Time: 3:00-4:30 p.m. Eastern

Location: Webinar

Description: Many local education agencies lack the capacity to evaluate their own professional development (PD) initiatives. Therefore, districts may be spending resources on PD efforts that are not resulting in desired teacher learning and/or student outcomes.

This three-part training series will build participants’ understanding of how to plan for and execute high-quality program evaluations of educator PD.

• Session 1 (October 11) covers the basics necessary to plan a good program evaluation. The speakers will introduce participants to logic models as a way of clearly articulating the central components of the PD and its intended outcomes.
• Session 2 (November 16) focuses on the connection between evaluation questions and data collection methods, and planning for data collection during evaluation. The speakers will offer an overview of data quality, credibility, validity, and reliability.
• Session 3 (January 25) explores how districts can use the results of an evaluation to inform decisions. The speakers will also provide guidance for selecting evidence-based PD and working with external evaluators.

Although attendance at all three sessions is recommended, it is not mandatory. If you cannot attend one or more of the live events, register at the link below to be notified when a recording of the webinar is available online.

Partnership or Research Alliance: Professional Learning and Development Research Alliance

Audience: District leaders interested in learning how to conduct systematic evaluations to assess the outcomes of PD opportunities for teachers; how to plan for program evaluations; how to be good consumers of evaluation resources; and how to set up productive relationships with evaluators.

Speakers: Dr. Candice Bocala, Senior Research Associate, REL Northeast & Islands Dr. Katrina Bledsoe, Research Scientist, REL Northeast & Islands

Report Citation: Shakman, K., & Rodriguez, S. M. (2015). Logic models for program design, implementation, and evaluation: Workshop toolkit (REL 2015–057). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast & Islands. Retrieved March 17, 2017, from https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/project.asp?ProjectID=401