Valencia College Rubric for Assessing Information Literacy [LO1

Artifact 28] and use Beginning, Developing, and Competent levels of competency (I did not feel students

could realistically reach the level of Accomplished within the time frame allotted during the instructional

sessions). The rubric was based on a ten point scale, with Beginning achieving zero to four (0-4) total

points, Developing five to seven (5-7) total points, and Competent eight to ten (8-10) total points.

I learned from my reading that one way to identify how levels of attainment should be defined is to

review assessment results before developing the rubric. Based on the range of answers given by

students, the assessment levels can then be defined to adequately assess the students’ work. Once I did

this, I was able to define what answers could be labeled as Beginning, Developing, and Competent.

I field-tested the rubric with the four ENC 1101 and four SPC 1608 classes in Fall Term 2010. I and a

colleague, West Campus Librarian Sara Gomez, scored the assessments with the same rubric to compare

our findings. I was glad to see the scores she and I came up with were very consistent. Since we found

reliability in the results, no changes were made to the rubric and I used the rubric for the four test SPC

1608 classes in Spring Term 2011.

The rubric assisted me in scoring the students' answers fairly, essentially taking the guesswork out of

grading. It gave me a picture of how well the students could perform database search techniques and

allowed me to see what the students' weak and strong areas were. Most importantly, I had a better

idea of what areas I needed to do a better job of explaining to the students.

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Tools/ILRubricFall08.pdf

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MLA Works Cited Rubric [LO1 Artifact 29]

Part of what I taught students in the Spring Term 2011 test SPC 1608 classes was how to use the library

database NewsBank. The other area I was responsible for teaching them about was how cite sources in

MLA style (Student Learning Outcomes four and five). As this was a speech class, I knew there would

not be much (if anything) covered about citing sources. Additionally, SPC 1608 does not have ENC 1101

as a prerequisite, so there is no guarantee that students have already had formal instruction on the MLA

format.

I made sure to discuss the MLA style during the sessions as the students are required to submit a Works

Cited page on the day of their speech and include in-text citations in their speech outlines. Since this

was a major area to be discussed in class, I wanted to know if there were any differences in the

students' Works Cited pages based on the teaching style I used in class (active learning versus lecture).

After their Works Cited pages were submitted, I asked the speech professor for copies to assess how

well their citations were developed. In order to objectively and fairly score the Works Cited pages, I

created a rubric. This rubric was styled in a similar manner to the information literacy assessment

rubric, with three possible levels of competency and scoring five categories of evaluative criteria. For

consistency's sake, the rubric was also based on a ten point scale.

This rubric was actually challenging to grade with as there were 37 potential errors (within five

categories) to be found in each citation (the list of errors can be seen on page two of the MLA Works

Cited Rubric). However, when I field-tested the rubric with the Fall Term 2010 classes, and had my

colleague Sara Gomez use the rubric to score the same classes, we came up with consistent scores. I

was surprised but pleased that there was reliability in the results and used this rubric for the four SPC

1608 classes again during the Spring Term 2011 test classes.

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Tools/WorksCitedRubric.pdf

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ACTION RESEARCH METHODOLOGY DESIGN

This action research project was field-tested in four sections of Professor Tan’s SPC 1608 course in Fall

Term 2010. The actual action research project was conducted with four sections of Professor Tan’s SPC

1608 course in Spring Term 2011.

Base groups and pilot groups were used during both semesters. Four sections of each class were tested.

Two of the classes were provided lecture based instruction (they were the base groups). Two of the

classes were provided active learning based instruction (they were the pilot groups).

After journaling my observations [LO1 Artifact 30] of the four Fall Term 2010 field-tested classes, I

changed some instructional strategies to better improve my practice. The areas that I wished to

improve to prepare for the action research project in Spring Term 2011 included:

preventing time management issues during the active learning activities,

adjusting the amount of time for students to complete the assessment,

altering my tone of voice during the lecture based sections -- I felt my tone of voice and lectures

were purposely “too dull” during field-testing, which was unnatural for me and could have

impacted the lecture based students learning, and

explaining the guided worksheet to the active learning based classes so it was relevant for them

even after the session.

I documented my observations [LO1 Artifact 31] of the Spring Term 2011 classes, during which I sought

to improve my practice my incorporating these changes.

The results of this action research project were derived from the scores of the information literacy

assessment and the MLA Works Cited pages of the four test SPC 1608 classes in Spring Term 2011.

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Journals/FieldTestTeachingReflections.pdf

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Journals/Teaching_Reflections.pdf

19

Scores of the two active learning classes (the pilot group) and the two lecture based classes (the base

group) were compared and contrasted.

Although this action research project was not a controlled study (in terms of reliability and validity), the

insights gained from this project have informed my teaching practices and have inspired me to

experiment with different teaching techniques to meet the needs of diverse learners.

SIGNIFICANT RESULTS

TEACHING STYLE AND INFORMATION LITERACY ASSESSMENT SCORES

Four SPC 1608 classes were assessed in Spring Term 2011 -- two taught using active learning techniques

(the pilot group) and two taught using traditional lecture methods (the base group). All four classes

were given the same information literacy assessment during the last ten minutes of class. The

assessment was scored using the information literacy assessment rubric, was worth a maximum of ten

points, and had three possible competency levels – Beginning was zero to three (0-3) points, Developing

was four to seven (4-7) points, and Competent was eight to ten (8-10) points.

20

RESULTS ACTIVE LEARNING GROUP ONE [PILOT GROUP]

Table 1 [LO1 Artifact 32]: Scores of Active Learning Group One students on the information literacy assessment

(percentages do not include incomplete assessments)

The students in the Active Learning Group One scored as follows:

14 students (64%) scored as Competent [LO1 Artifact 33]

Eight students (36%) scored as Developing [LO1 Artifact 34]

Zero students (0%) scored as Beginning

Three of the assessments were incomplete and were not included in the above results

Reflection: 64% of this class scored as Competent on the assessment, meaning they missed only one or

two questions. 36% of this class scored as Developing on the assessment, meaning they missed three to

five questions. That finding was a concern of mine as that reflected nearly a third of the class. A review

of the Developing students’ assessments showed that many of them did not have a refined topic

(question two) or execute the search strategy like they were taught in class (question three). We did

activities such as a Think Pair Share to learn how to refine a topic and had hands-on guided practice time

64%

36%

0% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

Competent Developing Beginning

Active Learning Group One

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Assessments/AL1_Competent.pdf

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Assessments/AL1_Developing.pdf

21

to learn how to execute a search strategy in the database. I read through my journal entry for that class

to discover what could have happened and I mentioned feeling very disorganized during that class

session. I know the class had a late start and the session felt rather rushed. It was also an evening class

which means the students and I were tiring. I think it is possible that my performance and time

management issues could have negatively impacted some of the students' learning. To improve my

practice, I will do my best to stay energized for these evening courses and keep better back of time to

ensure the sessions stay organized and on track.

