Coordinating programs

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Toggle navigation. Search Options. The Programs. See Activity Often, we can develop program-level learning outcomes by extrapolating from session-level outcomes.

The table below shows sample session-level learning outcomes from various types of instruction sessions, along with their setting and intended audience. Try to write an appropriate program-level outcome related to each, following the example given.

We can also use professional standards and curricular frameworks as guides to what our students should be learning, as described in Chapter 2. Remember that these standards and frameworks are already written at a broad level. When drawing on standards like these to create program learning outcomes, we need to consider our audience and the scope of our program. Are we describing outcomes for students in a certain year of high school or college, or at the end of their entire high school or college degree program?

We would not expect students to achieve the same learning outcomes at the end of their first year of college as we will expect of them when they are seniors, but in both cases we can begin with the ACRL Framework to determine what learners should know and be able to do.

Once we have our program learning outcomes, we must decide how we will assess achievement of those goals. According to Backward Design, at this stage we identify activities or assignments through which learners could demonstrate their learning.

As described in Chapter 9, we can find or develop activities that align with our learning outcomes, have students complete those activities, and then collect and analyze the results for evidence of learning. In order to assess at the program level, we collect and analyze data across sessions and over longer periods of time, such as a semester or year, to get a picture of learner achievement across the program.

The final step in Backward Design is determining how the instruction will be delivered. For individual sessions, we plan specific learning activities such as a discussion or exercises for hands-on practice. At the program level, we will focus on the series and sequence of classes needed to achieve our outcomes. Most importantly, we need to ensure that we are offering an appropriate range of sessions, each with its own appropriate set of outcomes and learning activities, so that learners completing those classes will be able to demonstrate the program-level outcomes.

When planning our instruction program, we should consider scaffolding, or sequencing sessions, so that learners are exposed to more complex information to build their skills and knowledge over time. Just as we would do within a session, we should examine our program to understand where certain skills are introduced, how they can be built on or reinforced, and whether there is a clear path for students to fully achieve the program-level goals.

One way to conduct this type of review is through curriculum mapping. Often, these maps are laid out as tables or spreadsheets, with program-level learning outcomes listed across the top, and individual instruction sessions listed in the first column.

Instructors can then use the appropriate table cell to indicate if a specific outcome is addressed in that course. These maps might also identify the level of learning happening in each session. Once completed, these maps provide a visual overview of how current instruction sessions align with program goals, whether a clear path to attainment of learning goals exists, and where the gaps are.

Table As noted above, part of Backward Design involves planning for assessment, including identifying relevant activities and assignments that demonstrate student learning. Our purpose with program-level assessment is to measure the extent to which all learners are achieving the outcomes we set or, put another way, how well our program is enabling achievement of those outcomes.

Session-level assessment tells us how well individual students are performing within a class and can give us a sense of how well the group assembled for that lesson achieved the session goals; however, without program-level assessment, we cannot see how the community of learners is performing nor whether we are successfully meeting our stated program-level learning goals.

For librarians, gathering evidence for assessment can be more challenging at the program level than at the session level. Unlike teachers in a degree program, librarians typically are not in a position to assign the types of activities like capstone projects or portfolios that require students to synthesize and apply skills and knowledge they have developed over the course of a program.

In a school or academic library, if the parent institution has identified learning outcomes related to information literacy for all students, or if individual subjects or degree programs have their own information literacy outcomes, librarians might be able to work with faculty to access capstones, theses, and other culminating projects that integrate those outcomes to assess for information literacy.

Otherwise, we will probably have to draw on and aggregate work produced in our individual sessions to assess at the program level. We can use our curriculum map to locate instruction sessions that address specific outcomes at a mastery level, and then identify the activities or assignments from that session that align with the outcome. The next step is to gather the identified assignments or activities, or a sample of those activities and assignments, for review.

Remember that our purpose at the program level is to get an overview of how well our community of learners is achieving program-level goals, not to scrutinize or provide feedback to individual students; that is done at the session level. Rubrics can greatly facilitate the review process at the program level see Chapter 9 for more on rubric design.

Ideally, rubrics should be developed specifically for the program-level outcomes. Within our own programs, we can establish benchmarks or a minimum percentage of students we want to see meeting or exceeding expectations. In addition to assessing whether learners are achieving program-level learning outcomes, we can use our review of activities to assess the efficacy of our various instruction sessions.

We can gather activities from a specific session or series of sessions over a certain time period and review the activities to determine whether that session or series is effective. For instance, a public library that consistently offers a series of technology workshops could gather activities from those sessions for a six-month period and review them to determine if the classes are meeting their goals.

