EDLD 609: Evaluation and Theory Fall 2008 Professor: Mary B.Mc Donald Ph.D. Day telephone: 619 260-2747 Email: marymc@sandiego.edu Nights/weekends (or other times) 231 740-8887 Office: 275 D-Mother Rosalie Hill Hall Office hours: Tuesday 12:30 to 5:30, Thursday 9-12:30 or by appointment The ability of envision, create, conduct and apply an evaluation plan is a highly marketable and essential skill in today’s world of demanding and changing priorities. With resources more scarce than ever the need to invest in efficient AND EFFECTIVE programming may be directly linked to the viability of most all organizations including nonprofits, public agencies and educational institutions. High quality evaluation planning takes significant time and effort, honed investigative skills, vision, creativity, an openness to accept and integrate constructive criticism, a willingness to collaborate, organizational skills, time management and an acute awareness of the environment: both the challenges and the opportunities. These ingredients and the ability to write a University level composition will enable students to successfully complete this course. Course Textbooks Weiss, Carol (1998). Evaluation (2nd Ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentiss Hall. Patton, M.Q. (1997). Utilization-focused evaluation: The new century text (3rd Ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Fetterman, David & Wandersman, Abraham (2007). Empowerment Evaluation: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. American Journal of Evaluation, 28 (1), 179-198. Carmen, Joanne G. (2007). Evaluation Practice Among Community-Based Organizations: Research Into the Reality. American Journal of Evaluation, 28 (1) 60-75. Additional readings may be provided as the semester develops based on the interests and experience of class participants. Course Description This course will provide students with practical, experiential instruction in identifying the need for and the creation of an evaluation plan. To achieve this goal, students will be expected to complete all assigned readings prior to class and to participate in discussions;
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to conceptualize, write and present an actual evaluation proposal and then, an evaluation plan for a program in the nonprofit sector and to successfully respond to a final exam. Both the Weiss and Patton text (s) have been selected for their relevance to the topics under discussion and to their application to the concept of program evaluation in nonprofits, public organizations and educational institutions. Additional readings, if selected for use will be of equal relevance and should be considered equal to the text (s) in importance. In other words, students need to come to class with clear command of the concepts articulated in the readings and to be able to reference these concepts with examples from their own experience as appropriate. The evaluation proposal and plan will be written in teams that will be assigned by the instructor. This is to allow for the interests of individuals in the class to be accommodates while still allowing for the support of a team learning environment. The teams will be made up of between 3 and 4 students. The selection of an organization/program for the proposal and plan will be done by the instructor informed of course by suggestions from members of the teams (i.e. “my organization is in real need of a program evaluation). Proposals will be critiqued by class members and those will be used to grade the work for completeness, clarity and reasonableness based on the concepts presented in class Students success at the critique efforts will also be evaluated as it is very important to not only know what needs to be in a plan but also to be able to recognize when items are not available. Students will have one week to integrate the input of their classmates prior to submitting the proposal for grading. The organizational partners will be invited to the presentations on December 9th. More detailed information will be presented in class as these projects take shape in the topics discussed. Students will be asked to evaluate (with relevant examples) the participation and contribution of each team member and this assessment will be used in the team “score” on the final project. The final exam will be a “take-home” effort and has been designed to measure how strongly students can apply evaluation methods, strengths and weaknesses to examples or case studies. In some cases the students will be asked to give examples of types of methods, strengths or weaknesses and in other cases they will be asked to respond to provided case situations.
Evaluation of student work • • • • •
Course attendance and participation………………….30 points Proposal writing, components and quality……………60 points Proposal critique…………………………………….. 10 points Final evaluation plan…………………………………. 75 points Final examination…………………………………….. 75 points Total
250 points
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Grading 100- 94% of Points = A 78- 85% of Points= C
86-94% of .Points = B 70-77 % of Points = D
Code of Academic Integrity The code of academic integrity is not just rhetoric; forms of academic dishonesty, including but not limited to cheating, plagiarism, fabrication, or facilitating academic dishonesty, will not be tolerated in this class and may result in suspension or expulsion from the university. To summarize, anything you hand in to us must be written in your own words, exemplifying your own thoughts and ideas, and you must source any references you used in completing your work using the APA format. Although you are encouraged to work and learn collaboratively, both within and outside of class, the work you submit to us should reflect your own thoughts and ideas, and it must be expressed in your own words unless you cite whose words you are using. If you are unsure of what this means, please check with me before completing an assignment. Note for students with disabilities Students with disabilities who believe that they may need accommodations in this class are encouraged to contact Disability Services in Serra 300 (tel. 260-4655) as soon as possible to better ensure that such accommodations are implemented in a timely fashion.
Class schedule with readings and lecture topics
Date
Readings
September 9 September 12
Course introduction/syllabus P (1,2,3) W (1,2) Carmen
September 23
September 30
Topics
Purpose/Use of Evaluation Purpose/Use continued Program topic selection and team assignment
P (4,5,14) W (3, 5,14) Fetterman and Wasserman
Stakeholders/role of evaluator
3
October 7
W (4,8)
Design
October 14
P (6,7,8,9,10)
Assessing the program
October 21
W (6,7)
Evaluation Proposal
October 28
P (12) W (9,10,11)
Methods
November 4
W (12)
Data Collection
November 11
Proposal Presentations
November 18
Budgeting/Scheduling/Instruments
November 25
P (13)
Data Analysis
December 2
P (15) W (13)
Report Writing/dissemination
December 9
Evaluation plan presentations
December 16
Finals due by the end of business day
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