Tools to Help with Program Evaluation
Regional Educational Laboratory Pacific at McREL has recently released a set of tools for educators to use in designing and evaluating programs. These tools help educators frame discussions around using data, create logic models, and measure outcomes of programs.
Education Logic Model Tool: Logic models are an invaluable tool for education program planning, collaboration, and monitoring. They visually represent a program’s structure, process, and goals and help practitioners and evaluators better understand a program’s mechanics and structure and chart a course toward improved policy and practice. The Education Logic Model Tool guides you through a series of questions and providing opportunities to enter your program resources, activities, outputs, and outcomes. The end result is a printable logic model that functions as a map for you and your team, visually connecting your intended activities with your intended outcomes. For more information, please see the IES guides Logic Models: A Tool for Designing and Monitoring Program Evaluations and stay tuned for more information about a forthcoming guide, Logic Models: A Tool for Effective Program Planning.
Program Outcomes, Measures, and Targets Tool: Track your progress toward meeting program goals with this tool. It guides users through the process of naming indicators, measures, and targets for your program’s short-, mid-, and long-term outcomes. This information is then displayed in a color-coded interactive dashboard to illustrate progress that’s on-track, behind, or exceeding the specified target.
Interested in finding out more about program monitoring and its connection to effective leadership? Download the IES guide Understanding Program Monitoring: The Relationships Among Outcomes, Indicators, Measures, and Targets and stay tuned for more information about a forthcoming guide, Program Monitoring: The Role of Leadership in Planning, Assessment, and Communications
Guide and Webinar: Join REL Pacific on Wednesday, March 12 for a webinar on“Facilitating Data-Informed Conversations: 5 Steps Forward." This live, interactive webinar, designed for educators, administrators, and researchers, will feature an overview of REL Pacific's Five steps for structuring data-informed conversations and action in education guide. Learn about the five key steps in using data for informed decisionmaking and strategic action: setting the stage, examining the data, understanding the findings, developing an action plan, and monitoring progress and measuring success. Using guiding questions, suggested activities, and activity forms, the guide provides education data teams with a framework and the tools and vocabulary needed to support informed conversations around data.
