Learning Forward
Equity and excellence in teaching and learning.
Evaluating Professional Learning
February 2024
How do you know your professional learning is working? This issue digs into evaluation purposes, methods, tools, and results.
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In This Issue
FOCUS
Looking back helps us understand the path forward
This issue updates classic resources and highlights new voices on evaluating professional learning.
7 reasons to evaluate professional learning
Assessing the quality, effectiveness, and impact of professional learning is fundamental.
Look beyond the satisfaction survey
Go beyond participants’ reactions with an evaluation model that measures changes in teacher practices and student learning.
6 things to know about evaluating professional learning
Answers to frequently asked questions, like “How is evaluation different from research?”
Building the evidence base for professional learning
The Research Partnership for Professional Learning has an ambitious agenda to support more rigorous research, says executive director Stacey Alicea.
Data collection tool drives professional learning improvements
A Georgia district examines and improves its professional learning using the Standards Assessment Inventory.
TOOLS
Is your professional learning working? 8 steps to find out.
A refreshed take on a scientific, systematic process to evaluation that ensures reliable, valid results, including four powerful tools.
Through the lens
How the evidence standard can improve professional learning.
Evaluation resources collection
A compendium of resources from Learning Forward makes evaluating professional learning accessible.
IDEAS
Practical evaluation points the way toward impact
Accessible data collection methods provide timely information that yields meaningful insights.
Program evaluation and design go hand-in-hand in Tennessee
Educators and evaluators partner to strengthen a statewide professional learning initiative using best practices for collaborative design.
Equity-centered evaluation brings up emotions. That’s OK.
Identify and navigate equity traps that can derail evaluation efforts.
RESEARCH
What works for multilingual students?
A research synthesis finds high-quality professional learning elements link to improvements in literacy instruction and student outcomes.
Data Points
New research on teachers’ perception of curriculum, retention, resilience, and supporting substitutes.
VOICES
Jody Spiro and Douglas Fisher
Leadership teams
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