February 26 , 2018 EDCAL 7
Leveraging internal expertise to evaluate career learning and improve student achievement
The following article was written by Dana McCurdy , program evaluation director , and Brian Edwards , research writer , for Partners in School Innovation .
Principals , instructional coaches and teacher leaders invest in professional learning for their staff in the hope that it will yield better instruction and , ultimately , better outcomes for students . Like all good investors , these educational leaders want to know whether their efforts are paying off . However , assessing the value of professional learning is not as simple as checking stock prices .
Measuring the impact of professional learning is both an art and a science . But this does not mean that it has to be done by a professional external evaluator . With appropriate planning and an analytical mindset , internal staff can generate powerful knowledge about professional learning in their school or district .
Working together to grow
For professional learning – and the evaluation of it – to be meaningful , a certain ethos must be present in a school or district . Teachers and leaders must have a resultsorientation ; they have to care about improving in measurable ways and using their skills to increase student learning . They have to embrace both quantitative and qualitative data as tools to help them grow . And there must be trust among teachers and leaders .
If all of these factors are in place , teachers will be open to trying new instructional strategies , being observed by their colleagues and administrators , and working together to improve .
We have found that one of the best ways to foster these cultural conditions is to include teachers in the design of professional learning and the evaluation of it . When teachers help collect , analyze , and interpret data from professional learning , it is far more likely that they will trust and reflect on the data and adopt the behavior that the professional learning is intended to instill .
In addition , bringing more minds to bear on the evaluation increases the likelihood of crafting good questions and producing information that can be used to improve professional learning . Involving the staff also reinforces trust ; teachers see that administrators are most interested in increasing adult and student learning , not in discovering problems with individual teachers ’ instruction .
Required skills and tools Effective evaluation of professional learning requires more than a results-oriented , data-driven , and trustful culture . It also requires certain skills and tools . The good news is that most principals , instructional coaches , and teacher leaders already have them or can acquire them relatively easily . In other words , education leaders should have confidence that they can competently assess professional learning in their school or district .
The first step is to articulate a “ theory of change ” regarding professional learning . A theory of change is a description of how and why a desired change is expected to happen ( Clark and Taplin , 2012 ). It maps out longterm goals for professional learning and the learning activities that are assumed to lead to those outcomes . Typically , a theory of
Thomas Guskey ’ s five-level model for evaluating professional development
change has three components :
1 .) The ultimate goals that leaders have for their students – i . e ., the changes they hope to see in student outcomes , achievement or learning .
2 .) The preconditions or intermediate outcomes that must exist for the long-term goals to be realized – i . e ., the changes that leaders hope to see in their staff , often expressed as increases in knowledge , skills and practice .
3 .) The professional development , coaching , and collaboration that are intended to achieve the desired preconditions ( Brest , 2010 ).
Having a theory of change helps a school or district avoid the common mistake of offering disconnected , one-time professional development sessions and instead offer a series of professional learning activities focused on a small set of aligned goals .
When creating a theory of change for professional learning , education leaders need to consider how they will measure each component of their theory . These measures will be central to assessing the impact of professional learning on staff and students . Incorporating measurement activities in the theory of change from the outset , and collecting data as the professional learning unfolds , make evaluation more efficient and accurate than if the process is done as an afterthought .
A theory of change can be thought of as an idea about a chain of events : Professional learning activities 1 , 2 and 3 will lead to intermediate outcomes A , B and C , which will lead to our ultimate desired outcome , D . Most schools are fairly certain about
See PD DESIGN , page 8
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