RESULTS – ACTIVE LEARNING GROUP TWO [PILOT GROUP]

Table 2 [LO1 Artifact 35]: Scores of Active Learning Group Two students on the information literacy assessment

The students in the Active Learning Group Two scored as follows:

14 students (78%) scored as Competent [LO1 Artifact 36]

3 students (17%) scored as Developing [LO1 Artifact 37]

1 student (5%) scored as Beginning [LO1 Artifact 38]

78%

17%

5% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%


Active Learning Group Two



http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Assessments/AL2_Beginning.pdf

22

None of the assessments were incomplete

Reflection: Although this class was also an evening class, I was surprised to see that the scores were

higher than the other evening active learning class (in fact this was the highest scoring class out of the

four). The majority, 78%, scored as Competent. Only 17% scored as Developing, and just one student

scored as Beginning. After looking at my notes for this class, I can see one big change from the previous

class -- I brought a timer with me to ensure that we did not go over allotted time for activities. The

professor and I both noted how much smoother this class went, and it shows in their assessment scores.

RESULTS – LECTURE BASED GROUP ONE [BASE GROUP]

Table 3 [LO1 Artifact 39]: Scores of Lecture Based Group One students on the information literacy assessment


The students in the Lecture Based Group One class scored as follows:

10 (56%) scored as Competent [LO1 Artifact 40]

8 (44%) scored as Developing [LO1 Artifact 41]

56%

44%

0% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%


Lecture Based Group One

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Assessments/Lec1_Competent.pdf

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Assessments/Lec1_Developing.pdf

23

Zero (0%) scored as Beginning

Four of the assessments were incomplete and were not included in the above results

Reflection: This class was lecture based and was a 10 a.m. class. I was somewhat surprised to see that

their assessment scores were lower than the two active learning groups. After reviewing my journal

observations from that class period, nothing monumental seemed to have impacted the class. I

reviewed the same content that was delivered to the active learning groups, except it was in a lecture

format. This means this group of students did not do a Think Pair Share activity, the ball toss activity,

the MLA Works Cited activity on the guided handout, or participate in open question discussions.

I did give them hands-on guided practice time to work with the database, but that was the extent of any

kinesthetic learning. Upon reviewing their scores on the assessments, many of the Developing students

made mistakes such as developing poor search strategies in the database (question 3) and not critically

evaluating their sources (question 5). As this is not a vetted study, I cannot infer causation, but I am

inclined to speculate that including active learning activities would have helped the kinesthetic students

understand any new and difficult class content.

24

RESULTS – LECTURE BASED GROUP TWO [BASE GROUP]

Table 4 [LO1 Artifact 42]: Scores of Lecture Based Group Two students on the information literacy assessment


The students in the Lecture Based Group Two scored as follows:



0 (0%) scored as Beginning

Three of the assessments were incomplete and were not included in the above results

Reflection: This class scored the lowest out of the four classes. This was a one p.m. class and purely

lecture based (aside from the limited amount of hands-on instruction of the database). Upon reviewing

my journal observations from this class period, I recall that I was tiring after teaching for the second

time that day. I also noted that this particular class appeared to be easily distracted (this was a one p.m.

class, with presumably many feeling lethargic after lunch).

39%

61%

0% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%


Lecture Based Group Two



25

I also noted that after my previous lecture based class, I had made an effort to whittle my lecture time

down to reduce the impact on their attention span. Perhaps that led to the information not being

reinforced enough, even for the auditory learners. This does to seem to reinforce the idea that the

careful combination of lecture and active learning activities will help students learn more and be

engaged.

This experience also showed me that my energy level has the possibility of impacting student learning

and classes after lunch may be susceptible to lower attention spans. Although I have heard many

teaching faculty say this is an issue with classes that take place after lunch, I would like to find ways to

circumvent this in the future. Engaging the students with activities, rather than allowing them to

passively listen to a lecture, holds promise in this area.

TEACHING STYLE AND WORKS CITED PAGE SCORES

All four classes were assigned an informative speech, and were instructed to turn in a Works Cited page

on the day of their presentation. The rubric for the Works Cited page was worth a maximum score of ten

points and split the scores into three achievement levels – Beginning was zero to three (0-3) points,

Developing was four to seven (4-7) points, and Competent was eight to ten (8-10) points.

Note: Due to the fact that 25 less Works Cited pages were submitted to the instructor as compared to

the number of student assessments completed, it was difficult to discover if there was a statistically

significant relationship between the two variables. This low number of samples was due to students

dropping the course or not completing the mandatory Works Cited page for their speech. Therefore, I

have only cautiously made inferences with the data that was available.

26

RESULTS – ACTIVE LEARNING GROUP ONE [PILOT GROUP]

Table 5 [LO1 Artifact 45]: Competency levels of Active Learning Group One students on the MLA Works Cited pages

The students in the Active Learning Group One class scored as follows:

Seven (59%) scored as Competent [LO1 Artifact 46]

Three (33%) scored as Developing [LO1 Artifact 47]

One (8%) scored as Beginning [LO1 Artifact 48]

Reflection: The majority of students in this group scored as Competent and less than half scored as

Developing or Beginning. This class was taught how to construct MLA citations using the guided

worksheet, an active learning activity I adapted from the Silverman book. They also cited sources

together as a class during the ball toss activity. It is possible these activities reinforced MLA formatting

concepts for the students. Ironically, this is the class that I felt most rushed and least effective in, but

thankfully the students’ MLA scores belied that.