If gaps are found, the program manager might make recommendations for revisions to the session. As explained in Chapter 9, assessment activities should be iterative, meaning that we return and reassess on a regular basis. When revisions are made to a course or session, iterative assessment helps us understand if those revisions were effective. Chapter 13 discusses evaluation of individual instruction sessions.

However, evaluation can also be carried out at the program level, and in an era of increased scrutiny and accountability, many of us will probably be asked to conduct or contribute to a program evaluation at some point. As with program-level assessment, evaluating programs allows us to see patterns and identify gaps in order to improve services, provide evidence of our value to stakeholders, and inform managerial decisions such as allocation of funds and staff.

To an extent, some of the techniques for individual evaluation described earlier in Chapter 13 can be aggregated as part of a program review. Similarly, we could look across the short-text responses from multiple sessions for patterns and themes. With regard to standards, librarians could look across lessons in a unit or series to see how well their programs address the full standards, and whether content and skills are appropriately scaffolded across sessions.

Most libraries and information centers will track attendance at instruction sessions. Especially in cases where learners choose to attend sessions, such as public library workshops, we might want to track attendance by time of day, day of the week, and session topic to get a sense of the distribution of attendance, which can help us plan for future workshops. In school and academic settings, where librarians might be dependent on faculty invitations to provide instruction, we can track requests by department, which can help us plan outreach.

If we create online learning objects such as videos, tutorials, and library guides, we can use web analytics to track usage of these resources. It is important to note that while these numbers can help us evaluate the impact and reach of our programs, they do not measure quality or learner satisfaction. Program managers will often have responsibility for overseeing the administrative and logistical details of the instruction program.

The specific areas of responsibility will vary by institution but will generally include managing staff, including setting schedules, establishing policies and procedures, and communicating with stakeholders.

In some settings, program managers might also administer their own budget, and manage facilities and equipment like instruction classrooms and makerspaces. This section will provide a brief overview of some of the major areas of program management. More in-depth information is available in the Suggested Readings at the end of the chapter. Depending on the size and organizational structure of the library, the program manager might be a department head with dedicated staff or might act as a coordinator or team leader.

As a department head with direct reports, the program manager will likely be responsible for hiring new instruction librarians. Even if the library director makes the final hiring decision and negotiates the offer, the instruction program manager will be involved in writing the job description, reviewing applications, and setting up and conducting interviews.

Crafting a good job description is a crucial step in hiring, as the description will not only influence who applies for the job but will also serve as a guide for setting goals and conducting reviews once the new person is in place.

The challenge in writing job descriptions is to delineate between essential knowledge and skills that a person should bring to the position on day one, and the knowledge and skills that we might prefer them to have on day one but could be developed on the job. The vast majority also require invited applicants to do a presentation as part of their interview Hall, The structure of the presentation varies by institution.

Some ask applicants to discuss their experience and philosophy of teaching, or their perspective on an issue in the field, while others have the applicant prepare and teach an actual instruction session targeted to a specific outcome and audience.

Try to find at least three postings. Read through the descriptions, and answer the following questions:. Once a hire is made, the program manager will orient the new staff to the department, including reviewing policies and procedures, and lead them through any training program, which might include shadowing experienced instruction librarians and assisting in instruction sessions.

During this process, the manager should review the position description, and work with the new employee to set professional development goals for the upcoming year. Those goals should align with the mission and priorities of the library and the instruction program but can be tailored to the individual person and position.

For instance, if new employees have limited experience teaching online, they might set a goal to attend training and familiarize themselves with relevant software. Program managers will likely also either conduct annual reviews with instruction staff or contribute to reviews done by higher-level administrators. Reviews should be both positive and constructive. We should acknowledge what our staff is doing well, but we also need to address any challenges or areas for growth openly and honestly.

The aim with constructive feedback is not to just point out areas for improvement but also to identify strategies for improvement, such as training and professional development, shadowing a more experienced teacher, and opportunities for self-reflection.

On a day-to-day basis, the program manager might administer logistics such as schedules and facilities. In some institutions, especially those which use a liaison model, in which librarians are assigned to directly support specific academic departments, liaison librarians might receive instruction requests from departmental faculty directly and manage their own schedules.

In other cases, a program manager might receive all instruction requests and be responsible for assigning staff coverage and requesting classroom space as necessary. Scheduling might seem like a straightforward process, but it involves more than just ensuring a librarian is assigned to every session. As a program manager in charge of scheduling, you will need to work with your staff to be sure that they have adequate prep time for their scheduled sessions.

The amount of prep time necessary for any session will vary depending on the experience and comfort level of the teacher and whether the instructor has already taught that material in the past, but a general rule of thumb is to plan one to two hours of prep time for every hour spent in class. If instructors have already taught a class before, they will still want to review their notes and perhaps update examples or test demonstrations.