Evaluation Report

I had thought that they initial development of Learning the Railroad Track Method would be cathartic, it was not, but completing the evaluation report certainly was relief. This project produced data helped to answer the key questions proposed in the Evaluation Plan and provided prompts for revisions to improve the learning object. Like the Evaluation Plan, the process of analyzing the data and producing action points was greatly assisted by the guidance of the Dick and Carey model. In the past I had revised learning materials (often following the ADDIE model) where it felt as if I were making fixes but not addressing the root cause of the problem. This could lead to a project getting caught in a cycle of revisions, that while beneficial in that flaws or bugs were being corrected, was inefficient. The results from the report helped to clearly identify the areas of opportunity and produced impactful changes that related back the instructional design theories used to create the learning object. This helped to address the root cause of the problems and do so efficiently. A big take away I have from working on this report was how to connect the theory that informed the creation of the learning object all the way through the revisions phase. This helps to produce a work that is more accurate to its original goals, and I intend on taking this lesson into each new piece of educational content I design moving forward in my career.