assignment #4
Running head: PROGRAM EVALUATION 1
PROGRAM EVALUATION 4
Program Evaluation
Instructor: Antony Jacob
Cheanel Nolden
May 19, 2019
Program Evaluation
Goals of the Evaluation
Identification of the Approaches that Lead to Program Implementation
One of the main goals of the evaluation is to identify different ways through which the student assessment program will be initiated. There are different stages and activities that will be undertaken from time to time to complete the project. For instance, teachers will work with parents to identify innate students’ talents, and to determine their personal inclinations. Teachers will also study the students keenly in order to detect the students’ areas of strengths and weaknesses both in academic issues, art, and physical education (PE). Other activities in talent-identification processes include student engagement in competition and talent-based activities.
Encourage Students to View Education Positively
In view of the pressure that students experience as a result of the high academic expectations and performance standards set to them by parents and teachers, the aim of the evaluation is to encourage students to view education positively. Parents and teachers are mainly happy with students if they score high marks in academic work, which makes students develop stress and anxiety (Cross, Hamner, Zito & Nourbakhsh, 2016). As such, the evaluation seeks to relieve students of the academic pressure by introducing other activities that will form part of the overall student evaluation process. Examples include social activities, art, and the application of technology to simplify the learning process in mathematics and sciences.
Determination of the Activities to Integrate in the Student Assessment program
The evaluation was also intended to identify specific activities that will be integrated in the student assessment program and to determine ways through which the program will be implemented in the normal curriculum. Specific activities such as creative art programs, music, drama, and games will be introduced, and the appropriate requirements that can support these activities will be determined. The program is not intended to shift focus from the actual academic activities. These activities will be performed to increase students’ participation in their learning. Computer software and other learning equipment will be acquired to support and encourage students’ participation in mathematics and sciences to keep them engaged and improve their perception of sciences and mathematics (Domingo & Garganté, 2016).
Political and Cultural Issues that may be Encountered and how to overcome them
Social Stratification
Social stratification refers to the trend in which the community is divided into several groups and social or cultural categories depending on socioeconomic states. Social stratification is one of the biggest threats to equitable education opportunities for all children because children from low socioeconomic families cannot afford to good schools and racial minority groups are blocked from attending some schools (Farkas, 2017). Another issue related to this is discrimination of racial minorities and students from underprivileged socioeconomic states. In order to solve the issue of social stratification in education, the quality of the program with regards to equipment and implementation ways will be the same in all schools. Secondly, teachers will improvise ways of curbing racial discrimination in schools and classes by imposing harsh punishment, and techniques such as making students from different races work together in groups. In so doing, the students will learn to appreciate the others and will not view each other in terms of race but in terms of their contribution in the groups.
Ideological Differences
Ideological differences occur when stakeholders such as teachers, parents, or members of the community have contrasting views on the program, some of its aspects or the way it is conducted. For instance, Muslim teachers may feel uncomfortable teaching secular music or indulging in secular activities, which can be part of the program. Parents may also not be comfortable if their children are taught concepts that may conflict with religious ideologies. In order to minimize the impacts of ideological differences, the program may be adjusted appropriately to suit different cultures so that elements that can go against such cultures can be substituted by appropriate ones. Extensive consultation of different stakeholders such as religious leaders will be done to incorporate their ideas into the program to avoid ideological conflicts.
Cultural Conflicts
Cultural conflicts occur when people’s cultural behaviors and beliefs contradict in social settings such as in the classroom. For instance, some cultures such as in many Western countries encourage individualism whereas others are for collectivism such as in Eastern countries. These cultural differences can make students perceive the program differently (Farkas, 2017). . For example, students from cultures that practice individualism can experience difficulties when they will often be required to share some equipment or work together in groups. In order to remedy this issue, enough equipment will be supplied so that each student will have their own equipment. Further, the teacher will be required to condition students to ignore cultural differences, and to make them respect and appreciate cultural differences, which can be achieved by ensuring that each study consists of students from different cultures.
