St. Louis WizKids - Evaluation Team

Site Evaluation

The Children's Partnership has good resources for site evaluation.  Their guidelines are in an easy-to-use survey format and are in PDF format at: http://www.contentbank.org/addition_tools.asp

Their main site for site eval tools is:  http://www.contentbank.org/addition_tools.asp

The 'Multicultural Model for Site Evaluation' is a good start and I think it would be even more useful if it contained more specifics.   One particularly useful criteria is:  "Is the site free of material that may be oppressive to one or more groups of students?"  This is an important point of site evaluation for all audiences and especially in a classroom environment where the teacher/leader has inherent power over the students/participants.   http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/net/comps/model.html

Seeling New Evaluator

We are seeking a new evaluator for St. Louis WizKids. Please refer all interested and qualified folks. Download the detailed announcement (PDF).

Results of Evaluation Planning Session

We had a very productive evaluation planning session on January 8. I want to thank all who participated! Thanks to your input, we are developing a higher quality evaluation plan. The results of the planning session was consistent – involve schools, work as a team, develop a learning environment which builds trust, involve students in program design, and ensure that we examine “hard data”.

I have mailed a hard copy of the summary report to all participants and I have posted the full report online (in PDF format). Please add your comments here if you have addiitonal thoughts.

One of the most exciting outcomes of our planning session was that the group expressed an interest in continuing to get together and work as a true team to make St. Louis Wizkids an effective program!

Draft Focus Group Questions

Here is a draft set of focus group questions for January 8, let me know what you think or if you have any suggestions for change. The questions target attitudes about computers, learning environments and issues related to how we can encourage the development of healthy, smart and vital kids.

8 Questions

1. Do you think computers have made your life easier or more complicated? How? Briefly, share your stories!

2. Why do our kids need access to computers? To the Internet? Are there benefits? Drawbacks?

3. What are the attributes/characteristics of a smart, healthy, happy and vital child or teenager? What do you believe are good indicators of a vital teenager, child, etc.?

4. What can people or organizations outside of the immediate family do to achieve some of these outcomes?

5. What organizations do you think are available to provide these services to our kids? Are they doing a good job?

6. How would you describe a “good” learning environment? One where kids love to participate in programs? If you could visualize such an environment, what are its qualities? Describe this “remarkable” learning environment.

7. What role does trust play in creating a “good” learning environment. How do we as a community organization build trust? How should we measure trust? How do we know when we have done a good job in building trust?

8. Is there anything else you would like to share with us?

Email me if you have questions or changes!

Focus Group - January 8

Our community focus group is scheduled for January 8 at The Youth and Family Center. We will have students at 4pm and adults at 6pm. The adults will start with a catered dinner and Herman will give a project overview.

For the students, we need 20 participants of varying ages.

For the adults, we need 15-20 adult stakeholders who fall into the following categories:
Parents
Staff - Brenda
Computer Village - Don Holt
Seeds of Change - Tom Thomas
School Admin and teachers - Mickey, someone from SLPS Literacy Team
TYFC Board of Dirs - Scott, Board Chair
Advisory Council
Elected Officials - Alderperson April Ford, ?State Rep, ?State Senator
City of STL person

Evaluation Planning Session

Our evaluator, Julie Fesenmaier, of the University of Illinois, will be in St. Louis for an initial evaluation planning session on Monday, November 17. She will meet with the project staff (Viola, Brenda, Sue) from 11 to 2. Some of the topics we will cover include:

- What the evaluation process will look like
- Purpose of focus groups
- Identify stakeholders
- Check outcomes and means of measurement
- Develop timelines for focus group process and survey instrument development