Welcome to the Evidence-Sharing Wiki for the Massachusetts School Library Association.

Click on the Bibliography, Elementary School, Middle School and High School links in the Side Bar in order to go to the pages for your level.

Dr. Ross Todd, director of Rutgers University's Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries (CISSL), states that evidence-based practice for school libraries "is an approach that systematically engages research-derived evidence, school librarian-observed evidence, and user-reported evidence in the ongoing processes of decision making, development, and continuous improvement to achieve the school's mission and goals.  These goals typically center on student achievement and quality teaching and learning" (from Todd, Ross. "The Evidence-based Manifesto." School Library Journal 4 (2008): 39. Print).

The purpose of this wiki is to provide a place where the school librarians of Massachusetts (and elsewhere) can share best practices with regard to gathering evidence of making a difference in student learning and achievement.

This wiki is organized first by grade span (elementary, middle school, high school) and then by discipline.  Some activities don't fit neatly into any of the core disciplines, and/or are inter-disciplinary, so feel free to file those in the "other" category.  When adding information to a page, please organize alphabetically by title, give a one-sentence description of the activity, and a one-sentence description of the evidence gathered (just a general description here, not the actual results).  Upload a Word document (or Powerpoint presentation or Excel sheet), or create a link to another page in the wiki, and include a very brief summary of your findings.  For an example, please see this survey that I gave to our combined AP US History/English class.

(For help uploading files, see this page.  For help creating new pages and links to get to them, see this page.) 

Please feel free to add to the Bibliography page as you find articles/books that are related to the topic of evidence-based practice.  Please provide links when possible.

Key information about collecting evidence, from David Loertscher's and Ross Todd's "We Boost Achievement! Evidence-Based Practice for School Library Media Specialists"

Loertscher and Todd describe that we need to provide a triangulation of evidence: from the learner level, from the teaching unit level, and from the organization level.  They also discuss collecting evidence from both direct and indirect measures.  They recommend collecting evidence for: collaboration, reading, information literacy, and technology.  Some of the tools they suggest using are:

• Surveys
• Check tests
• Reflections
• Reading logs
• Collaboration schedules
• Comparisons
• Observations
• lots more

Types of Assessment tools that may also be used to compile evidence of student learning (compiled from Violet Harada's and Joan Yoshina's "Assessing Learning; Librarians and Teachers as Partners")

• Checklists
• Rubrics
• Rating scales
• Conferences
• Logs
• Personal correspondence
• Graphic organizers
• Student portfolios