59%

33%

8% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%


Active Learning Group One

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/MLA/AL1_Competent.pdf

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/MLA/AL1_Developing.pdf

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/MLA/AL1_Beginning.pdf

27


Table 6 [LO1 Artifact 49]: Competency levels of Active Learning Group Two students on the MLA Works Cited pages

The students in the Active Learning Group Two class scored as follows:


Three (20%) scored as Developing [LO1 Artifact 51]

One (7%) scored as Beginning [LO1 Artifact 52]

Reflection: This group of students scored the second highest on the works cited pages. I am not too

surprised because this is the class that scored highest on the information literacy assessment. It is hard

to say if I just had a particularly good teaching session that day or if the active learning activities we did

in class really reinforced the Works Cited concepts. The students used their guided worksheet to

recognize parts of an article and then combined the information into the proper order. According to my

journal observations from that day, this was the class that I felt the most successful teaching. I

described feeling alert, the activities were well organized, and the class time was managed well.

73%

20%

7% 0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%


Active Learning Group Two



ftp://[email protected]/brodriguez49/ARP/MLA/AL2_Beginning.pdf

28


Table 7 [LO1 Artifact 53]: Competency levels of Lecture Based Group One students on the MLA Works Cited pages

The students in the Lecture Based Group One class scored as follows:



3 (23%) scored as Beginning [LO1 Artifact 56]

Reflection: This group of students scored the lowest on the Works Cited pages. After reviewing my

journal observations for this class, I saw that I only gave a cursory explanation of the citation generator

in the database and I quickly showed them how to correct errors using the library’s MLA guide online.

This class also had the greatest number of students scoring as Beginning, meaning they made the most

number of errors in their citations. The lesson I will take from this is that the students either need lots

of hands-on time with creating citations or a more in-depth explanation of the database citation

generators and how citation errors can be identified and corrected. It is also important to mention that

54%

23% 23%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%


Lecture Based Group One

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/MLA/Lec1_Competent.pdf

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/MLA/Lec1_Developing.pdf

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/MLA/Lec1_Beginning.pdf

29

SPC 1608 students may not have had ENC 1101 (as it is not a prerequisite) and citation styles are not

routinely taught in speech classes. Therefore speech students may particularly have a difficult time

citing sources and need additional class time devoted to this area.


Table 8 [LO1 Artifact 57]: Competency levels of Lecture Based Group Two students on the MLA Works Cited pages

The students in the Lecture Based Group Two class scored as follows:


0 (0%) scored as Developing

2 (18%) scored as Beginning [LO1 Artifact 59]

Reflection: This group of students really surprised me because they scored the lowest on the

information literacy assessment but the highest on the Works Cited pages. For the purposes of this

action research project, being Competent in MLA citation formatting was defined as having scored

question six correctly on the information literacy assessment. However, this class as a whole did not

82%

0%

18%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%


Lecture Based Group Two



30

score well on question six -- only five out of 18 students in the class that took the assessment answered

question six correctly.

The only thing I can think of that was unique to this session was that I spent a little more time lecturing

how to use the citation generator in the database and how to compare those citations to the library's

MLA guides online to correct any errors.

I admit I am still confused at the percentage of students scoring as Competent, because I did this same

demonstration for the Lecture Based Group One class, and they did not do nearly as well on their MLA

Works Cited pages. A possible explanation could be that as this class did not do any in-class Works Cited

exercises, the students may have been more focused on watching me demonstrate how to use the

citation generator and then compare those citations to the library's guides online to discover and

correct any errors.

In the active learning classes, I actually had them write out citations on paper and only take a cursory

glance at the citation generator. It is possible that the active learning students tried doing their citations

on their own without help from the databases and just made a lot of common student errors.

Perhaps the best option is having students do a combination of both – use the generator to produce

citations and then they themselves edit the citations using the library examples online. This is an

important area I will need to explore further in the future.

DATABASE PROFICIENCY AND CONFIDENCE LEVELS

To discover the relationship between the behavioral (meaning what the student can do) and affective

(meaning how the student feels) dimensions of learning, data was cross-tabulated between the levels of

competence in the use of the database NewsBank and the self-reported level of confidence in the ability

to locate additional database articles in the future.

31

For the purposes of this project, being Competent in the use of the database NewsBank was defined as

having scored three to four (3-4) points total on question three of the information literacy assessment.

Students scoring one to two (1-2) points total on question three were identified as Developing.

Being Confident in the ability to locate additional database articles in the future was defined as having a

confidence level between eight and ten (8-10) on a ten point Likert scale (this was question eight on the

information literacy assessment). Students self-reporting a confidence level between five and seven (5-

7) were identified as Less Confident.

In this research project, there were no self-reports of confidence levels less than five.


Note: Question three was cross-tabulated with question eight on the information literacy assessment to

discover any correlation between levels of competency and self-reports of confidence levels. Although

there were 22 students in the Active Learning Group One class that completed the information literacy

assessment, four (18%) did not answer question eight (confidence levels). Those four scores were not

included below.

The 18 remaining students in the Active Learning Group One class scored as follows:

14 students scored as Competent on question three of the information literacy assessment

(question three reflected database searching proficiency)

o Of these 14 students

Eight self-reported confidence about their database searching skills

Six self-reported less confidence about their database searching skills

Four students scored as Developing on question three of the information literacy assessment

o Of these four students

32

All four self-reported confidence about their database searching skills


The 18 students in the Active Learning Group Two class scored as follows:

14 students scored as Competent on question three of the information literacy assessment



12 self-reported confidence about their database searching skills

Two self-reported less confidence about their database searching skills

Four students scored as Developing on question three of the information literacy assessment

o Of these four students:

Three self-reported confidence about their database searching skills

One self-reported less confidence about their database searching skills

REFLECTION

Out of the 28 combined (from both classes) active learning students scoring as Competent on question

three, 20 (71%) of them self-reported feeling confident about their ability to search the databases. This

is significant because having confidence in a skill can impact whether students attempt to perform a skill

again in the future.

Eight (29%) of the Competent students self-reported feeling less confident about their ability to search

the databases. This means that nearly a third of these Competent students still claimed to feel unsure

about their database search skills after library instruction. It is certainly natural for some students to

feel unsure about their mastery over a topic even after they perform it well. However, having less

33

confidence concerns me because I do not want to students to forgo the development of a skill due to

low confidence levels.

