Abstract
Learning-centred evaluation framework evaluation computer-facilitated learning proposal This roundtable session will discuss four distinct evaluations of student learning arising from four, very different applications of information and communications technology (ICT) in four different subject areas.
The common factor in each evaluation study was the use of the Learning-Centred Evaluation Framework described in Phillips, Bain, McNaught, Rice, & Tripp (2000) and Bain (1999). This framework, derived from earlier work by Alexander & Hedberg (1994), has four main characteristics:
it presumes that evaluation will occur in each of the major phases of an educational development project (design, development, implementation, and institutionalisation);
it focusses attention on three aspects of learning:
the learning environment (where people learn, or the ICT innovation);
the learning process (how people learn)
the learning outcome (what people learn)
it encourages evaluators to frame appropriate and answerable evaluation questions;
it outlines the types of evidence and methods that may be appropriate for each question.
The four projects to be discussed arose, directly or indirectly, from a 1999 CUTSD staff development grant about Evaluation of Technology-based Teaching Development Projects.
Interactive Stories
Animal Behaviour
Plant Diversity
Veterbrate Anatomy and Physiology
The roundtable will briefly describe the evaluation framework and the individual projects, and the discussion will focus around the issues involved in planning and carrying out such evaluations, and what can be learnt from them. As one participant lecturer stated "we never really know how effective we are in our teaching... we really have no idea about our students understandings".