Hello Evaluation Learners! I’m Sheila B. Robinson, aea365’s Lead Curator and sometimes Saturday contributor. Today, I’m writing about a fabulous opportunity for summer. Don’t worry – there’s no need to skip the vacation, the beaches, or time with the kids.
AEA’s Summer Evaluation Institute is a great opportunity to continue learning about evaluation, hone your skills, and network with other evaluators. I attended and taught a course there last year and I learned a ton and had a blast.
Registration is now open for the 2014 AEA Summer Evaluation Institute, to be held June 1-4 in Atlanta, Georgia. Here’s a quick preview of just a few of the high quality courses offered. Note: Descriptions are truncated, so please visit the site for complete descriptions:
Rad Resources:
Every Picture Tells a Story: Flow Charts, Logic Models, LogFrames, Etc. What They Are and When to Use Them with Thomas Chapel: A host of visual aids are in use in planning and evaluation. This session will introduce you to some of the most popular ones—with an emphasis on flow charts, logic models, project network diagrams, and log frames…
Translating Evaluation Findings to Actionable Recommendations with Lori Wingate: In this workshop, participants will learn how to convert evaluation results into sound recommendations that align with the purpose of an evaluation and its intended use. The workshop presents and demonstrates 14 strategies for developing, presenting, and following up on evaluation recommendations—taking into account the myriad reasons that evaluation recommendations are often not accepted or acted upon…
Conflict Resolution Skills for Evaluators with Jeanne Zimmer: Unacknowledged and unresolved conflict can challenge even the most skilled evaluators. Conflict between evaluators and clients and among stakeholders creates barriers to successful completion of the evaluation project. This workshop will delve into ways to improve listening, problem solving, communication and facilitation skills and introduce a streamlined process of conflict resolution that may be used with clients and stakeholders…
Popping the Question: Developing Quality Survey Items with Susan Kistler: Developing reliable and valid surveys that gather useable, informative, data requires crafting high quality questions. High quality questions result in increased reliability and decreased ambiguity in survey responses. You will leave this session with a range of example survey questions, a guide to assist with the selection of question types, and a set of resources for further investigation of surveys and question wording…
Write to the Point: Effective Writing for Evaluators with Joy Quill: The Write to the Point workshop is an abbreviated version of a 2-day effective writing course that the presenter has taught to evaluators in several federal agencies. It covers important writing principles that evaluators can follow to improve the effectiveness of their reports and proposals…
I wish I could share the rest of the 25 great courses here!
Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org . aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.
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Sheila’s going to be there too! Here’s her workshop info:
Workshop 20: It’s not the Plan, It’s the Planning: Strategies for Evaluation Plans and Planning
Level: Beginner, Advanced Beginner
“If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up somewhere else” (Yogi Berra). Few evaluation texts explicitly address the act of evaluation planning as independent from evaluation design or evaluation reporting. This interactive session will introduce you to an array of evaluation activities that comprise evaluation planning and preparing a comprehensive evaluation plan. You will leave with an understanding of how to identify stakeholders and primary intended users of evaluation, the extent to which they need to understand and be able to describe the evaluand (the program), strategies for conducting literature reviews, strategies for developing broad evaluation questions, considerations for evaluation designs, and using the Program Evaluation Standards and AEA’s Guiding Principles for Evaluators in evaluation planning.
You will be introduced to a broad range of evaluation planning resources including templates, books, articles, and websites.