Infographic: How to Gauge the Impact of Your Professional Learning Program

Get all stakeholders on the same page: what are the stated outcomes of the program? What are participants expected to learn? What student outcomes are expected?

Come up with a few broad questions to investigate, such as “To what extent is the program changing teacher practice?” or “What evidence of student learning can be attributed to the program?”

There are many ways to collect data to answer your evaluation questions. A few examples:

• Surveys & questionnaires
• Interviews
• Focus groups
• Observations of the professional learning program
• Classroom observations
• Teachers journaling about their learning
• Student data (achievement, attendance, discipline, work samples, etc.)

Don’t be intimidated by the idea of analyzing data! Most of the time, you just need to know how to calculate simple frequencies and averages, to answer questions like:

• How satisfied were teachers with a professional learning activity?
• What percentage of teachers intend to try a new instructional strategy as a result?
• Did more novice teachers or veteran teachers participate in this activity?
• How many teachers have used the new resources they were given? How often?

Once you’ve collected your data, it’s time to put it into the right hands. A comprehensive report might include:

• A detailed description of the professional learning program, including goals and how it was expected to drive outcomes
• Findings and conclusions
• Recommendations for decision-makers to consider
• The evaluation questions you explored
• How you collected and analyzed the data

Be creative (and visual!) with your report — it can be helpful to think beyond written reports or presentations.

Infographics

Videos

Interactive Websites

Social Media Sharing