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Pre-assessment should be given the week before the first class on our Digipo materials
The survey will be taken during class time. Assessment will be delivered via Google Forms using a secret link. There will be two assessments, each with a different link. Classes that use one link for the pre-test will use the other link for the post-test. Once we have a list of all classes we will assign them each a pre- and post- link. The questions on each test are paired with similar questions on the other test to gauge progress in specific skills.
The form will ask four questions assessing student online literacy, as well collect some basic student data.
The questions asked are open-ended questions where the students are allowed to use the internet to answer questions related to our COR outcomes. Most questions require answers that are only a paragraph or two long at most, but do require some internet research. Instructors must be careful not to suggest that outside research is crucial to answering the questions, and part of the student competency is recognition that getting “off the page” is the better strategy.
Students will work alone on the assessments and can take up to 25 minutes to complete the questions and provide basic data about their class and demographic background.
We will be re-evaluating the questions on August 15th, assessing whether shifts in Google search results and resulting difficulty should prompt a question refresh. We may also slightly re-tweak wording of prompts. This is our current set of questions as of 7/15:
The general rubric should work with all of these. In each case there is (currently) a relatively easy web find which brings important context to the prompt.
Note that we ask the student to rate the trustworthiness of the material in the prompt for insight on their thought process and how the course shifts trust patterns, but we do not take that rating into account on the rubric.
A search on the heading of "Fukushima Flowers" turns up two decent summaries the students can pull from, one from National Geographic and one from Snopes. Either one will inform students that this is a real photograph, taken by a local resident, but that the deformity shown here is not that rare. It's not impossible radiation is involved, but it's weak evidence according to plant biologists. Students who find this information have reached investigative competence.
Inquisitive (Level 2) students will note that we don't know who took the picture or whether it's from Fukushima, and how rare this is, but will not supply answers to those issues. Level 3 students will supply some answers but not others.
Students dealing with the ladybug prompt can find backstory on the photograph with a reverse image search or good keywords. There are good responses from the American Veterinary Medicine Association, Rover.com, and Snopes -- all of which say the photo is real, this does happen, but the risk is quite small and damage minimal. They also note that these are not ladybugs, but a rarer form of invasive beetle.
Students evaluating the Gun Owner prompt should note that the was funded by Center for American Progress, which has a policy interest in gun restriction, but was conducted by a well respected polling firm, and is in line with a number of other polls that have been done on the same issue. It may not be the best evidence, but fits into a broader array of similar findings and is decent.
Students evaluation the America's Coal prompt *must* note that the video was paid for and scripted by a coalition of coal companies -- it has some statistics that are useful, but we'd probably want a better source.
Students responding to the breast cancer prompt should note at least some of the following: the study was published in one of the most respected journals, the Cancer Center is came out of is well-known, the researcher is highly cited, and news reports show that the professional community is already making changes based on this. Level of trust should be high.
On the baking soda cancer one, students should either discover that the researcher who invented this has been sentenced to jail for crimes related to this treatment or that the American Cancer Society has warned that there is no evidence supporting this, a lot of evidence against it, and definite harm that can result.
On the rocks, students should find out is a real story, confirmed by multiple local and national news sources. The students may want to add detail about the rationale behind it, and of course they are free to think it is a good or bad idea if they have the right facts about it.
On the skull story, students should note the site this occurs on is a right-wing political site that is known for promoting conspiracy stories and that other news coverage dismisses the idea, or note that the camp is a former homeless camp, not a trafficking site, that the skull was found 20 miles away from the camp, and is in fact the skull of an adult.