Discuss how the theories and concepts presented in the reading below on program evaluation merge with other skill sets , and consider how they can be used to best advantage in your up

Program Evaluation: Experiences

Michelle Ellis, MA

For the last three years I have been involved in testing all English Language Learners. It is a state mandate that anyone whose language is other than English must receive a test called the CELA Placement Test and if they pass that test, wonderful, they just go about their day and go about their lives taking the mainstream curriculum.

Students who score less than perfect, less than 33 out of 33 on this Colorado English Language Assessment Placement Test are what is known as either Non-English Proficient or NEP or Limited English proficient or LEP. And a LEP student would perhaps be in an intermediate class or especially placed with particularly trained teachers such as English teachers, science teachers and social studies teachers.

We also have some math teachers that have participated in a program called ESL Leadership and these teachers have specific training that gives them some ideas on how to work with English Language Learners. So a LEP testing student on this placement test, we will make sure that they are specifically placed and we evaluate their schedule based on this to make sure that they get the best possible services while they are at our school.

A lower-level student would be considered NEP or a Non-English Proficient and those can be misleading students. Sometimes the kids have really wonderful oral skills, but not such great reading or writing skills, because they have not had literacy at home in this English language. It may have been in another language but not in English. So NEP students typically have up to two or three classes with ESL teachers and then they are very strategically placed in a very controlled schedule to make sure that they will be successful and able to grasp our curriculum.

The CELA test is given in January of each school calendar year to all students who have tested NEP or LEP and it requires a pretty high score and a fairly fluent proficiency in both reading and writing skills and then following in speaking and listening skills. The overall test results will allow our students to exit our program and then we will monitor them for up to two years after they have exited and tested proficient in the English language.

This gives us a real leg-up rather than just being unsure or unclear about the language proficiency of our students. We can be very clear about each student's ability in the four modalities, which can vary, especially between language group, age group and formal schooling in a student's first language. We were able to monitor and help students effectively in speaking, reading, writing and listening in English.

Nathan Long, EdD

At our college I am going to use a specific example of our writing center. It is one of the first of its kind in the country in terms of its presence within a two-year nursing and health sciences college. And given this important distinction, we also had to determine how effective the actual program, the writing center itself, was in terms of improving student writing processes, faculty and student support and satisfaction with the services received, as well as overall academic achievement, if there were any correlations to writing center services, and how well students did in the classroom.

The people impacted by our Program Evaluation, what we call our constituents or stakeholders, were faculty, students and the community at large. I am just going to describe each of those groups for you briefly. Faculty members at our institution consisted of liberal arts and sciences as well as nursing program faculty. All were initially concerned about the quality of writing among students. Transferred students, new students coming into the college, all had a broad array of writing experiences and capabilities, but we were finding a deep concern with our transferred students who were struggling with finding and stating a thesis, building an argument, and writing satisfactory conclusions.

All students were and are considered stakeholders as well. The specific focus for our current Program Evaluation processes are the students who utilize the services are those who are stakeholders. Still, we also decided to look at those not using those services provided by the writing center as our stakeholders as well. Lastly, community members consisted of those who benefited from the services our graduates provided, and of course, the graduates themselves.

In the former category, community members would essentially comprise healthcare employers and other nonprofit healthcare groups. The later group consisted of graduates who are now employed by these employers or healthcare groups. My role and responsibility in Program Evaluation was as the supervisor of the writing center. I basically supervised the writing center staff, and my key role was and is to insure programmatic effectiveness in terms of the following criteria: improving student writing processes; faculty and student support and satisfaction with the services received needed to be high.

We had to show some correlation between writing center support and academic achievement. We also wanted to make sure expectations of faculty about writing and what services the writing center provided were fully aligned with their own individual expectations. An example of that is related to APA Style. One of the things that faculty felt a writing center should do, is to review every paper for APA anomalies or problems.

