8084 discussion 2
I truly believe that teaching or planning without data is like tossing a handful of darts and hoping that one hits the target, whatever or wherever that might be! The data is like a GPS system that guides our planning and hard work directly to the target. How can we miss?
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Discussion 2: Sharing Experiences With Program Evaluation
I truly believe that teaching or planning without data is like tossing a handful of darts and hoping that one hits the target, whatever or wherever that might be! The data is like a GPS system that guides our planning and hard work directly to the target. How can we miss?
—Head Start/Early Head Start Director, Region VIII
Reflect on the quote which begins this Discussion. As you think about your time in the early childhood field, to which analogy do you feel your experiences with teaching and programmatic planning fit? Have your program’s strategies, interventions, and initiatives felt more like playing a game of darts, launching each and hoping that one lands on a positive outcome; or, have they been navigated toward a cumulative goal to which you were aware before your program’s journey even began?
As you have been exploring in this module, the act of conducting program evaluations is an ongoing and essential process for any program which is quality-driven. Why then, might some programs still be participating in a game of darts? What challenges or barriers might prevent programs from using data to build upon their strengths and focus improvement efforts?
In this Discussion, you share your own experiences with program evaluation. Specifically, you share barriers and challenges which impacted a program that you have observed, been a part of, or heard about.
To prepare
Review the NAEYC article/Position Statement titled "Early Childhood Curriculum, Assessment, and Program Evaluation: Building an Effective, Accountable System in Programs for Children Birth Through Age 8," which explores the rationales for and indicators of effective program evaluation. Then, consider your own experiences with program evaluation. With respect to a program you know well, what need did the evaluation address? What barriers or challenges did the program experience while preparing for or participating in the evaluation?
https://web.archive.org/web/20150321075739/http://www.highscope.org/file/Assessment/PQA.pdf
https://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/CAPEexpand.pdf
Required MEDIA
https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/video/voices-field-plan-succeed-developing-sustaining
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RESPONSE 1
Taylor Thomas
RE: Discussion 2 – Module 1
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Early childhood programs undergo program evaluations for many reasons. One reason that programs undergo evaluations is increased public investments in early childhood education. Increased public investments in early childhood education cause stakeholders to expect positive results from programs (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2003). This is because studies can influence better education, determine social problems that require public response, and studies can determine next steps that programs can make to assure positive steps toward continued improvement (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2003). Stakeholders are driven by student success that comes from a successful program. Therefore, programs must take evaluation measures seriously as they seek ways to grow and improve. Additionally, the type of program evaluations that programs take part in are based on the type of program that is being implemented. Programs that are of higher influence and impact more stakeholders tend to have more critical and rigorous evaluation compared to smaller programs (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2003). This would include federal programs or state programs that could impact many stakeholders including teachers, students, families, communities, and many more.
When trying to implement evaluations, programs experience barriers and challenges. A barrier and challenge that programs experience when implementing evaluations is objectivity. Programs must work to be objective in the evaluation of their program quality and effectiveness. To achieve objectivity during evaluations, the evaluation process should be don’t by those who don’t have a direct investment in the outcome of the evaluation (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2003).
From my own experience, I have seen program evaluation be completed in the form of my schools' instructional planning and preparation for instruction. The program evaluation process was done by the district office. From their evaluation, they determined our school needed more intensive, focused direction in planning and preparation. To our disappointment, we felt we had let down our community. However, we soon realized that our intentions were never “to implement a poor-quality program” (Center on the Developing Child Harvard University, 2007). We were just not working to the level that we could have been and needed support to do that. To achieve their desired results, the district placed our school on a three-year plan with district support instructional coaches to help achieve proper alignment, rigor, and assessment to assure student success. After the three-year period, the district removed the support since the school has shown growth.
References
Center on the Developing Child Harvard University. (2007). Early childhood program evaluations: A decision-makers guide.
National Association for the Education of Young Children. (2003). Early childhood curriculum, assessment, and program evaluation: Building an effective, accountable system in programs for children birth through age 8.
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RESPONSE 2
Sarwat Suraiya
Top of Form
Reasons why programs undergo evaluations:
The primary purpose of program evaluation is to improve the quality of education and other services provided to young children and their families ( National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2003). Around the globe, the importance of early childhood education awareness has been increased. As a result, government funding has been increased in this sector. Along with the increase of this funding, the accountability has also been increased as the funding organizations need to know how their money has been utilized with evidence (Ebbeck, Teo, Tan, & Goh, 2014). Along with government funding, public investment has also been increased. With increased public investments in early childhood education come expectations that programs should be accountable for producing positive results (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2003). The results of carefully designed program evaluations can influence better education for young children and can identify social problems that require public policy responses if children are to benefit (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2003).
Barriers and/or challenges programs experience:
Programs experience challenges when implementing an evaluation process. Georgia Lottery PreK program, where I worked for several years, uses a formative assessment called Work Sampling System to measure children’s progress across 69 indicators in seven domains of learning (Bright from the Start: Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning, 2022). WSS is a curriculum-embedded, criterion-referenced performance assessment that is intended to document and evaluate what children are learning and have begun to master by providing information to teachers about individual students’ academic, personal and social, and other cognitive and non-cognitive achievements (Meisels, 2011). Although WSS is extremely systematic in structure, teachers get overwhelmed at times to stay compliant with too many indicators involved in the assessment. Christy Opsommer (Walden University, 2016a) mentioned that a lot of programs face challenges by being overwhelmed with the outset of the program participation; with different standards, how are they going to meet the need of the process, who will support them, how to put all the pieces together so there are a lot of questions arises.
According to Meisels (2011), another challenge for the WSS is that the researchers know very little about its longitudinal impact of it. It would be of interest to explore whether student performance on WSS is in some way influenced by the length of time in WSS classrooms so that children who may have spent several years in WSS classrooms differ from those who are the same age and have similar demographic characteristics, but are only in their first year with WSS (Meisels, 2011).
References
Bright from the Start: Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning (2022). GEORGIA'S PRE-K WORK SAMPLING SYSTEM ASSESSMENT PROGRAM. Retrieved from http://www.decal.ga.gov/Prek/PreKChildAssessmentProgram.aspx
Meisels, S. J. (2011). Using Observational Assessment to Evaluate Young Children’s Learning: The Technical Quality of the Work Sampling System1. Erikson Institute.
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