Evaluation & assessment help for educators

DLESE provides access to resources, tools, and services to help educators and evaluation professionals make better use of evaluation in Earth system science education.

Finding resources about evaluation

To discover evaluation-related resources in the library, use the following words in the search box: evaluation planning, checklists and guides, evaluation data collection, evaluation data analysis, evaluation data reporting, beliefs and attitudes, cognitive gains, teaching practices, science process skills, and educational technology. You can also view all evaluation-related resources. To do this, go to the Browse page and click the Resource Type heading. Look in the section called For the Classroom and click on Assessment/Evaluation to view the resources.

Evaluation toolkit

DLESE resources to assess learning and evaluate program effectiveness

The Evaluation Toolkit (ET) project is designed to help geoscience educators and project evaluators find good resources, get feedback and help with geoscience education evaluation, and share results with one another. Search the Evaluation Toolkit.

Who should use the ET?

Principal investigators and project managers who must develop evaluation plans for proposed or existing projects
Educators who wish to understand or justify courses or projects, innovative courses, or the use of DLESE resources
Evaluators searching for peer-reviewed tools and information for evaluating geoscience education projects

Advanced Earth Science class – Jamestown High School – Williamsburg, VA. Photo by Jo Ann Kirkland.

Ways to use the Evaluation Toolkit

The Evaluation Toolkit is designed to meet a variety of needs, from those of project Principal Investigators needing to develop an evaluation component for Earth system education projects, to teachers wanting to evaluate new activities or approaches, to professional evaluators wanting to work in the arena, etc. In addition to our Introduction to Evaluation resources, the scenarios listed below are designed to help guide your use of the Evaluation Toolkit.

You're an educator and want to:
- search the Evaluation Toolkit for assessment resources; access the Assessment related resources.
- find concept maps for students; access Concept Map resources
- Learn about alternative ways to assess learner's progress; access Alternative Assessment resources
You're a principal investigator on a project and want to:
- Better understand the importance and theory of evaluation; access the Evaluation Theory and Practices resources
You're a professional evaluator and want to:
- Search the ET for evaluation resources; access the Evaluation related resources

Also, see the Collection Scope Statement for more information on this DLESE collection.

ET Top Ten
The following are a few of the resources in the Evaluation Toolkit with links to their full description:

Online Evaluation Resource Library (OERL) from NSF and SRI
Protection for Reseach Subjects from University of Illinois at Chicago
Quantitative Skills Assessment In Geoscience Courses from Columbia University
Field Tested Learning Assessment Guide (FLAG) from University of Wisconsin
Concept Mapping: from the Wheeling Jesuit University
What Does It Mean to be Environmentally Literate? from the National Project for Excellence in Environmental Education
A Brief Guide to Questionnaire Development: from the Office of Measurement and Research Service, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Balancing Local Assessment and Statewide Testing: Building a Program that Meets Student Needs from WestEd
Research Methods Knowledge Base from Cornell University
Developing Alternative Assessments using the Benchmarks from NSTA

Last modified October 23, 2007.

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