Thursday, September 15, 2016

Applying Kirkpatrick’s Evaluation Model

I have chosen to use Kirkpatrick’s Model for this section because it is from an actual experience. I had created and implemented a professional development session for my fellow professionals at a former school. And, the model I used to evaluate my performance and the effectiveness of the training was the Kirkpatrick Model, even though I didn’t know, at the time that it had a name. I won’t say the effort was a dismal failure, but it wasn’t a resounding success either. It made some changes and effected some growth in community relations, but still has a long way to go to achieve its original purpose, even after about 8 years.

The principal asked if I would create and present a training session to teach our staff to create and maintain their web pages for communication with students, parents, and community. After developing and presenting the training, I knew I needed to determine the effectiveness of my efforts. So, at the end of the session, I had every participant fill out an evaluation form where they told me, anonymously, what they thought of the session and describing at least one, preferably three, thing they had learned. That survey corresponds to levels 1 and 2 of Kirkpatrick’s Model. Then, as the semester wore on, I followed up with those who had participated in order to discover if their learning had changed anything that they did or how they did it, level 3. At the end of the year, we ran a community survey to find out if the parents, students and community stakeholders had enjoyed and benefited from the changes that were accomplished through this training session, level 4.

References

Raiser, R.A. and Dempsey, J.J. (2012) Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology 3rd Ed.

2 comments:

  1. Community outreach is so important. I've found in teaching Professional Development that feedback is key. If teachers aren't applying what you're teaching, it's a waste of time. I like how you followed up with the group and saw their growth.
    Understanding the district's stakeholders and their role is so important.

    When reading, I thought that Kirkpatrick's Model could be very beneficial, but I liked models that participated in the planning more. I wonder if we could adapt it to where you get community feedback before the actual PD and how that could change the outcome?

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  2. I agree with Jaclyn, if you don't have community buy in then the chances of the training becoming an influential tool can quickly become more of a point of contention.

    I like the CIP model for its complexity but since I work at medium size company and time is money we never have the time to sufficiently implement a more accurate assessment model. It is hopeful that this may be a future plan. Kirkpatrick's model naturally fills in for the kind of planning that we do and the current level at which our LMS is at.

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