Sampling Technique, Assessment Methods, and Timeline
The sampling technique that will be applied for the program is the stratified approach. This method involves categorizing students into homogenous groups using factors such as sociocultural and academic competencies, and then randomly selecting one or two sample representatives for each group (de Jong, Bok, Kremer & van der Vleuten, 2018). The advantage of using this method is that the resultant sample consists of students with diverse characteristics. Information will then be collected through electronic portfolio in which sample students will have their e-portfolios that have dossier functions that enable consistent periodic evaluation of each student’s competence growth (Van Der Vleuten et al., 2015). The functions of the e-portfolios include provision of database of both formal and informal data on student assessment, performance, feedback, and learning progress, activity information and reflective information. They also serve to ease logistic and administrative components of the assessment program so that the administration can directly access details of the assessment, feedback, and recommendations for each student to help in decision-making processes (Schut et al., 2018). The e-portfolio will also be used to perform a quick assessment of students’ aggregate performance.
The main assessment methods that will be used include evaluation of classroom performance, individual project assessment, collaborative assessment, self-assessment, archival analysis, and interviews. These methods will be based on the competency framework. Though this approach, different elements of students’ performance will be assessed to form different data points that can then be combined to obtain students’ overall aggregate performance (Schut et al., 2018). For instance, behavioral competencies such as communication, professionalism, and collaboration will involve direct observations and students will be given immediate feedback. This will form one data point that can then be combined with other data points such as academic scores to determine the overall students’ performance. Students will be provided with the right answers on their test papers as soon as they get them so that they can perform a quick evaluation of their competencies before the general class review of exams. Each assessment mode will be conducted each week to keep students in touch and engaged. Further, narrative feedback will be given on unstandardized but complex assignments in order for the students to remain motivated when they are required to complete complex tasks (Schut et al., 2018). Besides, intermediate assessments will be done every week so that students will have the information needed for them to make improvements in their academic work.
How the Evaluation will be conducted (refer to attached excel)
Timeline for Evaluation and expected Costs
The total time that the preliminary assessment is expected to take is about 3 months in total. The maximum time that social aspects of the evaluation will take is three months whereas the academic aspects of the evaluation will cover a maximum of one month. The talent-nurturing component of the preliminary assessment will also need a total of one month. Since all the activities will be done concurrently, the maximum anticipated time for the whole evaluation process will be a total of three months. Further afield, the total cost of the evaluation is estimated to be approximately US$ 45,000. This amount has been derived considering the costs of the equipment and resources needed to complete each aspect of the evaluation. Communication equipment will cost about $10,000; learning materials and technological equipment will cost approximately $ 30,000 whereas sporting equipment will cost approximately $5,000, totaling to about $ $45,000. Since most of the materials used for the different categories of the evaluation are the same, the different costs in each category have been determined using the low limit of the cost estimates. Office equipment such as phones and teachers’ or schools’ existing computers can be used in the evaluation, and the technological equipment can be used interchangeably for different activities. This has led to the settlement on the lower costs of the project as a whole.
References
Cross, J., Hamner, E., Zito, L., & Nourbakhsh, I. (2016, October). Engineering and computational thinking talent in middle school students: a framework for defining and recognizing student affinities. In 2016 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE) (pp. 1-9). IEEE.
de Jong, L. H., Bok, H. G., Kremer, W. D., & van der Vleuten, C. P. (2018). Programmatic assessment: Can we provide evidence for saturation of information? Medical teacher, 1- 5.
Domingo, M. G., & Garganté, A. B. (2016). Exploring the use of educational technology in primary education: Teachers' perception of mobile technology learning impacts and applications' use in the classroom. Computers in Human Behavior, 56, 21-28.
Schut, S., Driessen, E., van Tartwijk, J., van der Vleuten, C., & Heeneman, S. (2018). Stakes in the eye of the beholder: an international study of learners’ perceptions within programmatic assessment. Medical education, 52(6), 654-663.
Van Der Vleuten, C. P., Schuwirth, L. W. T., Driessen, E. W., Govaerts, M. J. B., & Heeneman, S. (2015). Twelve tips for programmatic assessment. Medical teacher, 37(7), 641-646.