Evaluating, Implementing, and Managing Instructional Programs

Evaluation Models:

Besides CIPP and Kirkpatrick evaluation models, there are also the Flashlight Model by Ehrmann and the Goals Oriented/Objective Based Evaluation model by Tyler.  Both of these models will assist teachers in evaluating the effectiveness of their instruction.  

Flashlight Model:

1.  Decide on what technology you will use.  

Ask: Are my students and I trained on this technology?

2.  Evaluate the technology.

Ask:  Did the technology enable the students to ...?

3.  Determine what steps you will follow.

4.  Interaction of actions and outcomes

Ask:  Did the activity help the students accomplish...?

5. Outcomes:

Ask students questions about the learning

Goals-Oriented/Objectives-Based:

This model has four steps:

1.  Objective

What am I wanting to teach?

2.  Choice

What do I know and what am I going to use to teach the objective?

3.  Organization

The teacher will organize the learning.

4.  Evaluation

How will we know our objective has been met?

With each of these models the key is knowing what I am teaching, know my students, have a plan, and evaluate what I have taught and what the students know.  Each model is similar and help the teacher remember to focus on the evaluation.  The key is finding one that suits you, your district, and your students learning.

New Technological Innovation:

In my district, we have implemented an online Power Teacher Gradebook.  With this new program, teachers can enter grades, create reports, locate student information, and have the assurance that report cards are being calculated while you enter the grades.  Parents and students can go online and review grades, assignments, and teacher comments.  To help my campus learn this program, I took the lead position.  I attended training, issued training, and am available for questions or problems.  Let me say, before this program came everyone was very excited about the potentials and the "easiness" of it.  As I attended training, I was very impressed and felt very confident about training my peers and participating as well.  Then it came...the training went very well.  There are always "those teachers" who do not like any technology.  They were easy to ignore and assist when needed.  The problem was the glitches. Teachers would not be able to locate their class or the grades.  All of us also had to manually override some grades because the program was not working properly.  This created many questions for me, lots of phone calls to the technology help desk, and many frustrating conversations concerning it.  Good news, things have gotten better.  The system seems to be operating better and the users are getting familiar with the program.  The important things I learned...don't try to fool anyone (there is almost always glitches), be ready for the worst, and always keep a positive attitude (even when you want to hurt the one teacher who takes out his/her frustration on you).  

Situational Leadership:

 Let's pretend I am going to teach a professional development session about technology use in the classroom.  I am going to use the situational leadership style to develop my session.  Below is my outline for my session.

1.  I will learn my group.  

• If they do not know about technology, than I would be very detailed and give a lot of supervision.  
  
• If they do know some things about technology, than I would start where the majority is and build upon it.

2.  As my group learns more, I will make sure to offer support and rewards. 

• I want my group to "buy in" to what I am teaching.
  

3.  Now time for results.  This is when I would give a "homework" assignment.  

• The group takes what they learned and applies it in their classroom.
  
• I will make sure I am there for support
  

4.  I would take on the director or monitor role.

• I would check on them regularly and be there for support