SLS1101 Library Instruction Assessment
Summer 2017
SLS1101 Overview
SLS1101, College Success, is a one-credit course offered through the Student Development Instruction department at Santa Fe College. This course focuses on teaching core skills for new college students, including study skills, communication and life skills, and information on academic achievement. Library skills are included as one module within the class. For the library module, classes at the Northwest Campus visit the Lawrence W. Tyree Library for a brief introduction to library services and resources, and participate in a 10-question library scavenger hunt, designed to walk them through the entire library while familiarizing them with the library’s many resources.
Current Situation
Over the past few years, scores have consistently been high, but students consistently need help, and sometimes confuse the different resources that were shown. The instruction portion of the library visit also takes up to a half hour, which leaves less time for the hands-on assessment, resulting in many students needing to finish outside of class time.
In the spring of 2017, Diana Matthews, the library liaison for the Student Development Instruction department, met with both librarians and the SDI faculty to discuss the library visit and scavenger hunts, and to gather feedback on how to make improvements. Based on their feedback, a new approach to the visit and the scavenger hunt was created.
Proposed Changes
In order to not overwhelm students with information and provide them enough time for in-class exploration of the library and the resources, the in-classroom portion of the library visit will consist of an introductory, highly visual slideshow. Students will then explore the resources with more guidance provided on the scavenger hunt. This provides consistent instruction throughout the different sections, regardless of the librarian, and allows sufficient time for students to complete their assignment.
Changes will also be made to the scavenger hunt assessment. The assessment consists of 10 questions covering main skills and areas of the library. Skills covered include looking up a book, looking up an article, identifying if an article is a magazine or journal article, finding a video, identifying relevant research guides, and visiting the service desks. Questions will include all steps needed to successfully answer each question, without requiring prior knowledge.
The hunts will have all questions requiring a computer listed first, eliminating issues finding computers during busy times and allowing for more hands-on help in the classroom by the instructing librarian.
In addition, all the scavenger hunts will have themes based on the skills covered in SLS1101, such as time management, test taking, and careers. This makes the scavenger hunt more relevant to the skills covered in the class and that students will be using in the future.
To reinforce skills, all instructors will be provided with a link to an online SoftChalk module that students can return to throughout the semester. This module will cover the skills and resources that were introduced in the library visit.
SLS1101 classes at the Centers will have the same basic structure, though the questions in the scavenger hunt will be tailored to their needs, though the basic skills will still be covered. For example, instead of finding a print book, Centers students will find an eBook.
Online SLS1101 students will use the SoftChalk module as an introduction to the library services and resources, and then complete a Canvas quiz with the scavenger hunt questions. Just like Centers students, the online questions will use the same skills but be tailored to online resources.
Assessment
The focus for the 2017-2018 year will be to gauge the effectiveness of the new assessment tool as a whole, and gather statistics and informal feedback on the new approach. A question-by-question analysis will be done on all completed scavenger hunts for all three modalities (NW Campus, Centers, and online) and overall scores will be compared to the past scavenger hunt data to determine if there was an increase in scores.