How to Run Rapid-cycle Evaluations Throughout the School Year

How to Run Rapid-cycle Evaluations Throughout the School Year
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Rapid-cycle evaluation (RCE) equips curriculum and instruction, technology, finance and other education leaders to make evidence-based decisions. These evaluations help education organizations improve instructional, operational and financial outcomes, incorporating evidence into edtech decisions.

Taking evidence and turning it into action to see if tools are really working is critical, and can be done throughout the school year. Let’s say you’re in the middle of the school year, around the end of the first semester. You can run a few different types of rapid-cycle evaluations at this time of year:

  • Usage or Fidelity Analysis: discover if students are using approved edtech tools, if they are using them as intended and how different student groups may compare.

    • What supports or needs will improve implementation for the rest of the school year?

    • Are there any patterns emerging at this point in the year?

  • Outcomes Analysis: monitor engagement and effectiveness trends, and evaluate impact of program changes over time for various student groups.

    • Which interventions appear to have positive impacts on mid-year student scores, and for which students?

    • What practices and approaches do we want to use for the second half of the year?

  • Cost Analysis: uncover edtech ROI and identify cost-related trends up to this point in the year that can inform upcoming budget conversations.

    • How much was spent on underused licenses for a specific, approved tool in the first half of the year?

    • Can we improve team conversations around edtech cost-effectiveness for the second half of the year?

In an effort to better support education organizations looking to get started, we created a recommended RCE schedule, along with example questions and a dive into analyses, to get you started! You can also read more about RCE here.

If you’d like to learn more about running rapid-cycle evaluations for your education organization, please contact our team – we’d love to hear from you!

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EdTech Management

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