| Roundtable: Re-framing a Deficit-based Evaluation Context Into an Asset-based Evaluation Approach |
| Roundtable Presentation 644 to be held in the Sandstone Boardroom on Friday, Nov 7, 3:25 PM to 4:10 PM |
| Sponsored by the Collaborative, Participatory & Empowerment Evaluation TIG |
| Presenter(s): |
| Emma Norland, e-Norland Group, enorland2@comcast.net |
| Karie Phillips, Denver Zoo, kphillips@denverzoo.org |
| Joe E Heimlich, Institute for Learning Innovation, heimlich@ilinet.org |
| Chasta Beals, Denver Zoo, cbeals@denverzoo.org |
| Abstract: This session offers strategies for re-framing a deficit-based evaluation context into an asset-based approach to evaluation. These strategies were extremely useful during a complex, labor-intensive, time-sensitive evaluation. The focus of the evaluation was W.I.N.-W.I.N., a very large, very successful 12-year-old conservation education program created by Denver Zoo and the Colorado Division of Wildlife and offered to Pre-K-5th grade students in urban, low-income schools in the Denver Metro area. Funding challenges and changing priorities spurred program managers to contract with professional evaluators to conduct a study to determine program viability but stipulated that program staff were to be used as the major resources for conducting the study. The differential assets or deficit-frame represented in the initial relationship (experts using non-experts as resources - IE ‘haves’ using ‘have not’s’) gradually blurred as all involved recognized the critical contributions that specialized expertise makes, creating an asset-based paradigm for the evaluation. |