The writing center staff said, "No," that is not what we do. As you can tell just in that simple example, there is a misalignment of expectations. My supervisor, while interested in the outcome, was not really totally involved and is not involved in the programmatic evaluations that go on at the academic service level. What her interest level is, is how effective is the program and should we continue maintaining it based on cost, based on benefit to the students and other stakeholders involved.

Now, when we are talking about Program Evaluation at the collegiate level, especially when we are talking about this writing center entity that we are looking at, we had to look at various data in terms of what we collected, and how we analyzed it. So I am going to start with ticking off a list of particular data points that we collected and then how we analyzed those. Every student who enters our college takes an English placement exam, and those scores range from 1 to 15. In those English placement exam scores, we are able to categorize students by highly proficient, proficient, and not proficient.

Based on their score, they will either have to enroll in a full-out remediation course in English, which is a developmental English course. And in order to transfer credit or move into English 101, they have to successfully complete the developmental course. The next option or step in the EP scoring process is that the students who fall in the proficient category may still need some remediation related to their writing skills and process, but that may not entail enrolling in a developmental course. The writing center spearheads a tutorial program for those specific students in terms of how they are identified, what sort of work they need, and how they can support them in improving their writing processes.

The highly proficient group is simply identified, as their course credits will transfer or they will continue on into English 101. So that is our initial data, and we get all of that information about their basic writing abilities at the very start of their work here at the college. We also collected other basic quantitative data, how many students come to the writing center, how often, and for what purposes. We want to find out, are students who are utilizing the centers struggling in writing, how many are struggling in that area of writing, writing process, how often are they meeting with the writing counselor and improving their own writing processes, and what purposes are they specifically coming for? Are they coming at the end of a term to get specific help on a final paper, are they coming to just simply improve their own writing, and approaches to writing and communication?

Qualitative indicators of student satisfaction included such things as open ended questionnaires, as well as basic anecdotals. These anecdotals range from students talking about their satisfaction with the writing center staff, to faculty talking about how well the staff seems to serve the needs of the students related to writing processes, support, etcetera.

We also collected qualitative and quantitative survey feedback from faculty and staff, really looking at the quality of the program and the level of support provided to students. These surveys went out to all faculty and staff to try and find out: Is the writing center meeting the needs of the institution, is it meeting your understanding of the expectations of what a writing center does, what kinds of improvement are you seeing? That type of thing. So we got the data, and we analyzed that, we put it all together and discussed it as a collective.

Robert Wang, PhD

Primarily I am going to talk in terms of being a grant recipient and managing grants. Program evaluation is required. It is usually specified in fact in the RFP of these grants, as far as the type of program evaluation that is required. Factual impacts on these projects include both logistics and also dollars, as far as having—cannot make sure we have an adequate budget for program evaluation.

One of my primary responsibilities is to manage the evaluation team, but not get in the way of evaluation. In other words make sure there is a separation between evaluation and the rest of the project, but make sure that the logistics and everything is in place for the project or the evaluation team to be successful.

But to bring it up to the one critical issue that I see with program evaluation as far as these grants, and that is to make sure that you are hiring experienced evaluators, folks that really know evaluation. It is all those things that they do not teach you in evaluation or program evaluation courses such as, cultural sensitivity, things like that, which I really think you have to pretty much learn on the job, In other words, if you are planning and going into any type of project evaluation really, almost finding a mentor or doing some type of apprenticeship or internship with people that have a thorough understanding of project evaluation.

Collepals.com Plagiarism Free Papers

Are you looking for custom essay writing service or even dissertation writing services? Just request for our write my paper service, and we'll match you with the best essay writer in your subject! With an exceptional team of professional academic experts in a wide range of subjects, we can guarantee you an unrivaled quality of custom-written papers.

Get ZERO PLAGIARISM, HUMAN WRITTEN ESSAYS

Why Hire Collepals.com writers to do your paper?

Quality- We are experienced and have access to ample research materials.

We write plagiarism Free Content

Confidential- We never share or sell your personal information to third parties.

Support-Chat with us today! We are always waiting to answer all your questions.