Due to the design of the assessment, students were not given immediate feedback after answering

question three on the information literacy assessment. These students may not have been sure if they

had answered the question correctly. It is also possible that some of these students just picked a

number on the confidence level scale when answering that question (hence the possibility of inaccurate

results).

To improve my practice, and the assessments I use, I think it would be valuable to include immediate

feedback after students answer a question on an assessment. This will enable the assessments to be

useful as a teaching tool as well.

On the reverse side, I found it interesting that out of the eight total active learning students scoring as

Developing on question three, seven (88%) of them self-reported feeling confident about their database

searching skills. Only one of them self-reported feeling less confident about their ability to search the

databases. Just as it is normal for students to underestimate how well they can perform a task, it is also

normal for students to overestimate their abilities.

This experience showed me the importance of immediate feedback during formative assessments, as

students will benefit from knowing if they are performing a task correctly or not. They can adjust their

performance if they were incorrect and they can boost their confidence if they find they were

performing correctly.

34


Note: Although there were 18 students in the Lecture Based Group One class that completed the

information literacy assessment, one (6%) did not answer question eight (confidence levels). That

student's score was not included below.

The 17 remaining students in the Lecture Based Group One class scored as follows:

Nine students scored as Competent on question three of the information literacy assessment


o Of these nine students

Five self-reported feeling confident about their database searching skills

Four self-reported feeling less confident about their database searching skills

Eight students scored as Developing on question three of the information literacy assessment

o Of these eight students

Six self-reported feeling confident about their database searching skills

Two self-reported feeling less confident about their database searching skills


Note: Although there were 18 students in the Lecture Based Group Two class that completed the

information literacy assessment, seven (39%) did not answer question eight (confidence levels). Those

students' scores were not included below.

The eleven remaining students in the Lecture Based Group Two class scored as follows:

Eight students scored as Competent on question three of the assessment (question three

reflected database searching proficiency)

o Of these eight students

35

Four self-reported feeling confident about their database searching skills

Four self-reported feeling less confident about their database searching skills

Three students scored as Developing on question three of the assessment

o Of these three students

Two self-reported feeling confident about their database searching skills

One self-reported feeling less confident about their database searching skills

REFLECTION

Out of the 18 combined (from both classes) lecture based students scoring as Competent on question

three, nine (50%) of them felt confident about their ability to search the databases. Eight (50%) of these

students felt less confident about their ability to search the databases. This means 50% of the lecture

based students scoring confident on that question did not feel as confident as the 71% of the active

learning students did. I cannot infer causation as this is not a vetted study, but perhaps students that

participated in active learning activities and received feedback in class, rather than passively listening to

a lecture and not receiving any feedback (which is more in line with the receiving level of the affective

domain of learning), felt more engaged and secure in their newly acquired knowledge.

It is ironic that just as in the active learning classes, the students in lecture based classes scoring as

Developing on the database searching question self-reported a higher sense of confidence of their

database searching skills. I can only presume that these students very well felt they answered the

database question correctly and felt they had a good mastery of database searching. Without

immediate feedback on the assessment (which I would change if I could repeat this project again), they

had no way of knowing they were searching the database incorrectly. Although I am glad they felt

confident about their skills, it would obviously be beneficial to these students to know if they were

36

making errors and how to correct them for the future. They could receive this kind of instruction in

classes that utilize active learning and formative feedback often.

MLA STYLE AND CONFIDENCE LEVELS

To discover the relationship between the behavioral (meaning what the student can do) and affective

(meaning how the student feels) dimensions of learning, data was cross-tabulated between the levels of

competence in recognizing a correct MLA citation and the level of confidence in creating MLA citations

in the future.

For the purposes of this project, being Competent in MLA citation formatting was defined as having

scored question six correctly of the information literacy assessment. Students scoring question six

incorrectly on the assessment were identified as Developing.

Feeling confident in the ability to correctly format MLA citations in the future was defined as having a

confidence level between eight and ten (8-10) on a ten point Likert scale (this was question nine on the

information literacy assessment). Students self-reporting a confidence level between five and seven

were identified as less confident.


Note: Although there were 22 total students in the Active Learning Group One class that completed the

information literacy assessment, five (23%) of them did not complete either question six or nine on the

information literacy assessment. Their scores were not included below.

The 17 remaining students in the Active Learning Group One class scored as follows:

12 students scored as Competent on question six of the Information Literacy Assessment

(question six reflected the ability to recognize a correctly formatted MLA citation)

37


Eight self-reported feeling confident about their ability to develop MLA citations

Four self-reported feeling less confident about their ability to develop MLA

citations

Five students scored as Developing on question six of the information literacy assessment

o Of these five students

Four self-reported feeling confident about their ability to develop MLA citations

One self-reported feeling less confident about their ability to develop MLA

citations


Note: Although there were 18 total students in the Active Learning Group Two class that completed the

information literacy assessment, one (6%) of them did not complete question nine on the information

literacy assessment. The student's score was not included below.

The 17 remaining students in the Active Learning Group Two class scored as follows:

12 students scored as Competent on question six of the Information Literacy Assessment



Nine self-reported feeling confident about their ability to develop MLA citations

Three self-reported feeling less confident about their ability to develop MLA

citations



38

Four self-reported feeling confident about their ability to develop MLA citations

One self-reported feeling less confident about their ability to develop MLA

citations

REFLECTION

As shown above, out of the 24 students combined (from both classes) that were scored as Competent

on the assessment question, 17 (71%) self-reported feeling confident about their ability to create MLA

citations in the future and seven (29%) self-reported feeling less confident about their ability to do so.

These are good results and to me shows that students who participate actively with learning, and who

reach the responding level of the affective domain of learning, have a better chance of performing an

activity correctly and will feel more confident while doing so.

Even as a professional librarian who assists students with MLA citation format on a near daily basis, I

find that having confidence is very important when it comes to citing unique sources. Sifting through

the numerous examples in the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers can be an off-putting

experience, so having the perseverance to continue until I find the correct example and format the

source is very important.

