Assessment & Evaluation
Goals for this module:
- Describe the meaning and purpose of evaluation and assessment
- Conduct an assessment of a connected learning effort
- Conduct an evaluation of a connected learning effort
- Share and use the results of your evaluation
What kinds of new programs and services should you develop for your community’s youth? Are your ongoing learning initiatives accomplishing what you want, or should you make some changes? How can you find out what participants learned from a program or service?
We often thinking about evaluation happening at the end of a program or service — and that’s certainly an important time to reflect on what the program achieved and what lessons for future efforts were learned along the way. But it’s not the only time that evaluation should happen: in fact, assessment and evaluation should happen at the very start of program development (as seen in the Designing Connected Learning Services module) — or even before! In this module, you will discover how to conduct assessment and evaluation throughout the lifecycle of a connected learning program or service.
Acknowledgements:
The ConnectedLib team would like to thank Michelle Fellows of the University of Washington and William Penuel, Katie Van Horne, and Josie Chang-Order of the University of Colorado Boulder for their input on this module.
Worksheet #1: Assessment & Evaluation K-W-L
Before moving forward in the module, spend some time thinking about what you already know about assessment and evaluation, and what you hope to learn from this module. The first worksheet in your Assessment & Evaluation Workbook is a “KWL” — that stands for Know, Want to learn, and Learned.
Complete this worksheet by first describing your experience (if any) with assessment and evaluation. Then create a list of what you already know (the K in KWL) about assessment and evaluation — in the context of a library, or otherwise. In the second column, write down what you want (W) to learn in this module. You’ll fill out the last column, what you learned (L), when you have completed this module.
The icon for this module is ‘Rate icons’ by DinosoftLabs - Flaticon