Teaching Fourth Generation Evaluation Through Monologue Interpretation

ABSTRACT: In this article, we illustrate the use of an alternative teaching method devised to help translate theoretical materials into a usable form for classroom application. Through monologue interpretation, the tenets of Guba and Lincoln’s (1989) Responsive Constructivist fourth generation evaluation model were presented to a graduate level class consisting of public school classroom teachers. The materials that had previously been perceived as abstract and of little practical use became more accessible after the learning experience. The importance of this is compounded by the potential of fourth generation evaluation to provide an alternative approach to curriculum evaluation. T WOULD NOT BE UNREASONABLE to suggest that thepre-service preparation of special education teachers traditionally is devoted to the devel-opment of greatly needed technical and applied teaching skills. Little time is available for the systematic develoment of theoretical understandings and critical readings of works in other fields, such as sociology, anthropol-ogy, and theoretical psychology. This situation lends itself to the problem of student and novice teachers being caught between experi-enced teachers proclaiming that &dquo;... theory is only relevant in textbooks and it will never work here...&dquo; and their university professors’ &dquo;... calls for ’increased better practices ’ in the classrooms&dquo; (Rosenberg, O’Shea, & O’Shea, 1991, p. x). The dilemma of novice teachers suggests a need to focus on bridging the gap between theory and application for the special educa-tion classroom teacher. In the following article, we present one such attempt at bridging that gap through the application of monologue interpretation. Although this par-ticular situation was concerned with curricu-lum evaluation, this technique should apply to translating other abstract theoretical works that may impact life in the classroom. Educational Evaluation According to Guba and Lincoln (1989), evaluation has passed through four genera-tions. In the quest to determine the value of a given entity (program, curriculum, etc.), vari-ous evaluators have focused on individua