According to the Research Methods Knowledge base, "evaluation is the systematic assessment of the worth or merit of some object" (Trochim, 2006).
Formative evaluation is an important part of any technology plan. Without evaluation, how is a school or district to know if their plan is effective? In a 1998 report prepared by the U.S. Department of Education titled AN EDUCATOR'S GUIDE TO EVALUATING THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY IN SCHOOLS AND CLASSROOMS, it was stated:
"In general, one important purpose of any evaluation should be continual
program improvement. By using evaluation results, program administrators
can better understand how their program is working and where it is headed.
With this greater understanding, they are better able to make decisions that
will improve the program in the long run" (Quiñones and Kirshstein, 1998).
The report also states that other reasons for program evaluations include funding decisions, providing information to personnel, to note potential problems, to discover other needs, and to look at the impact of the program. (Quiñones and Kirshstein, 1998).
The steps of evaluation are outlined below: (Quiñones and Kirshstein, 1998)
2. Describe your instruments used in a formative evaluation.
Formative evaluation can have a variety of tools. These include observation, focus groups, project analysis, questionnaires, interviews, rubrics, reviews, and data analysis (Evaluation Toolbox, 2010).
For my own purposes, I plan to use a short questionnaire and interviews as my tools for formative evaluation of my technology plan. There are few people at my school who could give any significant input as to the actual capability of my technology plan being implemented, and all of them are members of the administration. Observation and focus groups are therefore not appropriate. As my technology plan is not in place, data analysis also would not work for my current purposes.
I also plan on using a self created rubric to evaluate the feasibility of each section of my proposed technology plan, reviewing my own work and using the input of the administrators interviewed.
3. Collect data according to a formative evaluation plan for a given set of technology plan or instructor presentation.
I am currently working on this section of Step 8. I have not heard back from my administrator on when we can sit down to discuss my proposals and their feasibility. I will post more when I have the information.
Resources:
Evaluation Toolbox (2010). Tool Selector. Retrieved April 5, 2012 from http://evaluationtoolbox.net.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51&Itemid=131.
Quiñones, Sherri and Kirshstein, Rita (1998). AN EDUCATOR'S GUIDE TO EVALUATING THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY IN SCHOOLS AND CLASSROOMS. U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved April 4, 2012 from http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ed-techguide/handbook2.pdf.
Trochim, William (2006). Introduction to evaluation. Research Methods Knowledge Base. Retrieved April 5, 2012 from http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/intreval.php.
Casey,
ReplyDeleteI believe creating a rubric and going over it yourself is a great idea. Tessmer calls this self-evaluation and he states “[s]elf-evaluation is actually a type of expert evaluation, where the designer acts as his or her own expert” (1993). Self-evaluation is a great tool.
Cara
Reference:
Tessmer, M. (1993). Planning and conducting formative evaluation: improving the quality of education and training. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. DOI: www.books.google.com
Cara,
DeleteThanks for showing me this reference. I think sometimes we are our own BEST critic because we have to be hard on ourselves. It seemed like a good idea to me!
Casey,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your post. Often it is suggested to have an external party being apart of the formative evaluation, have you considered this as an option? If you feel you have limited options available to you at your school, maybe if you ask one of the district instructional specialists to help you evaluate your plan they could provide you with interesting input.
I think that is a great idea. I could sit down with our on campus technology liaison. I didn't really write this plan with any true feasability in mind - it was more of that "ideal world" I was thinking of. All my ideas center around more money and more people. We all know how tight it is in education right now! Thanks for the great suggestion.
DeleteCasey,
ReplyDeleteFantastic idea to use feasibility rubrics and love the Formative Evaluation Steps Chart. Looks much nicer and is easier to comphrehend than the paragraph I wrote. Great Post!!
Amy - I snitched the chart from the report I was using as a reference. I really liked it to! It helped make so much sense to me! Thanks for your kind words.
DeleteI agree with using a questionnaire for the teachers to fill out for the use of your technology plan. I feel if the teachers have their in put, they will feel more apt to learn the technology. I think they will feel they have more of a responsibility to implement the technology plan.
ReplyDelete