Thomas Guskey and Joellen Killion led a members-only webinar on evaluating professional learning, building on the February issue of The Learning Professional. The webinar, hosted by Learning Forward in March, explored why and how to assess the implementation and impact of professional learning.

Participants from around the world brought their questions and a wide range of knowledge and experience. According to a poll conducted at the beginning of the webinar, about 80% of participants said they felt somewhat prepared to conduct evaluation of their professional learning, while 14% said they felt very prepared, and 7% said they felt not at all prepared to conduct evaluation.

Many asked how to decide on evaluation questions and determine what to evaluate. Killion encouraged educators to think about their evaluation questions and design before starting their professional learning, and Guskey explained how to use his five-level model of evaluation to backward plan — that is, to start with the goals for students and work backward to what changes educators need to make and what kind of professional learning will help them achieve those changes.

Both presenters talked about the importance of using multiple sources of evidence, including the perspectives of multiple stakeholders as well as a mixture of quantitative, qualitative, and anecdotal evidence. Guskey pointed out that different types of evidence are needed by different audiences. For example, evaluation can be useful not only for funding and policy decisions, but also to feed motivation to continue the new practices by showing teachers how students improve as a result of those practices. Killion said, “We have an obligation as professional learning leaders and facilitators to begin to transform educator success into student success.”

During the webinar, participant Jill Gough, director of teaching and learning at Trinity School in Atlanta, Georgia, created a sketch note summarizing her learning and posted it on social media to highlight for other educators the themes of the webinar. (See image at left.)

To read more about evaluation, check out our evaluation resources page at learningforward.org/evaluation and the February issue of The Learning Professional at learningforward.org/journal/evaluating-professional-learning/