The Teaching of Evaluation TIG is a community dedicated to enhancing the practice of teaching evaluation. We hope to foster an environment where educators can share knowledge, develop skills, and explore innovative approaches to teaching evaluation.
Leadership Team
Dr. Kelly McGinn is an assistant professor in the College of Education and Human Development at Temple University, where she teaches program evaluation, research, and statistics to undergraduate and graduate students. Kelly also serves as the director of the Center for Assessment, Evaluation, and Education Policy Analysis.
Dr. Krisanna Machtmes is an associate professor in the Patton College of Education and is the Graduate Director of the Ohio University Individual Interdisciplinary Program. Krisanna teaches program evaluation, research methods, questionnaire design, and introduction and advanced interdisciplinary research process and theory.
Dr. Seema Mahato is an independent evaluation scholar-practitioner.
Mission of the TIG
Our mission is to support and improve the quality of evaluation education by focusing on four main efforts:
- Community Building: Fostering community among evaluation educators to support each other in our pedagogical practice.
- Sharing Teaching Resources: Collecting and sharing resources focused on the teaching of evaluation.
- Knowledge Advancement: Furthering our collective understanding and scholarship regarding the teaching of evaluation.
- Social Justice and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Promoting equity, inclusivity, and cultural responsiveness in both our teaching practices and the content we teach to develop evaluators to have a critical lens and challenge inequitable systems of access, power, and privilege.
Ways to Get Involved
- Learning sessions: We host monthly 1-hour learning sessions over Zoom. We use these sessions as an open space for members to connect, discuss topics important to them, and share resources. The sessions will be held from 12 – 1 PM ET on the third Friday of the month. Please use this link to register.
- Resource sharing: We are working to create a shared resource platform. If you are interested in sharing a resource, please use this form.
- Join the leadership team! If you are interested in getting involved now, please email Kelly at kelly.mcginn@temple.edu. Also, we will be holding elections during our business meeting for 2025-2027 positions.
Upcoming Blog Posts
We are excited to announce a series of blog posts that will be published this week, each focusing on different aspects of teaching evaluation. During our August 16 Learning Session, we will facilitate a discussion about this week’s blog posts. Please join us! Here’s a preview of what’s to come this week:
- Can Role-play Help Students Learn about Evaluation? We Think So! — This post will describe a role-play activity where students embody scholars from Alkin and Christie’s Theory Tree to debate evaluation theories.
- Revolutionizing Teaching Evaluation: The Transformative Role of AI — Learn more about evaluators’ experiences and perspectives on using AI to transform the teaching of evaluation.
- Podcasts as Pedagogy: Enhancing Teaching of Evaluation with Podcast Integration — Explore the benefits and strategies for incorporating evaluation-focused podcasts into evaluation education curricula.
- Case-Based Approach in Teaching of Evaluation: Graduate Students’ Perspective — Gain insights from a graduate student’s perspective on the power of incorporating case studies and real-world projects into evaluation education.
- Adding Context to Evidence: The Benefits of Implementation Evaluation — Explore the role of implementation evaluation in public health to ensure evidence is contextually appropriate, emphasizing the need for understanding complex interventions and their real-world application.
- The Collective Closet: A Qualitative Analysis Activity — Learn how to implement the Collective Closet activity to teach inductive qualitative coding and analysis through everyday life examples.
The American Evaluation Association is hosting Teaching of Evaluation TIG week. All posts this week are contributed by members of the ToE Topical Interest Group. 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. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.