Evaluate Professional Development Impact

Coaches evaluate professional development involving technology and whether it leads to high-impact teaching and learning.

ISTE explains: ‘Coaches measure and analyse participant feedback about specific professional learning and evaluate aggregated professional learning against system goals for changes in culture or teacher practise, and continually make improvements to meet the school-wide vision for using technology for learning which is designed with student outcomes in mind and where instruction is grounded in pedagogical research in the learning sciences.’

In other words, coaches evaluate professional development involving technology and whether it leads to high-impact teaching and learning. This may include: setting goals, structuring lessons to map teaching and learning, explicit teaching where teachers clearly demonstrate learning intentions, success criteria, and checking for understanding, worked examples, collaborative learning, multiple exposures, powerful questioning, effective feedback, metacognitive strategies and teaching students to think about their thinking to promotes self-regulation and control over the learning process, and differentiated teaching. 

Qualitative and quantitative feedback can be gathered following professional development opportunities. Tools include the use of Excel as a Gantt chart and plotting periods for reviewing professional learning. Microsoft Forms can be used for gathering and analysing feedback, and coachees can record their feedback using Stream or Flip as case studies.

Pupil voice can also be listened to and their opinion can be shared using shared documents, Reflect in Teams or Flip, as to what technology they believe had the greatest impact on their learning. However, none of this matters if the information is not used to learn and consider the best professional development for using technology to help deliver high-impact teaching and learning in the future.