In the unit I had created I had also developed an assessment tool for each lesson. Due to the context of what would be taught the assessments were created to be either pass or fail. The qualitative approach would fit exactly with my needs.

Worthen lists six areas of classification for evaluation approaches. The closest to my needs for this evaluation I felt would be the expertise-oriented approach. This approach depends primarily on the direct application of professional expertise to judge the quality of whatever endeavor is evaluated. I don’t consider myself to be an "expert" in any area, but the evaluation of this particular unit would be very subjective. The decision of a pass or fail mark would depend primarily on my decision as an educator to whether or not the concepts of the aggression replacement material were comprehended.

At this point in the course I felt ready to begin the evaluation of my unit. I knew I would make many mistakes, but I was beginning the evaluation on a positive note. My personal goal was to be able to decide ways to improve the unit.

I teach at Douglas School. Douglas offers an alternative educational program. Part of the school consists of self-contained behavior disorder classrooms. The other part of Douglas offers alternative education. I teach science, literature, and aggression replacement training to approximately thirty junior high students in the alternative program.

Each student coming to Douglas goes through an intake procedure. Through the intake procedure, cumulative folder, and home school records I often know the goals to be obtained for the student’s aggression replacement training. I have no initial knowledge of the student’s ability with computers.

After reading the Worthen text I decided that I needed to administer a pre-survey to assess my students’ attitudes and abilities in the area of technology. I also decided that it would be beneficial to me to conduct individual and group interviews in regards to technology.

I started my evaluation with a pre-survey. I tried to keep my questions simple and open-ended. I asked the students questions such as; what are the positive things about computers and what are the negative things about computers in the educational setting. I asked the students to list everything they could think of that they had ever done on a computer.

The pre-survey was probably one of the most valuable tools in my evaluation process. In regards to evaluation it would provide me with a more tangible way to assess learned skills. As an educator it prepared me to approach the unit at a pace that would be most appropriate for my students.

Less than twenty percent of my students have access to a computer in the home. In response to listing computer skills I learned that the majority of my students had experience mainly with skill and drill applications. All of my students were able to list positive aspects to computer use. Most of the students saw the computer as being "fun". The negative aspects of computer use ranged from explicit chat rooms to restricted access to the internet in the school setting.

Lessons one and two of my unit centered around the skill of introducing yourself and the computer skill of word processing. I had created assessment tools to determine if these skills were satisfactorily acquired. Through observation I realized the importance of adding a role playing component to the introduction skill.

Lessons three and four of the unit centered on communication skills. Students needed to have the ability to open Netscape and enter the e-mail accounts we had created. Lesson three focused more on the skill of using e-mail as a communication tool. Lesson four had students making positive communication with friends and fellow students. The assessment I created for these lessons allowed me to determine that students had mastered the skills to be learned. The observation of the lessons went beyond the actual assignments.

Through observation it was apparent that students enjoyed writing when it was student directed. The majority of my students usually object to any writing assignment. Students would ask for extra time to be able to write to someone. Instead of writing being viewed as an assignment, it was as if it was a reward. Some students would even request additional help to learn how to use spellcheck with the e-mail program. The lessons were so popular that we have kept the e-mail accounts open.

Lesson five of the unit dealt with empathy. Students worked in small groups to offer positive, empathetic advise. The groups were given three fictional letters to respond to. The groups then worked together to compose their advice column. The assessment I created for this lesson allowed me to assess that the assignment was completed in an appropriate manner. It did not allow me enough information about individual input. I was only able to determine individual participation through observation of the groups.

Lessons six and seven both concentrated on teaching the skill of anger management for the aggression replacement component. The computer skills component of the lesson was to use a slide show program and to learn to use and copy graphics. We did not get the slide show program installed on the building computers, so changes in the lesson had to be made.

I did not see this as a failure of the lesson, but as an adjustment in plans. Most educators realize that these occurances happen much more frequently then we would like, but we must remain flexible. Instead of the slide show students created banners to teach the skill of P.E.A.C.E.

The unit ended with the seven lessons, but I continued with additional lessons. I wanted to teach the skill of using the quick cam and created a lesson where students would create simple resumes. This was a failure. The lesson failed due to poor planning on my part. The students were uncooperative and had the "I don't have a clue what you are talking about look" written all over their faces. I changed the lesson to using the quick cam and a writing assingment that focused on the skills each individual would need to acquire to return to his or her home school. Every student participated in the revised lesson. Students who were absent on the day we did the lesson even sought me out to ask for the opportunity to complete the lesson.

The unit has had a positive impact in other subject areas. Each year in literature we do a section on poetry and I include an assignment of writing poems. Students requested computer time to use ClarisWorks to type their poems. Instead of being "told" what to do students would ask how to change font styles and sizes, and how to use spellcheck, or add graphics.

In another aggression replacement training skill that focuses on making thank yous some students requested to create thank yous on the computer. Some of the students decided to create without the computer, but it was rewarding to see that some of the students asked to use technology. I even observed students asking other teachers in my team to help them with using computers to complete assignments.

I have no fancy charts or graphs to offer on my evaluation. As I was working through the unit I often doubted myself. I had kept the computer skills basic enough that they could be mastered by all of my students. I felt confident that each student comprehended the aggression replacement components for the lessons. If the students would "use" the aggression replacement skills taught would be another evaluation in itself. But, I did feel satisfied through the assessment sheets, through interviews, and through observation that my students had learned from the unit presented.

I referred back to the Worthen text for evaluation models. On page 101 Worthen discusses Alkin's evaluation model. Alkin (1991) makes four assumptions about evaluation in his model:

1. Evaluation is a process of gathering information.
2. The information collected in an evaluation will be used mainly to make decisions about alternative courses of action.
3. Evaluation information should be presented to the decision maker in a form that he can use effectively and which is designed to help rather than confuse or mislead him.
4. Different kinds of decisions require different kinds of evaluation procedures. (p.94)