Evaluation Strategies

Curriculum Evaluation
Qualitative Evaluation
Student Drawings & Sentence Completions
Teacher and Student Opinions (student grade cards)
Quantitative Evaluation
Student Pre/Post Knowledge Tests
Rubrics
Rubrics Overview	Processing Out Grading Rubric
Classroom Learner Rubrics	Scaled Scores Rubric
Process Skill Rubrics

Qualitative Evaluation of the Curriculum
Student Drawings & Sentence Completions - Under the Positively Aging® project's NIH SEPA grant (1997-2000), the effectiveness of the curriculum was evaluated. A controlled trial evaluation was conducted in the 1998-1999 school year with two participating middle schools in San Antonio TX. One school served as the control school (did not use the Positively Aging ® materials) and the other was the implementation school (did use the Positively Aging ® materials).

Qualitative methods included using children's drawings of older people and sentence completion exercises. These were used to capture changes in children's views on aging. It was found that the implementation school data showed an increase in positive views and a decrease in negative views while data from the control school remained constant. Data findings were statistically significant and demonstrated that the Positively Aging ® materials can move children to a more positive view of aging. Read more under our Peer Reviewed Publications link.

You may download our coding sheet and instructions:

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Qualitative Evaluation of the Curriculum
Teacher & Student Opinions - One way to qualitatively evaluate the curriculum and program is to ask the opinions of teachers and students. Read some quotes from teachers and students here.

Student Grade Cards - Another alternate for curriculum evaluation is for the students themselves to evaluate the curriculum! Explain to your students that they always receive grades for their work, now is their chance to grade the lesson. They can give the lesson/activity an A, B, C, D or F and explain why it deserves this grade. Teachers can collect the grade cards and analyze the comments for patterns or common themes. You may download a sample student grade card here.

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Quantitative Evaluation of the Curriculum
Student Pre/Post Knowledge Tests - Units and activities are evaluated with pre/post knowledge tests. This is an ongoing process and not all units or activities have corresponding tests.

The following are some examples of pre/post test results.

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Rubrics Overview

To assist teachers with evaluating their students, rubrics are provided as examples of how to assess the quality of the work and processes by which the children are learning. The percentage grade applied to each rubric may vary with the skills being tested, the format for the activity (oral vs. written), and the time of year the questions and activities are used. The evaluation rubrics may be weighted to obtain a percentage grade by applying different scales - examples of scaled scores are also provided in this section.

Introduction: Evaluating the effectiveness of the curricular materials and changes in the students' knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs is central to accomplishing the objectives of the Positively Aging ® lessons. In this lesson, we provide some examples of evaluation rubrics you may use in your classroom to assess your students. A rubric is a guideline with specified criteria for assessing the abilities and knowledge of your students. The rubrics are shared with the students before the activities so that they will understand how they are being tested and evaluated. The rubrics provided here are meant as suggestions. Teachers may adapt their own evaluation rubrics for assessing their students when using the Positively Aging ® instructional material.

To the Students: "The following are copies of some of the evaluation rubrics we will use with the Positively Aging ® teaching material this year. A rubric is a system that allows you to know what is expected of you and how you are learning, improving, and progressing in class. Before each learning activity, you will be told which scaled rubric (score) we will use and what skills we will be evaluating. As your teacher, I believe you will appreciate this method of grading your skills. So often, you do many of these things well but are not given credit for them. Enjoy!"

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Classroom Learner Rubrics

Reflection: "Without help, write down the (concepts, exercises, or observations) we made together in class yesterday."

0 =	None written
1 =	Incorrect Information
2 =	1 correct item
3 =	2 or more correctly recalled items

Participation - Group Checklist : Does the Student:

•	Ask questions?
•	Make appropriate comments?
•	Take notes?
•	Complete tasks?

Participation - General:

0 =	Does not participate
1 =	Participates inappropriately (specific rules for participation set prior to each activity)
2 =	Participates appropriately for assigned task

Contributions to the Group Checklist : Does the student:

•	Ask questions for the group?
•	Keep the group on task?
•	Encourage others?

Group Skills and Participation:

0 =	Interferes with group
1 =	Does not participate
2 =	Participates some of the time
3 =	Always participates

Group Skills and Cooperation: 

0 =	Does not contribute to the group
1 =	Sometimes contributes
2 =	Consistently contributes to the group

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Process Skill Rubrics

The most common process skills require that students be able to use a broad range of content knowledge to:

1.	Identify problems
2.	Formulate hypotheses
3.	Design experiments
4.	Make observations
5.	Collect data
6.	Organize data
7.	Interpret data
8.	Formulate conclusions
9.	Classify and generalize
10.	Make predictions
11.	Report results

Examples for rubrics for some of these process skills include:

Understanding the Problem:

0 =	Student fails to restate problem in own words
1 =	Student restates problem but misinterprets
2 =	Student restates problem and demonstrates correct understanding

Designing the Experiment:

0 =	No experimental design
1 =	No comparison of variables
2 =	Comparison made but lacking data collection
3 =	Comparison made with sufficient data collection

Making Observations:

0 =	No observations made
1 =	Only 1 or 2 observations made
2 =	3 or more observations made
3 =	3 or more observations made with supporting data collection

Data Collecting and Reporting:

0 =	Student fails to collect any data
1 =	Student describes observations in a disjointed manner
2 =	Student produces data tables without meaningful labels
3 =	Student produces data tables with meaningful labels, but inaccurate recording of data
4 =	Student produces data tables with meaningful labels and accurate recording of data

Drawing Conclusions:

0 =	No conclusions made
1 =	Conclusions made but not supported by data
2 =	Conclusions supported by data by student fails to present the evidence
3 =	Conclusions supported by the data and student provides evidence

Making Predictions:

0 =	Student makes no predictions
1 =	Student makes one prediction
2 =	Student makes one prediction per observation
3 =	Student makes one prediction per observation and the prediction is accurate/correct

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Processing Out Grading Rubric

0 =	No Response from student.
1 =	Student response does not answer question or parts to a question are not answered.
2 =	Student answers questions without supportive detail; student may or may not respond in complete sentences.
3 =	Student processed questions with some supportive detail; student may or may not respond in complete sentences.
4 =	Student processed questions thoughtfully with supportive detail but did not answer in complete sentences.
5 =	Student processed questions thoughtfully with supportive detail or justification and the responses were written in complete sentences.

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Scaled Scores Rubric

In addition to the rubrics noted above, scaled scores may be provided to weight the numerical values. These weights may then be used to provide traditional averages based on a 0-100 rating scale. Students should be aware of the scaling values assigned to the rubric numbers. Examples of different scaling schemes are provided in the following table.

Rubric Score	Scale wt 1	Scale wt 2	Scale wt 3	Scale wt 4
0	0	0	0	0
1	60	60	60	60
2	80	75	80	75
3	100	85	90	90
4		100	100	95
5				100

Teachers are encouraged to develop and utilize their own scaling as their classroom needs evolve.

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