Out of the ten students that scored as Developing on the assessment question, eight (80%) self-reported

feeling confident about their ability to create MLA citations in the future and two (20%) self-reported

feeling less confident about their ability to do so. Again, although it is good to see that students feel

confident about such a difficult topic, it concerns me that so many answered the MLA question

incorrectly and did not realize it, even after engaging in the active learning activities that reinforced the

MLA style. Hopefully these students will seek out assistance from a librarian or their instructor when

they need additional help.

39

Of course, I cannot make broad generalizations about the students’ ability to properly format citations

based on the cross-tabulated results of one multiple choice question and one affective question. To

further research this issue, I would recommend to librarians that would like to replicate this project to

have students put their name (or a number that is tied to their name) on their information literacy

assessment so those could be matched to their MLA Works Cited pages that were submitted on the day

of their speeches. Comparisons could then be made between the final score of their Works Cited pages

and their self-reported Confidence levels in developing citations. I believe then I could incur some

causation by comparing the data.


Note: Although there were 18 total students in the Lecture Based Group One class that completed the

information literacy assessment, four (22%) of them did not complete either question six or nine on the


The 18 remaining students in the Lecture Based Group One class scored as follows:

Nine students scored as Competent on question six of the Information Literacy Assessment

(question six reflected the ability to recognize a correctly formatted MLA citation).

o Of these nine students

Six self-reported feeling confident about their ability to develop MLA citations


citations



Two self-reported feeling confident about their ability to develop MLA citations

40


citations


Note: Although there were 18 total students in the Lecture Based Group Two class that completed the

information literacy assessment, eight (44%) of them did not complete either question six or nine on the


The ten remaining students in the Lecture Based Group Two class scored as follows:

Four students scored as Competent on question six of the Information Literacy Assessment


o Of these four students

Two self-reported feeling confident about their ability to develop MLA citations

Two self-reported feeling less confident about their ability to develop MLA

citations

Six students scored as Developing on question six of the information literacy assessment

o Of these six students

Three self-reported feeling confident about their ability to develop MLA

citations


citations

REFLECTION

The results of the cross-tabulation for the lecture based classes was not as striking as for the active

learning classes. Of the thirteen students that answered the Works Cited question correctly on the

41

assessment, eight (62%) self-reported feeling confident about their ability to cite sources in the future.

Five (38%) self-reported feeling less confident about their ability to cite sources. These numbers are

lower than the students in the active learning classes and could reflect confusion even on the part of

students that answered the citation question correctly.

Of the eleven students that answered the Works Cited question incorrectly on the assessment, five

(45%) self reported feeling confident and six (55%) self-reported feeling less confident about their ability

to develop Works Cited pages in the future. This group of Developing students had a more accurate self-

perception of their skills than the active learning Developing students, however I believe still too many

did not realize they were deficient in this difficult area.

It is important to note that this data was from the lecture based classes, which means although I

explained to them how to locate the database generated citations and showed them the library's MLA

guides online, I did not have them do an exercise on creating their own citations (like I did with the

active learning groups). It is possible that the lecture based Competent students did not have enough

engagement to know whether their understanding of citing sources was sufficient or not. The students

did not have an overall level of confidence when it comes to citing sources in the future -- this could be a

side effect of not having enough reinforcement during class.

Due to all of my findings, in the future I will attempt to do both strategies with my classes -- show them

how to find database generated citations and then use the library's MLA guides online to do a written

exercise where they correctly edit and format those citations.

42

REFLECTIVE CRITIQUE

GENERAL REFLECTION OF THE ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT

My original research question was to discover whether students that participated in active learning

techniques would score higher on an information literacy assessment and Works Cited pages than

students taught using a lecture method. As this was an action research project and not a controlled

study, I cannot determine causation. However, in my professional judgment, I believe I found a

correlation between teaching techniques and student learning.

Based on my results, in the future I will attempt to include a cooperative activity and an active learning

activity in my classes to reinforce difficult concepts. One active learning activity, the Think Pair Share,

was particularly useful when students could benefit from peer insight. I also personally believe that any

cooperative activities foster a well needed sense of community in the classroom. Active learning games,

such as the Koosh ball toss, were certainly a fun way to break the ice with students, but more

importantly were useful when students felt hesitant about raising their hand to answer difficult

questions (such as those involving MLA citations). I will use lecture to its best advantage, in short

intervals (and with a timer when appropriate) when explaining instructions or introducing new concepts.

After viewing the results of the information literacy assessment and seeing discrepancies between the

two lecture based classes, I am curious as to how much time management issues impact learning. As I

mentioned previously, the one p.m. class I taught after lunch had a hard time staying focused and alert.

I also felt like I was losing steam as this was my second class of the day. However, classes will always be

offered in the afternoon, and I will still be requested to teach them. In the future I would like to

investigate ways to use activities to invigorate these afternoon classes.

43

If I were to repeat this project, or if a colleague were to replicate it, I would recommend the following

additions to my instructional strategies:

Create a master student tracker page that matches student names and assigned student

numbers. Have each student include their student number on their information literacy

assessments and their MLA Works Cited pages. This will ensure privacy while allowing student

data tracking to correlate information literacy assessment scores to MLA Works Cited pages.

Compare each student's information literacy scores and MLA Works Cited pages to discover

patterns in each students’ learning.

Interview a sample group of students (perhaps the lowest scoring and the highest scoring) to

discover the thought process behind their search strategies on the information literacy

assessment. To ensure privacy and enable the comparison of the other data, make sure the

interview transcripts are identified with the student numbers.

Interview the same group of students about their confidence levels regarding searching and

creating MLA Works Cited pages.

Ensure a higher completion rate of the information literacy assessment. I found that 29 (34%) of

the 85 students that took the information literacy assessment did not answer at least one or

more of the questions. This definitely impacted my results and makes statistical significance

difficult to infer. For the future, I recommend adjusting the software settings to disallow

students from skipping questions. I also recommend either expanding the amount of time for

students to take the assessment, or lessen the number of questions on the assessment.

44

CRITICAL EVALUATION OF EACH ESSENTIAL COMPETENCY ADDRESSED IN

LEARNING OUTCOME ONE

LEARNING CENTERED TEACHING STRATEGIES

Employ strategies and techniques that guide students to become more active learners

Use cooperative/collaborative learning strategies

One of the strategies I employed to encourage participation was the ball toss. This is a simple activity

that many workshop trainers use effectively. Any Koosh ball or other soft, small ball can be used.

