Select questions discussed by SGSO Virtual Leadership Institute participants with Mele Wheaton
Can you share examples of student voices engaged in evaluations?
My recommendation is to conduct a small student focus group and ask them to talk about their interests/their learning in a program. From there, I would see what themes are occurring and write those into instruments. I would also pilot any student-focused evaluation questions with a small student group to get feedback on how they are understanding the question. In my experience, hearing from participants/users in crafting program direction or evaluation provides a wealth of information that one wouldn’t normally hear.
Can you share child-centered evaluation tools & best practices for evaluating children?
Types of assessment /evaluation tools for children could include concept maps, journaling, observation, questionnaires, and focus groups. The method you choose will be dependent on what you want to learn from your evaluation.
Given that community relationships are key for trust, communication, and equitable evaluations- should we be striving to pass on that institutional knowledge to new staff? And if so, how?
Yes, I think any part of hiring/onboarding should include that institutional knowledge. I would go about by having new staff accompany seasoned staff to meetings with community partners so new staff can be introduced and begin to develop relationships. I also think it would be helpful to have a seasoned staff member talk with community partners with whom they have close relationships, and ask about what works/doesn’t work for them in maintaining relationships, and make sure that information is passed along. Of course, some part of the relationship will be personnel-based but if an organization has standards for how they conduct positive community partnerships, then I think the passing along of relationships will be more successful.
Are there examples of culturally-specific evaluation tools?
My suggestion is to ask the community partner/organization what they think might be appropriate in design and questions if working with cultural groups different from own’s one. For example, in Western-European educational and parenting cultural practices, there is an overwhelming practice to focus on the individual for learning, teaching, and evaluating. That is not necessarily the case in other cultural groups. So, in that case, developing tools that engage a group of students may be more appropriate.