Evaluation Capacity

Hi all. The evaluation capacity project is moving along. After a first round of classroom observations it was clear to those who conducted them that the "instrument" was only marginally useful. Several reasons were noted by interviewers. Spending a class period in a classroom was not enough time to ascertain whether a teacher was actually using many of the strategies learned in ACT. "Bump it up" questions would not be observed in a classroom that was well managed and where students were behaved and on-task, as was the case in the classrooms we observed. It was generally agreed by interviewers that we should design an instrument (questionnaire) for teachers and for principals that would go along with classroom observations. It was also generally agreed that the classroom observation questions should be more open ended and that the comments section should offer more room for comments. So we have now revised the classroom observation instrument and have developed two questionnaires to go along with the observations.
A new round of observations and interviews are being scheduled for the third and fourth weeks of February and the first few weeks of March. Any faculty member interested in helping with these interviews should contact me at nview@aol.com.
Thanks,
Fred Good

CSAP Grant

Our grant application to begin the process of building evaluation capacity within IAACT has been approved. The Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) will oversee the implementation of the grant. We will work in five schools which have elected to participate in this process and are at varying stages of implementing A Connected School and Take Charge! principles and strategies in their substance abuse prevention programs. We will be communicating through this forum as we move forward in this process. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions regarding this initiative or would like to participate in some way.

Thank you.

Fred Good
Project Coordinator