Students are posed a question and the instructor tosses the ball to them. The student will attempt to

answer and then another question is asked of the class. The student tosses the ball to another student,

and so on. Student reactions vary, with some being squeamish about catching the ball, and some raising

their hand to catch it. What I liked about it is that all students had to be ready with an answer just in

case they were chosen.

Another game that I had prepared but there was never time to use was the Research Bowl game [LO1

Artifact 17 - VIDEO]. I was really disappointed that we did not get to play it. This game was meant to be

a wrap up game at the end of class, and would have taken about 10 minutes of class time, as opposed to

the ball toss which only took three minutes to play. A valuable lesson I learned is that active learning

activities have to be timed very carefully and you have to choose which activities you include wisely.

Since we also had the assessment that had to be given during the last ten minutes of class time, there

was no time for the MLA Research Bowl game. I look forward to playing this game in the future with

classes (I imagine there will be time as long as I do not give any assessments at the end of class).

I was very satisfied administering the cooperative learning strategy, Think Pair Share, to reinforce the

concept of selecting keywords for a search. This activity only took a few minutes of class time but I felt it

was a very valuable experience. I gave them a minute to come up with keywords for their topics. Then I


45

had them pair up with a neighbor to review each other’s list of terms and advise each other on

additional terms they may have missed. The students seemed to enjoy the informal atmosphere or

working with fellow students, and the atmosphere was pretty lively both times. To ensure that students

learned from this activity and understood why we did it, I made sure to ask a few of the pairs to tell the

class what keywords they came up with.

Before I learned about learning centered teaching strategies, I taught the way that I was taught in school

and the way that made me feel most comfortable. Having to take on new teaching strategies, such as

active and collaborative learning, pushed me to be more student centered. I want this to be the

beginning of a new way to do things in the classroom.

INCLUSION AND DIVERSITY

Design and support learning experiences that address students’ unique strengths

Design and support learning experiences that address students’ unique needs

By reaching outside of my comfort zone and trying new things in the classroom, I found a way to show

students respect for their unique educational strengths and needs. By focusing on auditory learners all

these years, I was ignoring students that needed kinesthetic activity to learn best and peer interaction to

easily understand new concepts. By giving up “control” of the classroom, I allowed students to take

charge of their learning. Although I did not survey students after the active learning activities to

discover whether they enjoyed the activities, my observation was that there was definitely more energy

in the air and a liveliness that did not take place in the two lecture based classes. By providing

kinesthetic learners a way to engage with class content and their peers, I gave them a chance to use

their particular learning needs and strengths to understand new and difficult content. I will continue to

do this in the future, because there are no one size fits all approaches to teaching and learning.

46

TVCA

Employ methods that develop student understanding of discipline’s thinking, practice and

procedures

Collaborate with colleagues and director to assure and demonstrate progression of student

learning across courses

This action research project was a chance for me to engage students in the four Valencia College

Student Core Competencies (Think, Value, Communicate, Act). During the Think Pair Share activity,

students helped each other discover keywords that would be useful for their searches (Communicate).

Students were encouraged to infer how databases work with minimal assistance from the librarian

(Think). During the hands-on guided practice time, students discovered how to use the databases (Act).

Through the use of open questions and class discussion, students were encouraged to think critically

about source credibility (Value). During the ball toss activity, the class worked together as a team to cite

sources in MLA style (Act). Using the guided worksheet, students practiced citing sources they selected

during their searches (Act).

Collaborating with colleagues across the curriculum enabled me to have the kind of student interaction

and impact on student learning I could not otherwise obtain that I needed for this action research

project. I originally selected two teaching faculty members to collaborate with on this action research

project. The two faculty members, from different disciplines, were selected due to the similarities of the

research requirements for their assignments. English Professor Dr. Jackie Zuromski and Speech

Professor Tina Tan (both located on the West Campus) both assign research based projects that require

the use of the library subscription database NewsBank. My original proposal was to field-test the active

learning techniques and the information literacy assessment with Professor Tan's four SPC 1608 Fall

47

Term 2010 classes. I was going to perform the actual Action Research Project with Professor Zuromski's

four ENC 1101 Fall Term 2010 classes.

Before actually conducting the Action Research Project, I worked with Professor Zuromski to select the

student learning objectives for the library instruction sessions. We also reviewed the information

literacy assessment together and she recommended some changes in the grammar and question

formatting.

Due to the discovery that Professor Zuromski dedicates an entire class session for students to edit their

Works Cited pages prior to submission for grading, I felt my Works Cited data would be skewed. I then

made the decision to perform the Action Research Project with Professor Tan's four SPC1608 Spring

Term 2011 classes instead. In the end, I was still able to use Professor Zuromski's four ENC 1101 classes

for much needed field-testing. This allowed me to perfect the active learning techniques and edit any of

the information literacy assessment questions as needed.

This action research project was a chance for me to teach students about the Valencia College General

Education outcome Information Literacy. Although they may not know it by its name, my hope is that

by teaching students to recognize an information need, locate and evaluate prospective sources, and

use information ethically, I will aid in their acquisition of Information Literacy.

Of course, librarians are not the only faculty that teach information literacy. Other instructors, such as

the Communications faculty, routinely teach students information literacy skills. Speech faculty stress

the importance of using credible sources for speeches. English faculty are indeed the masters of

teaching MLA style, and by the time a student completes ENC 1101, they have written a documented

essay.

48

By collaborating with faculty across the curriculum, librarians can do their part to assist students in

meeting this General Education outcome by the time they graduate Valencia College. Librarians can fill

in the gaps for students, who may be confused by the research process or may not even know where to

begin. Ever available to students within the walls of the library and even online, librarians are in a prime

position to teach students how to locate reliable information and use it appropriately.

SCHOLARSHIP OF TEACHING AND LEARNING

Produce professional work (action research) that meets the Valencia Standards of Scholarship

Build upon the work of others (consult literature, peers, self, students)

Be open to constructive critique (by both peers and students)

Make work public to college and broader audiences

Demonstrate relationship of SofTL to improved teaching and learning processes

Demonstrate current teaching and learning theory and practice

This action research project is the first time I have ever really delved into a research project of my own.

