Assessing Student Learning

Assessment is crucial to knowing if your students are learning the information literacy skills they need. Learn about the experiences of three librarians with evaluating their students’ learning using active learning as a method of assessment, in-class exercises in one-time instruction sessions, and collaborating with classroom faculty to embed information literacy skills into course rubrics. Participants can join in an interactive discussion of assessment to identify assessment methods you can incorporate into your teaching. We will cover developing learning outcomes, class activities, and various assessment approaches

Seeking Symbiosis: Designing LibGuides that Bring User-Centered Design and Learner-Centered Practice into Harmony

Libraries around the world use LibGuides to create research guides for students. But is the user-centered approach often employed by libraries when creating these guides enough to meet the needs of today’s learners? A small task force of librarians at Oxford College of Emory University set out to answer this question. After studying the literature, it was found that very few studies focus on instructional design principles in the creation of LibGuides. Furthermore, an examination of their own library’s LibGuides revealed that while the guides addressed many issues of usability, learner-centered design was often absent. (25 minutes) The first portion of the workshop will outline the efforts of the task force to create a LibGuide template for Oxford College’s new first-year seminar courses. The iterative design of the course guide template seeks to bring into symbiosis user-centered design and learner-centered practice. The goal of the template is to point students toward recommended resources and teach them valuable information literacy skills along the way. Results from the initial rollout and subsequent evaluation of the template will be presented. (40 minutes) Attendees will then be divided into groups led by each of the presenters to share their libraries’ experiences in creating course guides. The groups will brainstorm ideas for how these teaching tools can better meet the learning needs of students. A laptop will be provided for each group so that attendees can evaluate their institution’s LibGuides. At the end of the workshop, each group will designate a speaker to present some of their group’s ideas (10 minutes)

Assessing HER2 amplification in breast cancer: findings from the Australian In Situ Hybridization Program

In August 2006, the Australian government approved subsidized trastuzumab therapy for human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive early breast cancer, and it was mandated that HER2 testing should be performed using in situ hybridization (ISH) rather than immunohistochemistry (IHC). Here we review results of the first regulated, nationwide program to provide HER2 ISH testing for all newly diagnosed breast cancer patients, with a particular emphasis on cases where IHC and ISH results were discordant. Data from all laboratories participating in the program were collated. Cases with an equivocal ISH test result [by chromogenic ISH (CISH) or silver ISH (SISH)] were tested centrally by fluorescence ISH. Most laboratories also performed HER2 IHC, and 200 cases with discordant IHC and ISH results were selected for further analysis in a central laboratory. A total of 26 laboratories were involved and 53,402 tests were reported. Over a 4-year period the HER2 positivity rate decreased for primary cancers from 23.8 to 14.6 %, but remained relatively constant for samples from metastases. Average ISH reporting times wer