Let’s roll! Evaluating professional learning in primary computing

Note: The author of this article is an Apple Professional Learning Specialist. ‘Well, that was fun!’ was a comment I heard after a recent professional learning session with teachers. We had focussed on using robots to teach computing. The teachers had all taken part, solved problems and there was a real buzz in the room. It was fun, but would it make a difference to their students? How could we evaluate the session to find out if it was to be effective in practice? Thomas Guskey proposed a five-level model to evaluate the effectiveness of professional learning (Guskey, 2000). He defined evaluation as ‘the systematic investigation of merit or worth’. Let’s take a look at each level. Participants’ reactions - the first level It begins with the people in the room. You will often have a ‘gut feeling’ about this, reading the body language of the participants. You will see keen and attentive people, actively listening and doing. You will also hear the opposite, with p