Quality assurance and evaluation of the impact

When considering the value of professional development, it is important to ensure that a process is in place which effectively evaluates the impact of this on teachers learning and on student outcomes. To consider the impact the professional development has had, it is essential to ensure that the design of the evaluation process provides accurate and meaningful feedback. It’s not just the case that professional learning automatically impacts student outcomes; but instead, when teachers are taught to become reflective practitioners, by taking what they have learned, putting it into practice and then evaluating whether it is having the intended impact, that makes the difference. If the teacher is unable to effectively evaluate and reflect on their learning, then it may not have the intended impact on student outcomes.

For this section of the project, we have investigated the impact and evaluation processes which take place in each of the five contributing countries and drawn out those processes which would make for exemplary evaluation procedures. To do this, we met as a focus group where we shared good practices from the five contributing countries and identified those which were the most successful in each country