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Slippery Evaluation: Context, Quality, Interpretation
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| Presenter(s):
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| Serafina Pastore, University of Bari, serafinapastore@vodafone.it
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| Abstract:
Nowadays quality and evaluation represent key-words within the debate on formative processes. The increased interest in qualitative methodologies in the evaluation field has led to a growing appreciation of the aspects of individuality, contextuality and situationality. The context is fundamental: it indicates the situation in which the interests of individuals and opportunities provided by the context are mediated and defined. It is like an anchorage that is essential to understand the evaluand in a deeper and more intimate way. The context is never preordained, but is always made in situational frameworks. In the hermeneutic perspective, evaluation assumes an interpretative function and opens further perspectives. Evaluation involves the bringing together of disparate connections aimed at understanding and realizing an effective process that might enhance learning actions and develop a real co-construction of meaning.
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What Matters and What Does It Look Like?: Values Meet Practices in the Complex Context of an Educative, Values-Engaged Evaluation of a Professional Development School.
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| Presenter(s):
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| Melissa Freeman, University of Georgia, freeman9@uga.edu
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| Jori Hall, University of Georgia, jorihall@uga.edu
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| Tracie Costantino, University of Georgia, tcost@uga.edu
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| Soria E Colomer, University of Georgia, scolomer@uga.edu
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| Isabelle Crowder, University of Georgia, crowderi@uga.edu
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| Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to examine the intersection of our evaluation process with four ways in which values emerged in the context of a professional development school (PDS) implementation: 1) values explicitly articulated, 2) values manifested in everyday practices, 3) values implicitly shaping power dynamics, and 4) values expressed through the evaluation process. Although ‘quality of instruction’ is a core value guiding the PDS, what that means and is intended to look like in practice creates tensions. For example, although PDS university partners endorse student led enrichment activities, a district led standardized problem-solving approach including a required product may work against their intended purpose. To understand these competing values about instruction we use the educative, values-engaged approach. Specifically, our paper will describe how this approach forefronts the need to engage values in the evaluation design, and through the conduct of the evaluation itself.
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