A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Where Do I Go From Here?

You've completed a lot of work. People have reports sitting on their desks. You've given presentations. What's the next step? How do you help make sure that the reports don't just sit there collecting dust or that people don't forget about the presentation five minutes out the door? How do you help make sure that your information is used?

What You and Others Want

First, think about what changes you and others would like to see. Before you can attempt to persuade others to use your information, you need to figure out what you would like to happen. What changes would you like to see or what decisions do you think need to be made as a result of your information? Then, think about what changes others might want and/or how they might want to use the information. This will provide two benefits. First, if people have the same objective in mind (e.g., "we need to get a full-time technical support person at the school"), they can work together. Second, knowing how others would like the information used gives you more awareness of where they are coming from and, thus, more information on how they would best be motivated.

Fostering Change

Next - take action! Have you ever heard the expression, "the squeaky wheel gets oiled"? This is your chance to be a squeaky wheel. You have evidence from your evaluation, you've given reports to people, you know what you want done. Ask for it! Find out who is in charge of making the changes you want. Find out if he/she has had a chance to read your report. If you have made recommendations in the report, you can bring this up (e.g., "I was curious to know your thoughts on ...." or "What did you think about ...?") Otherwise, just bite the bullet and bring it up. Tell the person in charge that you have a suggestion and want to know what he or she thinks about it. However, be cautious. You have already had a chance to process the information that you've collected, but others have not. If they need a little breathing space to think about it and process it, by all means, give it to them.

Some Changes Take Time

Know that some changes take time. It's tempting to want to see results right away, but, in most cases, it won't happen. Change, especially large-scale change, takes time. People need to process the information you've collected, figure out for themselves what they want to do about it, get motivated to do it, and then go through the appropriate process (e.g., get approvals, order equipment through procurement) before you will see any results from your evaluation work. Be patient. If you keep at it, change will happen, but it doesn't happen overnight.

Follow-up Research

Finally, remember to follow up. Chances are that there are some questions that you were not able to answer at this point in time. You needed more information, more time, or both. Remember to come back to these items and "finish the job."

How Did Rivers Use the Information? Kathy looked at the reports she had written to review the suggestions she had made. She also reviewed the notes she had taken when she surveyed a group of teachers about the professional development activities and the narrative comments that the teachers provided on the survey. The three areas where she saw potential for using the information for immediate change were as follows: Although Kathy was unwilling to draw conclusions from the data on student test scores, she did note that students in two classes whose reading performance had been particularly low the previous year seemed to improve slightly more than students whose performance had been more average. Teachers indicated that they could benefit even more from the professional development they had participated in if there were a person on-site who could assist them with software use and integrating technology into their lessons. On self-assessment, both students and teachers seemed comfortable using some software programs but not others. For example, people expressed comfort with search engines for the Web, but didn?t seem to know about the CD-ROM resources in the library. From these three findings, Kathy had three suggestions she could make to improve the program. First, she talked to Mr. Jones and Mr. Walker about the possibility of providing one or two additional computers in classes that enrolled large numbers of at-risk students. She also suggested offering teachers in these classes additional professional development. Since these students had shown some improvement and since the school board was particularly interested in trying to improve the performance of students performing at the bottom quartile on state tests, Mr. Jones and Mr. Walker agreed to include these expenses in the budget. When Kathy relayed teachers' desire for technology assistance on-site, Ms. Phillips informed her of several funding opportunities that could support this type of staff. While Kathy was talking to Ms. Phillips, she showed her the results of the self-assessment and asked if there was a possibility of adding a training session on the CD-ROMs or replacing a session on use of the Internet with one on the CD-ROM software. Ms. Phillips was very glad to see the self-assessment information, agreed with Kathy's interpretation of a need for the class, and found a few more areas where training might be useful. She didn't think there would be any problem getting the school librarian to lead a session or two on the CD-ROM software and said that, depending on the topic, it might be easy to add other sessions. In any case, the self-assessment information would come in handy for the planning of next year's professional development offerings. Finally, Kathy put notes in her files of where she still needed to collect information. Specifically, she needed to continue to monitor test scores and to collect further information on attendance and dropout rates. She had told her principal and superintendent that she would track these things and they would probably remind her, but putting it on a list of periodic data to collect would keep her from being caught by surprise when asked for the information.

"Where Do I Go From Here?" Worksheet

What changes do you want?

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What changes do others want?

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Whom can or did you talk to about these suggestions?

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What did you find out could be done?

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What information do you need to follow-up on?

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[How Do I Communicate My Results?]

[Appendix A - Additional Sources]