EDTEC 590 is a practicum that orients you to field work. Students consult with clients, familiarize themselves with the high-tech tools on which today's evaluators rely, and read and reflect on evaluation theory and practice. It has a performance technology spin.
EDTEC 590 is organized around four phases:
1. Phase 1: Planning the evaluation. Here you'll concentrate on the frameworks and approaches that guide the evaluation process, the strategies or methods by which planning decisions are made (and the stakeholders with whom you must consult), and the enablers and constraints that inform your choices.
2. Phase 2: Collecting data. Here you'll focus on building (or adapting/adopting) tools/instruments for gathering the information you need. This is where you determine your information resources (and from whom you need approval to access them), whether or not sampling is appropriate (and the steps involved in selecting samples), technologies that can streamline data gathering without compromising reliability and validity, the most opportune time for data collection, and techniques to ensure people (or organizations) aren't put at risk.
3. Phase 3: Analyzing and interpreting the data. Here you'll focus on the quantitative and qualitative methods by which your data may be analyzed, how to triangulate information drawn from multiple sources or via varying methods, and what the results "mean." An evaluation study is organized around questions to be answered or issues to be addressed; thus, your goal is to ensure that the data you've collected and the interpretations from your analyses "align" with your original investigative intent. You may also learn things that you hadn't anticipated---what some refer to as unintended results.
4. Phase 4: Reporting. Here you'll focus on ways to present your work to clients who themselves may know little about evaluation. Your task is to develop a writing style that is both professional and conversational, aesthetically pleasing, and visually astute. Graphics, charts, tables, and figures are key to preparing a report that is both accurate and easy to digest.
EDTEC 590 is based on one intense practice, informative research, and connections with evlauators in the field. Each of you will devote about 75 hours outside class to tackle a narrow yet significant evaluative issue for a member of the community. Just like the real world, client challenges will vary; as important, few will be crystal clear. My role is multifaceted: facilitator, mentor, advisor, sounding board--and more. You'll emerge this course ready not only to design, develop, and implement performance interventions--but also to determine their worth or merit ... and ways to improve them.
EDTEC 590 is the course where you take ideas you've gleaned from classes you already taken ... and try them out in the real world.