EVALUATE

**‍‍‍‍‍ ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍EVALUATE ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ **
//This phase requires the instructional designer to ensure that the materials achieved the desired goals.// =**10. Formative evaluation of learning intervention** = In order to ensure that the learning activity achieved the desired goal, the next step was to carry out evaluation of this task. Just like other phases of online learning design, evaluation is of utmost importance. This notion is reflected in an observation that has been made that "evaluation is a crucial part of every design and development effort because it can determine the worth or value of the instruction or training as well as its strengths and weaknesses" (Tessmer, 1993 cited in Dabbagh and Bannan-Ritland, 2005:234).

Formative evaluation was done by one student who had been a a participant in the online learning activity from the onset, and one staff member, a colleague experienced in online learning instructional design. The student who did the evaluation had been informed from the beginning of the activity that he was going to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the activity. He was also one of the students who had been performing well in class as compared to others, and the instructional designer thought this student would easily understand what we were doing. The staff member who did the evaluation, my colleague, had just completed an MEd majoring in Instructional Design. She has designed various courses for online learning. The latest one was Effective Uses of the Interactive Whiteboard for qualified registered teachers in Arizona in the USA, and she used the Moodle LMS. Currently she is a part-time Instructional Designer for the Centre for Open and Life Long Learning at the Polytechnic of Namibia.

Google docs questionnaires were created and sent to both the student and the staff member involved in the evaluation. The student was asked to comment on the lesson content, relevance of the lesson, presentation of the lesson, the technology that was used (google docs), and the changes he suggests the lecturer makes. Unfortunately there were four additional "unneeded questions" at the bottom of the evaluation form that the instructional designer failed to delete before sending the form to the student. The staff member was asked to comment on the extent to which the activity met learners' needs, the extent to which the online learning intervention engaged students actively in the lesson, the match between learning outcomes and the lesson, appropriateness of the teaching strategy that was employed, the extent to which google docs facilitated guidance to students, and correlation between learning outcomes, teaching strategies and the technology (google docs) used.

As reflected in the student evaluation form hereby attached, [|https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Au8sRFZkfWmmdHdvYmg0elNfOWgybXlXWi1vXzVqN2c&hl=en_US#gid=0] the student did not really understand some of the questions, or presumably the goal behind this evaluation. At the beginning of the evaluation form there was a clear message addressed to the student, clarifying what he was supposed to do. The message reads: "Dear Student. As a course participant, you are hereby asked to formatively evaluate our google documents lesson with the purpose to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the lesson. The aim is to improve the lesson...." However, instead of commenting only on the specific google doc online learning activity the student commented on the overall course in some instances. Limited language competency could be a factor, though I tried explaining to the student from the beginning that he was to be involved in this activity as he would do the overall evaluation of this activity later. Nevertheless, it was interesting to note that there was a match between what the instructional designer observed at analysis stage and what the student commented on. Though contradicting himself by giving two different responses to the same question about how easy it was to do a lesson using google docs, whereby at first the student responded: "It is very easy under supervision", and then again "It is not easy as some students still don't know how to use the internet efficiently", both responses are indicative of the fact that these students need some kind of guidance as they are not competent in terms of using computers.

Before doing the evaluation the staff member who did this evaluation was also directed to the instructional designer's Wikispaces portfolio so that she has clear understanding of what I was doing in my capacity as an instructional designer, the online learning design model adopted etc. Besides time constraints, the staff member did not seem to have any other obstacles to carry out her evaluation task, and her evaluation form [|https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/gform?key=0Au8sRFZkfWmmdE11LVVnY3JlTGZZeXBBOHo0RFNxcVE&hl=en_US&gridId=0#chart]. indicates that the activity achieved its desired goal. However, the instructional designer was reminded of the fact that it is appropriate to use various teaching strategies even if some might not be appropriate, but then it is students who should take charge of their learning.

References

Dabbagh, N. and Bannan-Ritland, B. (2005). //Evaluation for online learning: A process model.// In N. Dabbagh and B. Bannan-Ritland (Eds). Online learning: Concepts, strategies and application, 233-270. New Jersyey: Pearson.

Tessmer, M. (1993). Planning and conducting formative evaluations: Improving the quality of education and training. London: Kegan Page.