What are we evaluating? Students’ experience of learning: Experience of lecturers and lecturing Experience of class activities, assignments and materials

What are we evaluating? Students’ knowledge and skills in relation to the course: Prior knowledge, recall and understanding Analysis and critical thinking Synthesis and creative thinking Solving problems Application and performance

What are we evaluating? Students’ attitudes, values and awareness: Awareness of attitudes and values Self-awareness as learners Course related learning and study skills

Factors affecting evaluation Focus of evaluation Timing Logistics and resources Lecturer Feedback to students

Methods for gaining student feedback Questionnaires Electronic questionnaires Tracking student activity in BlackBoard Observations of teaching Student focus groups Online student focus groups Interviews Diaries, portfolios and reflexive Logs In-class evaluation methods

Theory of Change a theory of how and why an initiative works (Weiss 1995)

Theory of Change - advantages Implicit in planning and implementation of a teaching cycle. Focus on information is needed for evaluation. Used to write evaluation tools and analyse information. Aligns with reflection on teaching. Indicators not a tick list (not performance indicators) but a theory. What do you learn about your theory of change?

Planning for evaluation A theory of change should be: Plausible Doable Testable

Planning for evaluation What is evaluation for? How can we gain feedback from students? How can we identify what we are evaluating? How can we focus evaluation questions ? How can we decide what methods to use? How can we produce evaluation tools? How can we analyse and report findings?