Many people think of testing when they think of evaluation, but testing and evaluation are not the same thing. Testing can be a part of evaluation, but evaluation is about describing a situation and then interpreting that description and often making value judgments about it. Evaluation is more individualized, tied to context and personal experience, and it is broader and more subjective than is testing.

Many factors are constantly shifting in a learning environment, and it is important to be able to account for them and implement changes to the various components as needed. This is sometimes referred to as formative evaluation, because it happens while the curriculum is still forming or developing.

Evaluation is also a valuable tool to employ at the end of an experience to help put the experience into perspective and to determine whether or not and how beneficial it was. This is called summative evaluation, because it helps the evaluator (you) to sum up what happened overall.

Another part of completing an evaluation is called meta-evaluation. This is the process of describing and making judgments about the way you evaluated your experience. I encourage you to think critically about your experience evaluating your teaching in the manner prescribed by this website (reflective journaling). While this may be an incredibly effective tool for some, it may not be for others.

As you do these exercises, think about whether or not and how well they are helping you evaluate various components of your teaching. Think about other ways you could evaluate your situation. Evaluation is a process of understanding, and for some of you, this may take the form of talking with someone informally about what is going on, social action, meditation, role playing with a partner, poetry, or even an art project.

The consequences of building evaluation into your teaching, in a continuous and recursive manner, can be very powerful. As you engage in reflective evaluation, ask yourself questions such as:

• What is the purpose for completing this reflective exercise?
• What am I trying to pull off/learn /solve/examine/change/educate myself about?
• How can I do it better?
• What else could I be doing instead of or in addition to what I am already doing?
• What motivates me?
• What is my evaluation agenda-what are my priorities?

Evaluation is at the hub of the language curriculum wheel. This is because it forces the evaluator (you) to think about each of the other components individually and collectively. Evaluation enables all of the other language curriculum constituents to work together in a recursive way. Evaluation facilitates the utilization and incorporation of each constituent with the others. This is a very potent process.

Complete the exercise of your choice and email it to Dr. Strong-Krause at diane_strong-krause@byu.edu.

REFLECTION

• How would you describe your volunteer TESOL experience? What are you putting into it? What are you getting in return? What will you take with you when you are finished?

DISCOVERY

• How would you describe the experience of completing the reflection modules in this website? What are other ways (be creative) that you could evaluate or critically think about your volunteer experience?

VISION

• How would you describe the probable impact of this internship experience on your future behaviors, attitudes, studies or career?
  

diane_strong-krause@byu.edu