Learning for You
Activity 1: Planning for and implementing assessment of the innovation
Develop a draft assessment plan
Ask your team and critical friend/s for feedback so that you can design a plan that will ensure that you can clearly identify what has been achieved and where you will go next. Add your draft to My journal
Thinking to help you get started
Quality assessment and evaluation is challenging. Why not consider asking for advice? You can seek regional or collegial support to determine what you have done well and to identify future directions. You can involve your staff as partners in the process. You can set the scope and help frame the research. Such an active partnership not only gives a quality result but most importantly it will contribute to building the capacity of your team to undertake further school based evaluation.
In this activity you will revisit your plan especially your goals/targets and assess what you have actually achieved. In the planning stage you looked at the resources that were available to help you plan. Most schools or systems have established processes and support. You need to revisit these resources for this process. Remember it is critical to include parents, teachers, students and leaders at every stage of change including assessment and evaluation. The knowledge you gain will guide the next stage.
Activity 2: Planning for and implementing assessment of the professional learning
Develop a set of questions that you can use to assess the effectiveness of the professional learning component of your plan.
Share these with your learning partners.
In the light of the findings of your report you need to consider what teacher and leader skills are needed to move to the next level in 21st century learning.The ongoing commitment of teachers and leaders is an essential element of school change. In the planning stage we explored the value and nature of quality professional learning in depth. We saw substantial evidence that teachers make the difference for students and that quality professional learning can give teachers the tools and knowledge they need to do this essential work.
Some suggestions to get you thinking
Activity 3: Reporting
An effective report sets up the next cycle of innovation. Just like in the planning and assessing stages you will usually find that there are organisational or funding requirements. These must be reflected in your thinking. It is important that all members of your school community have had a voice in the innovation. This can be reflected in the report.
Collaboratively develop a document headed: Planning our report.
To help you and the team to do this consider:
How will you react to/follow up the findings of the report?
How will you lead to ensure that the team is committed to acting on the findings?
Place your draft as well as any tips you could share in your journal and discuss your ideas with your learning partners.
Develop a draft assessment plan
Ask your team and critical friend/s for feedback so that you can design a plan that will ensure that you can clearly identify what has been achieved and where you will go next. Add your draft to My journal
Thinking to help you get started
Quality assessment and evaluation is challenging. Why not consider asking for advice? You can seek regional or collegial support to determine what you have done well and to identify future directions. You can involve your staff as partners in the process. You can set the scope and help frame the research. Such an active partnership not only gives a quality result but most importantly it will contribute to building the capacity of your team to undertake further school based evaluation.
In this activity you will revisit your plan especially your goals/targets and assess what you have actually achieved. In the planning stage you looked at the resources that were available to help you plan. Most schools or systems have established processes and support. You need to revisit these resources for this process. Remember it is critical to include parents, teachers, students and leaders at every stage of change including assessment and evaluation. The knowledge you gain will guide the next stage.
- Why conduct program assessment?
- How will you get others interested/ involved/committed?
- What were your goals/targets?
- What assessment tools and support are available to you?
- How will you ensure you have a long term focus as well as looking at short term outcomes?
- How will you ensure that you capture unintended outcomes as well as assessing progress towards the achievement of targets.
- Who will you involve in this process?
- What will you do in this assessment phase?
- How will you ensure that you discover what you really need to know, rather than just what is easy to measure?
- What tools do you plan to use?
- How do you plan to share what you learn?
- How will you use it to inform your next cycle of action?
Activity 2: Planning for and implementing assessment of the professional learning
Develop a set of questions that you can use to assess the effectiveness of the professional learning component of your plan.
Share these with your learning partners.
In the light of the findings of your report you need to consider what teacher and leader skills are needed to move to the next level in 21st century learning.The ongoing commitment of teachers and leaders is an essential element of school change. In the planning stage we explored the value and nature of quality professional learning in depth. We saw substantial evidence that teachers make the difference for students and that quality professional learning can give teachers the tools and knowledge they need to do this essential work.
Some suggestions to get you thinking
- Assessing what has worked in professional learning
- Planning for further professional learning for teachers
- Why is the professional learning component of your plan so critical?
- Why asses the effectiveness of your professional learning?
- What questions can you ask teachers to ensure that you continue to provide the best ongoing professional learning to build teacher and leader capacity to improve student learning?
- How will you act on the findings?
Activity 3: Reporting
An effective report sets up the next cycle of innovation. Just like in the planning and assessing stages you will usually find that there are organisational or funding requirements. These must be reflected in your thinking. It is important that all members of your school community have had a voice in the innovation. This can be reflected in the report.
Collaboratively develop a document headed: Planning our report.
To help you and the team to do this consider:
- organisational requirements
- authoring
- purpose
- audience
- project description
- form including length, structure
- focus areas to be addressed eg methods, conclusions, recommendations
- communication strategy
How will you react to/follow up the findings of the report?
How will you lead to ensure that the team is committed to acting on the findings?
Place your draft as well as any tips you could share in your journal and discuss your ideas with your learning partners.