Four Guiding Principles of Program Evaluation
- An evaluation must be purposeful.
- An evaluation must be efficient and economic.
- An evaluation must be conducted competently and ethically.
- The evaluation results must be made available through a written report.
The first step in evaluating gifted programs is determining ahead of time what elements of the program will be evaluated. Since most teachers of the gifted will be walking into programs that are already established at their school, some important elements to evaluate might be the effectiveness of:
- The process of identifying special populations of gifted;
- The model(s) used to deliver the gifted program services;
- The strategies and interventions used to minimize gender bias;
- The curricular modifications and accommodations used to increase achievement in underachieving gifted students;
- Providing the appropriate level of content for the highly gifted students.
The teacher might want to evaluate customer satisfaction with the services and supports provided to gifted and talented students by surveying or interviewing the parents, teachers, students, and community leaders.
A review of the Broward County Public School’s Procedural Guide for Gifted Education is one example of a program design, with several elements that could be evaluated to determine the effectiveness of the individual elements of the program design. For example, the Procedural Guide identifies several program models that may be implemented to serve gifted students. Data can be collected to determine the effectiveness of a particular model for the participating students. University of Connecticut, National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented provides a great example of one District’s start at program design and evaluation.
In 1998, the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) developed and released to the public its Pre-K-Grade 12 Gifted Program Standards to assist schools, districts, and states in examining and evaluating the quality of their programming for gifted learners. It is important to recognize that the ongoing evaluation and restructuring (as discussed in Week 7) of successful gifted programs is a “work in progress.” The NAGC Standards detail a framework including both minimal and exemplary standards. They’ve divided the standards into seven focus areas: Program Design, Program Administration and Management, Student Identification, Curriculum and Instruction, Socio-Emotional Guidance and Counseling, Professional Development, and Program Evaluation.
Several organizing principles guided the work of the NAGC Standards Task Force, including:
- Standards should encourage but not dictate approaches of high quality
- Standards represent both requisite program outcomes and standards for excellence
- Standards establish the level of performance to which all educational school districts and agencies should aspire
- Standards represent professional consensus on critical practice in gifted education that most everyone is likely to find acceptable
- Standards are observable aspects of educational programming and are directly connected to the continuous growth and development of gifted learners
Once the teachers have a sense of "the horizon" established by the NAGC Pre-K-Grade 12 Gifted Program Standards, they can serve as:
- Benchmarks for measuring the effectiveness of gifted programming
- Criteria for program evaluation and assessment
- Guidelines for program design and development
- Recommendations of the minimal requirements necessary for high-quality educational programming designed to meet the needs of gifted students
- Tools for advocates of gifted education who are working on increasing the public's awareness of the needs of gifted and talented students in today's schools
In this course a great deal of information has been presented on the importance of identifying the underrepresented populations of gifted students. Click on the graphic on the left to launch an interactive simulation where you will use the information from this course to determine what resources are available at your school to help identify students who are gifted.
Summary
If gifted supports, services, and programs are to evolve into an integral part of the school and district’s educational program, then policies and standards must be developed and reexamined at regular intervals throughout the program. Policies on grading, textbook selection, quality of homework assignments, and make-up of regular classroom assignments can further the understanding of and support for the gifted program. Standards for implementing, monitoring, funding, and training assure quality within the program and can provide criteria against which evaluation becomes clear and far more useful.
Finally, just knowing, identifying, and placing special populations of students into existing programs, without setting goals, reviewing data, and evaluating the supports and services provided to them will surely not create anything but a different inappropriate educational experience for these students. The true test of a great gifted program is whether all of its members are individually better off. And if not, why not?
Accountability has become an integral part of most every organization, including classrooms, schools, and districts. With quickly diminishing resources, programs that cannot prove their effectiveness will be short lived. The only way to ensure that supports and services will continue is by proving that with them, gifted students are working up to their potential, and without them, their potential is lost or greatly diminished.
Required Reading
For this week read the following:
- Evaluating the Success of a Gifted Program That Includes Special Populations
- Gifted and Talented Education
- Gifted Program Evaluation in Progress by Darla-Gail Bohn
- National Association for Gifted Children Pre-K – Grade 12 Standards Introduction
- Assessing Gifted and Talented Programs for Equity
- Procedural Guide for Gifted Education Department of Advanced Academic Programs, Broward County Schools