Question

what is a rationale and what is it used for.

What must it include?

What is a needs assessment? Why is it important? How can one conduct a needs assessment

What is a logic model, why do we use these, and how are logic models generally organized

Answer 1

What is a rationale and what is it used for? What must it include?
The rationale for a course of action, practice, or belief is the set of reasons on which it is based. We frequently hear the term rationale defined as a justification for doing something. Certainly that perspective is a vital one as we explore the need for developing rationales for books or other instructional material.

A rationale is the articulation of the reasons for using a particular literary work, film, or teaching method. Minimally, a rationale should include:

• a bibliographic citation and the intended audience
• a brief summary of the work and its educational significance
• the purposes of using the work and how it will be used
• potential problems with the work and how these can be handled
• alternative works an individual student might read or view

Rationale development should be part of thoughtful planning for classroom instruction. If we have not reflected on the whys of what we teach, we will be unprepared to meet the needs and challenges of our students and to respond to potential complaints, either from parents or from others in the community who seek to influence the curriculum. While rationales are important in every aspect of teaching, we will focus here on the need for welldeveloped rationales for books used in the classroom—whether in whole-class instruction, small-group work, or classroom libraries. Teachers who make curricular decisions based upon mere expediency leave themselves vulnerable. Problems can be averted by carefully analyzing the audience (the students), the school, and the community and taking into full account the most effective means for meeting students' interests and educational needs.

What is a needs assessment? Why is it important? How can one conduct a needs assessment?
A brief written statement of purpose for using a particular book—the why for using it and where it will fit in the curriculum. This is prepared by individual teachers based on the students, school, and community noted above and on curricular and instructional objectives and needs. It involves a more detailed accounting through use of forms. It provides for the development of fully constituted rationales by individuals, departmental or district-wide committees. It is the collection of existing rationales that have been developed by professional organizations. A needs assessment is a process used by organizations to determine priorities, make organizational improvements, or allocate resources. It involves determining the needs, or gaps, between where the organization envisions itself in the future and the organization's current state. It is important to take the time to investigate the reason for the training request. In both cases, the goal of the training needs assessment is to identify performance issues that can be remedied through the introduction, practice, or reinforcement of specific and measurable knowledge and/or skill sets. Conducting a needs assessment is a systematic process of investigating a population or community to assess the state of current resources such as knowledge, abilities, interests, and approaches pertinent to the focus of the needs assessment such as a concern, aspiration, or intention.

What is a logic model, why do we use these, and how are logic models generally organized?
Logic models are hypothesized descriptions of the chain of causes and effects leading to an outcome of interest (e.g. prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, annual traffic collision, etc). While they can be in a narrative form, logic model usually take form in a graphical depiction of the "if-then" (causal) relationships between the various elements leading to the outcome. However, the logic model is more than the graphical depiction: it is also the theories, scientific evidences, assumptions and beliefs that support it and the various processes behind it. Logic models are used by planners, funders, managers and evaluators of programs and interventions to plan, communicate, implement and evaluate them. They are being employed as well by health scientific community to organize and conduct literature reviews such as systematic reviews. Domains of application are various, e.g. waste management, poultry inspection, business education, heart disease and stroke prevention. Since they are used in various contexts and for different purposes, their typical components and levels of complexity varies in literature. In addition, depending of the purpose of the logic model, elements depicted and the relationships between them is more or less detailed.