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Lessons Learned from a Youth-Led Evaluation of Career Advancement Services
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| Presenter(s):
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| Cheri Hoffman,
Vanderbilt University,
cheri.hoffman@vanderbilt.edu
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| Abstract:
The Nashville Career Advancement Center (NCAC) serves individuals with career coaching and talent development in order to provide a skilled workforce for businesses. There are six different youth-focused programs funded by the Workforce Investment Act at the NCAC. A group of ten young people who are current program participants have been hired to perform an evaluation of the NCAC youth programs with the goals of providing feedback about program structure and effectiveness, giving direction to the strategic planning by the Youth Council, and highlighting opportunities for staff development activities that will improve the services offered. This presentation will not only describe the results of the evaluation, but the youth involved will also share the lessons learned throughout a youth development framed process of planning the evaluation, implementing the necessary steps, analyzing the data and feeding back the results.
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Student Driven Course Evaluations: A Participatory Approach
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| Presenter(s):
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| Nancy Rogers,
University of Cincinnati,
nancy.rogers@uc.edu
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| Janet Matulis,
University of Cincinnati,
janet.matulis@uc.edu
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| Abstract:
Institutions of higher education rely heavily on course evaluations to judge the quality of their faculty and their courses for student satisfaction and learning. Unfortunately, college instructors are dubious of the value of these evaluations and rather than use student feedback to improve their courses, evaluations are used primarily as evidence for future promotions. Further, students are skeptical that course evaluations are valued by instructors for improving course content or teaching quality. Consequently, poor student response rates reflect student perceptions that completing course evaluations is a meaningless exercise. A participatory evaluation approach to course evaluation provides an opportunity to empower students to be active creators of their academic experiences resulting in meaningful course evaluations for both students and teachers. Presenters will demonstrate how participatory evaluation can improve the course evaluation process resulting in continuous course improvement and increased student participation.
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Using Empowerment Evaluation Theory and Methodology to Develop and Implement an Evaluation Plan for a State and Privately Funded College Scholarship Program in Indiana
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| Presenter(s):
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| Linnea Rademaker,
National-Louis University,
linnea.rademaker@nl.edu
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| Irene Brock,
FuturEd,
ibrock@bluemarble.net
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| Larry W Grau,
FuturEd,
larrywgrau@aol.com
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| Abstract:
Our consulting group, FuturEd, was hired by a private funding agency (L.U.A.) to evaluate services that L.U.A. funded to supplement state scholarships in Indiana. This supplemental funding was given nine higher education institutions with the sole intent of increasing the retention rates of the students in the scholarship program. Our charge, using Empowerment Evaluation (Fetterman & Wandersman, 2005) was to provide details of the implementation of the services L.U.A. funded, as contextually based, and contextually-defined. The use of Empowerment Evaluation methodology allowed us to 1) involve the participants (directors of the L.U.A. funded programs, and college scholarship recipients) in the design and outcomes of the evaluation; 2) formatively assess the programs, providing feedback to participants from which changes were designed and implemented; and, 3) replicate successful programs to similar contexts across state. Implications for policy are discussed.
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