2012 Student Learning Enhancement Award

University Libraries’ Associate Dean for Public Services Kathryn Crowe and Dr. Elizabeth Natalle from Communication Studies won the 2012 Student Learning Enhancement Award from the UNCG Senate Student Learning Enhancement Committee.  Crowe and Natalle’s study assessed information literacy skills in Communication Studies (CST) 300, a core course required of all CST majors. After identifying specific learning outcomes Crowe used a rubric to score “real-life’ performance evaluation in the form of a worksheet.  An initial pilot in 2009 indicated that students were not gaining needed skills so several changes were made during subsequent semesters: (1) require students to take several modules of the Libraries’ online tutorial (2) delay the library instruction session so that students have more time to develop their topics and absorb material from the tutorial (3) develop a tutorial on primary sources in Communication Studies.  The scores improved dramatically for the 3 learning outcomes:

This collaborative model offers an excellent opportunity for many departments to build a stronger relationship between themselves and the Libraries.  This authentic assessment of an assignment that was part of the sequence of the course provided evidence that students were not acquiring the skills that both the teaching faculty and librarians wanted them to learn.  The Libraries and the CST Department partnered more closely to develop focused outcomes and measure them more rigorously.  As a result we worked together to revise the pedagogy that improved students’ performance and integrated information literacy further into the CST curriculum.  Additional information is available in this article.