C4T #2

For my second C4T, I was assigned to read two posts from Jennifer Brokofsky's blog Learning Out Loud. The first post I read was Program Evaluation: Pre-K-Grade 5 Math Learning Community. Her post was about an assignment she had to do for one of her classes, EDCUR 809. For her assignment, she designs a possible plan for the evaluation of a program. The program she chose to design an evaluation for is the Pre-K through Grade 5 Mathematics Learning Community. She lays out 5 important steps for the evaluation and explains them in greater detail. The first step in her evaluation plan is to engage the important stakeholders, such as teachers, the consultant team, and students. The second step is to focus the evaluation. She describes that the evaluation would focus on assessing teacher and student outcomes in the Math Learning Community over a short, medium, and long-term basis. The third step is to collect the information from reflections, observations, and products, including surveys, photos and videos, and written testimonials. The fourth step is to analyze and interpret the data. The data will show whether or not the program is effective in increasing student learning and success in mathematics. The fifth and final step is to use the information to make decisions around professional development in mathematics.

In my comment, I introduced myself and explained to her that I would be writing this C4T summary. I told her I thought her plan for an evaluation sounds great. I said I can really relate to her post because I'm going to be a math teacher, and I explained that it's great that she included students in the process of collecting data and feedback, since students are the ones who will be directly affected by teaching methods. I also said that conducting such an evaluation will help teachers share their successful teaching methods and ideas amongst each other.

The second post I read and commented on was Where We Are and Where To Go Next: Creating a Survey. In this post, she explains that she was assigned to create a survey for her EDCUR 809 class. Again, she created the survey for use by the Pre-K through Grade 5 Mathematics Learning Community. The purpose of the survey is to "assess the degree to which the math learning community members have reached the medium term outcomes." She goes on to describe exactly what those outcomes are, then she explains that she wanted to consider Guskey's five levels of professional development in order to strengthen her survey. She then links us to the initial survey she created, which you can see here. Then she links us to the revised version, which she created after sharing it with her colleagues and obtained feedback on it.

In my comment, I said that I saw definite improvement in the revised version of the survey from the initial version. The revised version asked much more in-depth questions and contained more open-ended questions that should give some very helpful information. I wished her luck on conducting the survey and reminded her that I would be posting a summary of her posts to my blog.