Evaluate the impact of professional learning and continually make improvements in order to meet the schoolwide vision for using technology for high-impact teaching and learning.
The February 2022 post Did It Work!? A Brief Look at Professional Development Evaluation in Higher Education & Beyond seeks to answer important questions like: how do we determine if a PD enterprise was successful? Does the learning have an ongoing, meaningful impact in the workplace? Did it make a difference? Possible ways to answer these questions can be found via Guskey (2002; full reference in post) and the five levels of measuring PD effectiveness:
- Participants’ Reactions: data gathered through informal feedback and/or exit questionnaires
- Participants’ Learning: data gathered through formal questionnaires, portfolios of work constructed during the learning experience
- Organization Support/Change: data gathered through structured interviews, follow-up check-ins, increased access to needed resources
- Participants’ Use of New Knowledge/Skills: data gathered through surveys, instructor reflections, classroom observations
- Student Learning Outcomes: data gathered through student interviews, performance on assignments/assessments, changes in behavior/attitudes
Additionally, in winter of 2022 I conducted a department-wide needs assessment in a higher education context. This needs assessment specifically looked to evaluate existing gaps in professional development related to a much-used software platform in order to identify areas for growth and improvement, both in the use of the technology tool itself and in the PD offerings currently offered in support of it.
