Evaluating Your Practice
A version of the core material comprising this section is available for download as a printable version in pdf format. (The Adobe Acrobat Reader to allow viewing of pdf files is available for download here).
This section is about gathering feedback on your own practice, with an emphasis on formative evaluation, looking to improve ongoing teaching provision and learning support, rather than summative evaluation, providing an overall judgement of value or quality at the conclusion of a module.
Some of the reasons why you evaluate your practice are:
- For personal development.
- To ensure that your teaching is effective from the students' viewpoint.
- Quality audit (department / institution).
The evaluation cycle below illustrates a continuous process, each turn invoking five 'Rs' - Rationale, Resources, Review, Reflection and Revision.
Rationale - purpose(s) of the item (e.g. material / conference / assessment), models of why this might be the way to achieve it(them),
Resources - (people, materials, technologies) available to support it
Review - tools and instruments for monitoring/investigating the processes/outcomes. These should adapt over time to fit need, and themselves stay under review so that they do not become mechanical, missing possibly valuable information.
Reflection - making sure that this part of the process involves sharing and exchange of thoughts and ideas with all participants
Revision - large or small-scale changes required to the item(s), addressing points of concern, and keeping the overall picture (rationale) in mind - and updating it.
You should build evaluation into your practice as a continuous or periodic event rather than as an add-on or something to conduct at the end of a module delivery.
It is important to develop an evaluation plan, and this will help you consider:
what are you evaluating?
why are you evaluating?
when will the evaluation take place?
who is it for?
what type of questions will you ask?
Answering these questions will guide your methods and question design which will lead to meaningful and useful answers that can be esily analysed.
A guide to help you produce an evaluation plan is available from Interact issue 30
