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How good is 'good'? Critical evaluative thinking for schools

What are some useful ideas and tools for schools working to accelerate student achievement in literacy (and/or other areas), particularly for Maori and Pasifika students? This presentation was delivered to school leaders, literacy leaders and their literacy facilitators (external PLD providers) participating in the Secondary Literacy Project (with overall design and national coordination from the University of Auckland’s Woolf Fisher Research Centre).

In it, I share some thinking about:

  • interpretation of progress data from e-asTTle, using …
  • a range of comparisons that can be made depending on the evaluation question one asks
  • multiple perspectives on effect sizes and their interpretation
  • the use of evaluative rubrics for interpreting accelerated student progress and achievement, and
  • for inquiring into key drivers of student progress such as effective teaching, educational leadership and school culture, case management and implementation, and many more

Click to download a PDF of the presentation (including several slides that were omitted from the actual session).

Feedback/comments welcome!

Credible evidence of effectiveness for Maori learners

As part of this week’s National Professional Learning and Development Facilitator Training (held in Auckland and sponsored by the Ministry of Education), Nan Wehipeihana and I presented a workshop for PLD providers:

This is an introduction to some of the rubrics developed for the Measurable Gains Framework, designed to evaluate the effectiveness of Ka Hikitia, the Ministry’s strategy for Maori learners.

Click the image above to download a PDF copy of the presentation.

And, click here for the Measurable Gains Framework rubrics themselves (and accompanying documents).

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Visible values: Striving for truth, beauty and justice in evaluation

On Dec 2, 2010, Jane gave a presentation for the anzea (Aotearoa New Zealand Evaluation Association) Auckland branch end-of-year event, which stimulated some interesting discussion.

It was a reflection on part of the theme for the 2010 American Evaluation Association conference – Evaluation Quality – with a focus on Ernie House’s (1980) concepts of truth, beaty and justice in evaluation (click the link to access PDFs of the key chapters in House’s book, from the AEA e-library).

Although House wrote that truth trumps beauty and justice trumps them all, Jane argued for the critical importance of ‘beauty’ (the coherent, persuasive, compelling story or argument) – with the ‘values’ and the reasoning that guide conclusions about quality and value made clearly visible, transparent and understandable – as a hugely important path to both truth and justice.

Enjoy the presentation (click to download the PDF)!