Evaluating Teaching and Learning
When training others, you’ll need information on what trainees want and need to learn, how well content has been mastered, what participants will do with the information you’ve provided and any suggestions they have for improving your presentation. Provided on this web page are pre- and post-test questions designed to be a learning experience requiring trainees to think in a variety of ways, affirm what they’ve learned, and allow trainers to discern what content has been mastered or not. Included are items focused on:
- pre-testing, i.e., questions designed to identify in advance what trainees need and want to know;
- post-testing to determine whether trainees demonstrate sufficient knowledge and functional skills in understanding development, policy, services, and screening test administration, and potentially train others; and
- presentation feedback and questions to help trainees implement what they have learned. A scoring guide is shown at the end.
The topics covered are:
- Knowledge of child development and its domains
- Meaning and prevalence of delays and disabilities
- Policy, service mandates, and the rationale for these
- The value of early intervention and developmental promotion
- Psychosocial risk, resilience, and parenting issues including best methods for explaining results
- Knowledge of referral options
- Specifics about measurement including administration, scoring and interpretation of various screens
- Implementation and collaboration issues
- Questions for program evaluation including pre- and post-course feedback
The entire set of items requires about 30 – 45 minutes to complete but all may not be needed. So, you can download the questionnaire (in Word) and delete items not covered in your presentation. We ask that you keep the copyright and permissions notice on each page of your questionnaire. If you create new questions you wish we’d included, please send them to us so we can add them to the website to share with others. Finally, if you are applying for continuing education credits for your course, you will undoubtedly need to share (your adapted version of) this questionnaire with the sponsoring university or agency.
Note:Performance criterion (e.g., 80%, 95%) is a decision you will need to make based on whether you expect participants to demonstrate mastery of skills (e.g., in test administration) or also have the background skills to train others. Please see Chapter 15 for additional ideas (such as requiring independent practice with test scoring before offering certification). Included on the website is a downloadable sample certificate (in PowerPoint) that can modified to show course completion, mastery, etc.
Trainees appreciate certificates of attendance or mastery. Included here is a downloadable certificate (in Powerpoint) you can personalize and print out as needed.