| Session Title: Youth Participatory Evaluation: Entering the Age of the Internet |
| Think Tank Session 544 to be held in Lone Star C on Friday, Nov 12, 10:55 AM to 11:40 AM |
| Sponsored by the Collaborative, Participatory & Empowerment Evaluation TIG |
| Presenter(s): |
| Robert Shumer, University of Minnesota, rshumer@umn.edu |
| Discussant(s): |
| Robert Shumer, University of Minnesota, rshumer@umn.edu |
| Kim Sabo Flores, Evaluation Access and ActKnowledge, kimsabo@aol.com |
| Abstract: Youth participatory evaluation has been evolving over the past two decades. While still young, engagement of youth has undertaken some new twists, especially involving the use of electronic media to facilitate its expansion and improve methodology. In this Think Tank we explore two new efforts to use electronic systems to increase the capacity of programs to engage youth in the evaluation process. One system involves the use of an on-line education/training program to help adult mentors/educators work with youth to develop participatory evaluation projects. The second involves the development of e-Portfolios to capture and evaluate learning and social change enacted through service-learning and civic engagement programs. The audience will have the opportunity to react to both systems and then make recommendations for change/improvement so youth participatory evaluation, in the electronic age, can be even more effective. Program Youth participatory evaluation is a field in the making (Sabo, 2003). Ever since the Wingspread conference on youth participatory evaluation (Checkoway, 2003) more and more people are engaging youth in the evaluation process. From Youth in Focus in San Francisco, to engagement of youth in critical praxis through youth/community studies in California (Duncan-Andrade and Morrell, 2008), youth are becoming more involved in evaluating the programs and worlds they inhabit. Preparing them to do a solid job is a challenge, especially since there are such limited resources. In order to address this challenge, Kim Sabo Flores has begun a series of on-line seminars to prepare adults to work with youth in various stages of participatory evaluation. She is piloting a series of lessons that are designed to help adults become true facilitators of evaluation/learning and to implement a reasonable project that demonstrates an understanding of the use of praxis in youth engagement and review. In this Think Tank the audience will have the opportunity to review the sample lessons/program materials and critique the approach and the substance of the program. The goal is to ensure more public input in the development of the lessons, especially from a critical group of evaluators who know and understand youth participatory evaluation. A second approach will be presented for critique and comment by Rob Shumer, evaluator from the University of Minnesota. Shumer is experimenting with the development of e-Portfolios as a mechanism to document and record student experiences with service-learning from middle school through undergraduate education. Each student will have the use of a personal portfolio, developed by the University of Minnesota, with which to record and organize their information about service-learning being a transformative experience. In this part of the Think Tank the audience will have an opportunity to both critique the model for evaluation and comment on the utility of such an instrument and process to record the learning and impact of the programs on the individual and the community. It will also provide a source for discussion of the use of e-Portfolios as a large data source for complex learning initiatives, such as service-learning and civic engagement. Each of these projects should help to promote the kind of discussion that will expand and improve the delivery of youth participatory evaluation for all settings. By obtaining public input on the training materials and the e-Portfolio system, the field of youth participatory evaluation will be greatly improved, making it a more suitable option for many applications of youth engaged in the evaluation process. |