Teachers in Broward County Public Schools who are aspiring to become administrators participate in a rigorous program called LEAD. As participants in the LEAD Program, they must engage in various professional development activities and complete other requirements. One particular event that they must attend is Professional Development Evaluation Essentials. As part of this training event, participants discuss the value of evaluation to professional development, the 3 major types of evaluation, what evaluation is and isn't, and Guskey's 5 levels of professional development evaluation. As participants reinforce their new knowledge and skills in the area of PD evaluation, they discuss Guskey's 5 levels of PD evaluation a little more in depth to follow-up on their new learning and to demonstrate mastery of the training objectives. I wanted to share some of their insights with you:
*One participant shared, " Level 3 Organizational Support & Change is valuable to my job because it puts me "in the loop" about important documents. Often it is overlooked that minutes from a meeting, school/district records, and follow-up meetings can reveal valuable data that can support the impact of professional development."
*Another participant mentioned that getting feedback directly from the schools that her department works with provided valuable data as to how the department's professional development efforts were impacting the organization as a whole.
*In reference to Level 4 Participants' Use of New Knowledge and Skills, one participant remarked that how a participant applied the new information from training would determine how professional developers can improve future programs and activities.
*Referring to the same Level 4 of evaluation, a different participant commented that PD is an on-going process, and that it is important to look at the trends, student gains, and research to determine the impact on student achievement and job performance.
Insightful thoughts were shared by the LEAD participants on the value of professional development evaluation!