Before I started this project, I felt this would be a daunting experience, however by enlisting the advice

of my colleagues, my director, and my panel, I found it to be a manageable task.

I learned about my topic by consulting with my colleagues, students, and by perusing educational

literature. I was able to use what I learned from these sources as a starting point, but I believe I built up

on their work by utilizing the latest technologies, such as survey tools (to conduct a pre-survey and to

assess students), video recording software (to record my teaching sessions), and online social media

software (such as YouTube to share my videos and Wiki Spaces to share best active learning teaching

practices).

49

Although my action research project focused on a topic that has already been covered innumerous

times in the literature, this topic was new to me, and that’s what made this research useful for

informing and improving my practice. I shared my findings and drafts of this action research project

numerous times with valued colleagues who freely critiqued my work and better informed my findings.

Even after I have submitted this project, I am anxious to share my work with my librarian colleagues at a

college wide department meeting for further feedback and constructive criticism. I believe their input

will help refine my teaching techniques and allow me to stay the course with this new type of teaching.

Of course, I also hope my work will inspire my colleagues to experiment with new ideas in the

classroom.

Lastly, I may have learned the most from watching myself on camera. I videotaped myself for the two

active learning sessions. That was difficult as I witnessed myself stammering, speaking too quickly,

jumbling my thoughts, wringing my hands, and having poor posture. I believe that presentation skills

have the ability to impact student learning as much as the type of teaching techniques used in class.

Even if I offer engaging active learning opportunities to students, if I speak too fast and don’t make eye

contact, how much of an impact will I really make? I definitely learned that what I say is as important as

how I say it.

ASSESSMENT

Employ formative feedback loops to assess student learning

Employ formative feedback loops to inform students of their learning progress

This project gave me the opportunity to make formative assessment a part of my practice. My use of

formative feedback loops such as open questions during library instruction, playing the Koosh ball toss

game with students, and having students discover how to cite an article using the guided worksheet all

50

assisted in providing students with feedback they needed to increase their learning. As I am a librarian

and do not have the “power of the grade”, I have no way to give summative assessments. However,

formative assessments are perfect for the library instruction environment in that they allow us to

quickly recap content covered and make any adjustments in student thinking before moving forward.

I had never thought of using a CAT (classroom assessment technique) in class before. Asking students

outside of my two study groups about what teaching method helped them learn best was really simple

to do and very insightful. It helped guide my project by giving me an idea of what students like and how

they prefer to learn. The results confirmed what I expected; I could see that many wanted to do and see

more in class. Only a very few preferred standard lectures, hence my decision to focus on active

learning, collaborative work, and guided worksheets.

Designing assessments with actual assessment writing standards in mind was a new learning experience

for me. I learned about designing questions that address behavioral, cognitive, and affective dimensions

of learning. I learned from my reading in the book A Practical Guide to Information Literacy Assessment

for Academic Librarians, by Kenneth J. Burhanna, to cross-tabulate scores to come up with hypotheses

about student learning. Field-testing was a really important part of this process, as I made many

adjustments and edits to the questions based on feedback from the Valencia College Director of

Institutional Research, college students, and librarian colleagues. Designing the rubrics to score the

assessment and MLA Works Cited pages felt like a similar process, with field-testing and several

revisions. The more I field-tested, the more I felt comfortable in their reliability for future use.

Creating rubrics to score the assessment and the Works Cited pages was also a new experience for me.

As I went through the scoring process, I discovered that the rubrics worked well most of the time.

However, there were a few times that I felt the rubric didn’t score fairly enough. For example, I focused

on formatting issues when I developed the MLA Works Cited Rubric. I identified 37 different ways a

51

citation could have errors, and these errors were worth different points. However, what I did not take

into account was that not all students would include all three citations as they were supposed to, so

according to my rubric, a student that submitted one correct citation could make the same score as a

student that submitted three correct citations. That, of course, is not fair, and shows my lack of

experience creating rubrics.

I did have some issues regarding assessment during this action research project. Unfortunately, for

seven of my students, the survey software Qualtrics froze in the midst of their taking the assessment,

resulting in non-completion for those of the assessment. Additionally, I am not sure why, but 34% of the

students did not answer every question on the assessment. I found that some would skip the harder

questions and only complete the ones that asked less of them to do (the performance based question

number three, where students had to construct a search in NewsBank and replicate it on the

assessment, is a prime example of one that was skipped). Since this action research project, I have

considered that I should have made all of the questions mandatory on the assessment (that is an

elective function on the survey software). This would have at least disallowed students from skipping

questions.

Also, only 51 of the 85 students (60%) that took the assessment submitted a Works Cited page to the

professor, which gave me an unequal amount of assessment and Works Cited pages to compare. That

was something I had not at all expected from such a large number of students.

Additionally, I found that I could not get a highly accurate picture of student confidence levels when it

came to database searching and creating MLA Works Cited pages. When I tried to cross-tabulate data

from questions 3 (database searching exercise) and questions 8 (database searching self-report of

confidence) on the information literacy assessment, I found that 12 students from the four classes had

not answered one of those questions. When I tried to cross tabulate data from questions 6 (selecting

52

the correct MLA citation) and questions 9 (MLA creation self-report of confidence) on the information

literacy assessment, I found that 18 students from the four classes had not answered one of those

questions. This was very frustrating as it impacted drawing conclusions from my data.

It really surprised me that students were skipping the confidence levels questions (questions 8 and 9).

These were not difficult questions, so I imagine that since these were the last two questions on the

assessment, many of these students did not have enough time to complete the assessment. The only

solution to this in the future would to either expand the amount of time to take the assessment, or

shorten the amount of questions on the assessment.

Also, if I could do it over again, I would have not made the assessments anonymous – I would have used

a number system so I could track student progress. It would have been beneficial to me to see how

students self-reported their confidence levels on the affective question on the assessment and compare

those to their scores on the Works Cited pages. I feel that would have given me a more accurate

correlation between the two factors.

PLAN FOR DISSEMINATION

This Action Research Project will be presented to my Valencia College Librarian colleagues at a college

wide librarians meeting. Active learning techniques will be shared on an Active Learning Wiki [LO1

Artifact 60], a place that Valencia College librarians can share their best active learning practices.

Additionally, I will share my work with the Valencia faculty at large by uploading this project to the

Action Research Project Builder.

