Chapter 9 Reaction Paper

Approaches to evaluation

                Evaluation is an important part of the program because it needs to be able to ensure that their program and their plan of action is achieving their outcomes and being able to accomplish their mission. Curriculum evaluation is “concerned with collecting information about different aspects of a language program in order to understand how the program works and how successfully it works, enabling different kinds of decisions to be made about the program such as whether the program responds to learners’ needs, whether further teacher training is required for teachers working in the program, or whether students are learner sufficiently from it (286).”

                There are two types of assessment: formative and summative assessments. Formative assessments or evaluations are done through giving tests, quizzes, exams, evaluation forms, etc. while summative assessments are done through question and answer, verbal feedback, etc. Assessments can be done at any time depending on the teacher. Summative assessments can be done on a daily basis and formative assessments may require more time for students to prepare for as they hold the most weight in terms of grading.

                The book expresses that there can be issues when it comes to evaluating a program. The audience of the evaluation must be relevant as the ones evaluating the program should be the ones undergoing the program. The program’s stakeholders: the teachers, students, developers, sponsors, administrators, the content, the support should all be evaluated. The question as to how they evaluate varies and depends on the administrator, however they feel they can best attain the needed information is how they should disseminate the evaluation.

                The evaluation should be used as feedback for change. The evaluation hopes to attain constructive criticism on the program, in what works or does not work, and hopefully the audience can provide suggestions to help improve the program. That normally is the goal for evaluation. For assessment purpose, the goal is to ensure that the intended audience accomplishes what is expected of them through the implementation of the program. After evaluations, programs should really look at the submitted feedback and discuss or implement change if needed to their program to ensure it becomes more effective. It is a cycle for better results, to assess, identify, implement, evaluate, reflect and reassess their program. This will ensure that the program meets the demands of the ever changing society as well as the audience needs and to emphasize their ability for success.