March 2010 Archives

1. Evaluators who are not only practitioners, but who also conduct research and/or teach, bring a comprehensive wealth of knowledge to your organization, and can use the resulting information for a 360-degree perspective of your project.
2. Professional evaluators maintain their independence and objectivity in all situations in order to provide you the most comprehensive and focused evaluation about your project.
3. During your evaluation project, a thorough data analysis ensures synchronization among methods, findings, and recommendations. Make the time to refocus as necessary.
4. Professional evaluators often team up with other consultants to provide diversity and expertise on an evaluation project.
5. When starting a project, work with the evaluator to determine the most effective communication mechanisms that will help you access and use information to your advantage.
6. Focus both on content and information use to help your organization improve.
7. Combine business process knowledge as well as knowledge of evaluation techniques so the project flows smoother.
8. When conducting an evaluation, your primary thought should be how whatever you're evaluating fits into the big picture - how it aligns with the mission and goals of your organization.

The Department of Education's draft of the National Education Technology Plan for 2010 (http://www.ed.gov/technology/netp-2010) has evaluation at its core, with overall goals describing outcomes-based education, the effectiveness and efficiency of educational infrastructure, the need for monitoring and evaluation of progress, and accountability for performance.

What can the Department of Education do to ensure that these evaluation goals become a reality?

1. Facilitate the process of recruiting and using evaluation experts at the school, district, state, and national levels to design, conduct, and report on the continuous progress of these goals and trends.
2. Provide generous funding through direct contributions and grant opportunities for the development of core standards and specific learning goals, the creation of realistic activities and assessments directly aligned with those goals, and the monitoring and evaluation of progress and trends associated with these goals.
3. Ensure that information needs are well defined at each level in the educational hierarchy to ensure data-driven decision-making can take place.
4. Allow for the collection and analysis of relevant performance data via refined educational evaluation policies.
5. Facilitate the diffusion of their educational philosophy so that all stakeholders are willing and able to use evaluation results on a continuous basis.

Educators cannot afford to try to handle these processes on their own. Evaluators internal and external to organizations must step in to provide evaluation expertise and to build evaluation capacity within schools and administrations in order to increase program visibility and self-reliance of educational developments.