We have talked in our last post about the NEWTON approach and plans, we were saying that we are working on the NEWTON evaluation toolbox. In this blog post, we want to share what’s all about it, what is the Evaluation toolbox and why we have it.
We are evaluating the project with real pilots to reach more impact. During the evaluation loop, the researcher defines the evaluation goal, the research question, and the expected learnings of the evaluation. The researcher designs the methodology from the NEWTON evaluation toolbox based on the evaluation goal and research questions. The he/she conducts the assessment and analyses the results, the researcher (or the research team) then recommends and suggests actions to be taken. These outcomes are shared within a communal online environment with other Pilot Leaders and other researchers working with pilots, in this “knowledge sharing” virtual meeting we foster knowledge transference share best practices and comments what has worked out and what not.
In fact, all the process need the real teachers who are involved in the pilots (and are at the real educational schools feeding our project, with real inputs:
- We need teachers’ ideas to help us develop the learning content
- We need their teaching skills to deliver NEWTON content
- We need their evaluation expertise to help us understand our impact, specifically…
- Evaluating skills & knowledge acquisition in students
- Evaluating learner engagement & motivation
- Evaluating the impact on them!
The evaluation focuses on:
- Achievement of learning objectives
- Progress towards specific learning targets
- Proving learning retention
- Enjoyment of the learning experience
- Attractiveness towards the technology
- Level of engagement in learning
- Usability within the classroom
- Practicality within the school
- Connection to pedagogy
- Requirements for training
- Change of teacher role
- Response of school management team
To cover the different dimensions, we have designed a pedagogical evaluation toolkit and we will gather data by different means from both learners and teachers (tests, surveys, interviews, focus groups, observation and educational data mining). We are very excited about the results. Stay tuned for more info!