Assessing Impact: Evaluating Staff Development

"Anyone who reads this book has to feel obligated to ′set their world on fire.′ The text not only forces the reader to see how we are failing our children and their teachers, it also provides the means for each of us to do better."
―Michael J. Ford, Superintendent
Phelps-Clifton Springs CSD, Clifton Springs, NY

Make sure your professional development programs will produce positive outcomes for your school!

Comprehensive in scope, this accessible resource guides staff development teams through a step-by-step process for planning and conducting effective evaluations of staff development programs. In practical language, Assessing Impact, Second Edition, shows educators how to evaluate professional development programs beyond the surface level, looking critically and analytically at their work to discover what is effective and what is not in order to refine their work, strengthen the benefits of staff training for participants, and improve overall student achievement.

Written by a recognized expert in school-based professional learning and coaching, this second edition focuses on documenting the impact of professional learning on student learning and illustrates ways to assess a program′s evaluability, formulate evaluation questions, and evaluate the evaluation. The author emphasizes the importance of advance planning in developing quality evaluations and shows school leaders how to create a staff development plan that:

• Results in an evaluation with greater integrity and usefulness
• Clearly defines a program′s goals and objectives
• Guides the collection of relevant performance data
• Increases the likelihood of producing results for students

This user-friendly resource is ideal for school and district staff developers and administrators and includes a CD-ROM with reproducibles and PowerPoint slides for immediate use.

Joellen Killion champions educator learning as the primary pathway to student success. She serves school systems, schools, regional, state, and national agencies within the U.S. and abroad as a consultant and learning facilitator. She is senior advisor to Learning Forward and formerly was its deputy executive director. Joellen leads, facilitates, and contributes to a number of initiatives related to examining the link between professional development and student learning. She has over 30 years of experience in planning, design, implementation, and evaluation of professional learning at the school, system, state, and international level.

Joellen is a frequent contributor to education publications. Her books include What Works in the Middle, What Works in the Elementary Grades, and What Works in the High School, Teachers Who Learn Kids Who Achieve: A Look at Model Professional Development; Assessing Impact: Evaluating Staff Development, 2^nd edition; Collaborative Professional Learning Teams in School and Beyond: A Tool Kit for New Jersey Educators; Taking the Lead: New Roles for Teacher and School-based Coaches; The Learning Educator: A New Era in Professional Learning; Becoming a Learning School; Coaching Matters: and Learning-Focused Feedback: Transforming Feedback for Professional Learning. She authored and co-authored numerous papers, reports and workbooks such as PDK’s EDge, The Changing Face of Professional Development and resources associated with the TPL initiative. Her particular interests are collaborative learning teams, coaching educator success, evaluation and program audits, standards for professional learning, policy to support professional learning, and comprehensive planning and implementation of high-quality, standards-based, results-focused professional learning.

The creed Joellen lives by is: Excellence can be achieved if you . . . Care more than others think is wise . . . Risk more than others think is safe . . . Dream more than others think is practical . . . Expect more than others think is possible . . .