Evaluating Educational Professional Development in an International Context Michael Dean, Research, Anthony Tait, Professional Development, Gee Kim, Research, International Baccalaureate, New York, USA Overview: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of educational professional development in an international context. Stream: Teacher Training and Development

This paper was focused on the international baccalaureate programme which has three streams and delivers professional development for about 60,000 lecturers across the world. There has been an increased move to standardise the professional development given and a global module has been developed but with three strands so one for new lecturers, one for those who have experience and one for those who wish to undertake research and develop further expertise.

Guidelines had been developed for all workshops some of which were face to face and some on line but as long as the objectives and key areas were covered there was freedom to deliver in any way.

The speakers were looking at an evaluation of the programme to date and were influenced by writers such as Guskey TR (2003), Ingvason et al (2005) and Desomone (2006 & 2009).

There was a QA framework because consistency was needed over the 140 countries this was delivered within and in three language which were English, French and Spanish. There was also quality control over tools used.

The evaluation approach used included participant feedback after an event which gained a 68% response, a survey 3 – 6 months later which gained 30% response, session observers’ feedback who looked at the delivery and then field reps who looked at content.

The evaluation showed that those who attended wanted more input on assessment (38%), curriculum (16%) and teaching practices (12%). This was true of the initial and follow up survey. The observers and field reps reported on good sessions but the materials and resources being used needed more development.