May 21, 2013 Thoughts on this project and how to tailor it based on what I've been learning so far. As I’ve been thinking about this project since participating in class last night, I’ve had several thoughts. I want to get a copy of and review the audio recording that Melissa made from class (my recorder didn’t work) because I agree with her that a lot was said about what I could do with my final chapter in terms of exploring themes I see across the cases and anticipating what readers might do with these stories and themes in moving the field of evaluation forward, particularly in their own practices.
The students also encouraged me to give more thought to sharing my own journey in bringing these pioneers’ stories to light. I want to do some of that but feel hesitant about doing so for a couple of reasons-
1. I am pretty much in awe of these people and don’t want to be taking anything away from their stories by taking up space with mine, and
2. I feel that my story is full of Gospel themes, from my values of what is right and wrong, to what is true and worth attending to, to my views about humans being agents who made millions of evaluations throughout eons of time before coming to this earth and then chose to come here for different kinds of experiences through which we could learn even more about how to evaluate. I don’t think I can share much of this fullness of my story in an academic setting like NDE. Probably not in the next book I’m planning in which I include the stories of many other evaluators or in the other books I’m planning regarding the stories of professionals and experts in many different disciplines, fields, and walks of life. So, I need to very thoughtfully explore what to share and how.
Meanwhile, today I began thinking that perhaps a way to simplify what I’m trying to do with all these projects (though it doesn’t really simplify it in the long run) is to think about my objective a little differently. As I look at the questions I’m going to ask Jennifer Greene on Thursday and as I think about the questions I’ve asked others already, I realize that they are all getting at the simple question, “How did you learn to evaluate?” or how are you learning to evaluate?
It gets more complex as I ask what evaluation is, how it relates to learning, how they learned to do it informally from watching and living with others, how they converted or transitioned all that learning into their formal approaches to evaluation (in the cases of formal evaluators that the NDE and next book are about) and so on. But they are really getting at that basic question of how people learn to evaluate or to distinguish quality or how well reality meets their ideals, etc. So, should I ask that explicitly? I have it there now in the questions for Jennifer (I’m going to copy them below to remind me) but I don’t think I asked Stake, Scriven, and others that questions quite so clearly. Should I go back and do so?
Likewise, Saville suggested in his last email that I should emphasize with interviewees their view of evaluation as a values-based activity rather than as a technology. I think I’m already doing that and the stories I’ve received seem to point this out repeatedly. But do I need to modify my questions at all to address this more directly?
Finally, in addition to understanding better how people learn to do evaluation, I’m interested in how they use evaluation to better learn anything and everything. This raises the question of what learning is, how people use their evaluations to enhance their learning, and so on. These are issues that Lisa, Elise, and Steve Yanchar and I are exploring with the History of Learning class we’re preparing to teach in Fall and Winter this year. We’re going to explore several works by people throughout recorded history and invite the students to think and talk about how learning was defined and actualized in different eras and how they want to actualize it in their own lives and families as well as in a hypothetical culture they might create. We’ll discuss each week how their views of learning are changing and I want to include how their views of evaluation are changing as they consider what they know about how others have used these terms and human activities. Bloom’s Taxonomy places evaluation as one of several kinds of knowing. I’d like to see how much sense that makes for the students as they think about history and cultures around the world. Somehow all that also needs to be addressed by my research interviews. Doesn’t it?
Here are my questions for Jennifer again-
As a reminder, here are the initial questions I've been exploring with people:
What is evaluation and how is it related for you to choosing, judging, decision making, and/or other words you associate with evaluation?
What are some examples you remember of the earliest evaluation-related experiences you had as a young person? How do you think you learned to evaluate informally and/or formally?
How have you helped others in your informal life (family members, friends, others) as they've learned to evaluate?
From your general or informal evaluation life and/or from your professional discipline experience before you became involved with evaluation as a profession, what did you bring to and build into your practice and theorizing about evaluation?
What of that experience have you given up, eliminated, or minimized in your professional evaluation practice and theorizing?
Why did you minimize, eliminate, or give that up in your professional evaluation practice and theorizing?
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