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Docs/ActiveLearningWiki.pdf

53

LIST OF ARTIFACTS

ADEQUATE PREPARATION PAGE #

LO1 Artifact 1: Analyzing Student Response Data 3

LO1 Artifact 2: Colleague Perspective – Professor Nicole Valentino 4

LO1 Artifact 3: Colleague Perspective – Librarian Mark Bollenback 4

LO1 Artifact 4: Colleague Perspective – Professor Mayra Holzer 4

LO1 Artifact 5: Colleague Perspective – Librarian Diane Dalrymple 4

LO1 Artifact 6: Expert Perspective – Works Cited 7

APPROPRIATE METHODS #

LO1 Artifact 7: Student Learning Outcomes 10

LO1 Artifact 8: Library Handout for Lecture Based Classes 10

LO1 Artifact 9: Library Guided Worksheet for Active Learning Classes 10

LO1 Artifact 10: Video: Explaining the Guided Worksheet 11

LO1 Artifact 11: Video: Brainstorming Keywords 11

LO1 Artifact 12: Video: Think Pair Share Activity 11

LO1 Artifact 13: Video: Learning to Use the Database NewsBank 12

LO1 Artifact 14: Video: Ball Toss - Identifying Bibliographic Elements Within an Article 12

LO1 Artifact 15: Video: Ball Toss - Critically Examine Database Generated Citations 12

LO1 Artifact 16: Video: Class Teamwork - Citing a Source 13

LO1 Artifact 17: Video: Demo of Research Bowl Game 13

LO1 Artifact 18: Information Literacy Assessment 13

LO1 Artifact 19: Map of SLOs to Active Learning Activities and Assessment Questions 14

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Docs/StudentResponses.pdf

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/ColleaguePerspective/NValentino.pdf

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/ColleaguePerspective/MBollenback.pdf

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/ColleaguePerspective/MHolzer.pdf

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/ColleaguePerspective/DDalrymple.pdf

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Docs/WorksCited.pdf


http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/ClassDocs/LectureGuide.pdf


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI4HSmwDZ3E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skLGAEFuLZA

http://youtu.be/jI1dkww6f8A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3UjGRoAJUI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiDsI156_cA


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZj1m8dr_wg


http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Tools/InfoLitAssessment.pdf

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/ClassDocs/MapSPC.pdf

54

LO1 Artifact 20: Question 2, Information Literacy Assessment 14







LO1 Artifact 27: Information Literacy Assessment Rubric 15

LO1 Artifact 28: Valencia College Rubric for Assessing Information Literacy 16

LO1 Artifact 29: MLA Works Cited Rubric 17

LO1 Artifact 30: Journal: Fall Term 2010 Classroom Observations 18

LO1 Artifact 31: Journal: Spring Term 2011 Classroom Observations 18

SIGNIFICANT RESULTS #

LO1 Artifact 32: Table 1 – Active Learning Group One Information Literacy (IL) Competency Levels 20

LO1 Artifact 33: Active Learning Group One Scored IL Assessments -- Competent 20

LO1 Artifact 34: Active Learning Group One Scored IL Assessments -- Developing 20

LO1 Artifact 35: Table 2 – Active Learning Group Two IL Competency Levels 21

LO1 Artifact 36: Active Learning Group Two Scored IL Assessments -- Competent 21

LO1 Artifact 37: Active Learning Group Two Scored IL Assessments -- Developing 21

LO1 Artifact 38: Active Learning Group Two Scored IL Assessments -- Beginning 21

LO1 Artifact 39: Table 3 – Lecture Based Group 1 IL Competency Levels 22

LO1 Artifact 40: Lecture Based Group One Scored IL Assessments -- Competent 22

LO1 Artifact 41: Lecture Based Group One Scored IL Assessments -- Developing 22








http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Tools/Assessment_Rubric.pdf

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Tools/ILRubricFall08.pdf

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Tools/WorksCitedRubric.pdf

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Journals/FieldTestTeachingReflections.pdf

http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Journals/Teaching_Reflections.pdf





http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Assessments/AL2_Beginning.pdf



55

LO1 Artifact 42: Table 4 – Lecture Based Group Two IL Competency Level 24

LO1 Artifact 43: Lecture Based Group Two Scored IL Assessments -- Competent 24

LO1 Artifact 44: Lecture Based Group Two Scored IL Assessments -- Developing 24

LO1 Artifact 45: Table 5 – Active Learning Group One Works Cited Competency Levels 26

LO1 Artifact 46: Active Learning Group One Scored Works Cited pages -- Competent 26

LO1 Artifact 47: Active Learning Group One Scored Works Cited pages -- Developing 26

LO1 Artifact 48: Active Learning Group One Scored Works Cited pages -- Beginning 26

LO1 Artifact 49: Table 6 – Active Learning Group Two Works Cited Competency Levels 27

LO1 Artifact 50: Active Learning Group Two Scored Works Cited pages -- Competent 27

LO1 Artifact 51: Active Learning Group Two Scored Works Cited pages -- Developing 27

LO1 Artifact 52: Active Learning Group Two Scored Works Cited pages -- Beginning 27

LO1 Artifact 53: Table 7 – Lecture Based Group One Works Cited Competency Levels 28

LO1 Artifact 54: Lecture Based Group One Scored Works Cited pages -- Competent 28

LO1 Artifact 55: Lecture Based Group One Scored Works Cited pages -- Developing 28

LO1 Artifact 56: Lecture Based Group One Scored Works Cited pages -- Beginning 28

LO1 Artifact 57: Table 8 – Lecture Based Group Two Works Cited Competency Levels 29

LO1 Artifact 58: Lecture Based Group Two Scored Works Cited pages -- Competent 29

LO1 Artifact 59: Lecture Based Group Two Scored Works Cited pages -- Beginning 29

REFLECTIVE CRITIQUE #

LO1 Artifact 60: Active Learning Wiki 52





http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/MLA/AL1_Beginning.pdf



ftp://[email protected]/brodriguez49/ARP/MLA/AL2_Beginning.pdf


http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/MLA/Lec1_Developing.pdf




http://faculty.valenciacollege.edu/brodriguez49/ARP/Docs/ActiveLearningWiki.pdf