Logic Models & Family Vacations

Before learning about logic models in my Program Planning & Evaluation in Adult Education class, I would have never thought to make a connection between them and family vacations.  What do they have to do with each other?  Well this was the exercise in class that helped me really understand how to build a logic model in a practical way.  The team I was in was given the task of planning a family vacation using a logic model of inputs, outputs and outcomes.  After a team brainstorm for 10 minutes, here's what we came up with:

During the exercise, I was unclear between Outputs and Outcomes and through class discussion and more elaboration through my peers' thoughts, I realized that Outputs were tangible and Outcomes were intangible and so, when defining our Logic Model for my program plan assignment, it became a less daunting task and actually helped to clarify the plan my partner and I are building.

I look forward to putting logic models to further use in my work and home planning!

Welcome to the "Gallery"

Let's take a walk through "the gallery" shall we?
By this I mean, an idea and feedback gallery.  But similar to an art gallery, this exercise has participants browsing  ideas or questions or categories posted on walls (typically on flip chart size paper).  In class we used the gallery for acquiring feedback on learning outcomes for programs we were creating a plan for.  I had never encountered this exercise before, but found the feedback gathered through the process very valuable.  People visited each paper posting with marker and post-it note in hand, jotting down questions, suggestions and constructive criticism.  At the end, the owners of each program were able to gather the paper with feedback and work on improving the content posted.

This type of exercise included visual and tactile learning styles and kinaesthentic, linguistic, intrapersonal, and visual multiple intelligences, which seemed to appeal to the majority of the 26 participants of the class.

I'd like to try this gallery exercise out in the workplace setting for a program or project to see if it has the same affect and outcome.

Chacun son gout: what's observable and what's not?

In an exercise we did in my Program Program Planning & Evaluation for Adult Education (whoa that's a mouthful when you type it out!) class, I had the opportunity to reflect on verbs that I've taken for granted when it comes to defining learning outcomes in past courses, where i've written them or have been subject to them by others. I realized that some verbs are not as clear and "observable" as I had once thought or overlooked.

Let's consider the following:

• Understand
• Demonstrate
• Express
• Describe
• Advocate 

How can these be measured? How can these be specifically observed to determine if they have been acheived by the participant?  For some, verbs like "to demonstrate" mean to physically show something is understood, but perhaps "to understand" cannot be physically demonstrated.  Some verbs lead to describing or prescribing future actions and do not appropriately or necessarily address the short-term outcomes desired by a program.
I'm certainly more aware of this now as I begin to craft learning outcomes and program objectives.

Learning Style Discovery

Discovering my learning style, as an adult learner is something new for me and something that I hadn't considered in the past as I ventured through my undergrad degree, my post-graduate studies, my professional designation and now my Masters degree.  To discover my learning style, I took two assessments to see if the results yeilded similar results and fortunately for the test-makers, they did.  I found that I'm more of a "visual" learner versus an auditory or tactile learner.

According to the Ldpride assessment, most people in my profession are visual learners like myself and according  to the Barbe Modality checklist, which also pegged me as a visual learner, I tend to learn better from organized information that is visually presented.

One of my favourite ways of organizing and presenting information to share is by using MS PowerPoint.  Whether arranging pictures, charts, graphs, or text on a slide, I find it a great way to help others learn through various means.  Sometimes that even includes adding a video clip or sound bite to accompany the slides.

In my current class at OISE: Program Planning and Evaluation in Adult Education, we did an exercise to learn about the steps involved in program planning and evaluation, which involved gathering as a group and arranging cards with an individual step in order on the floor.  Essentially creating a flow chart of tasks involved.
Reflecting back on this, being able to visualize the steps in order on the floor was a great help in understanding the new process.  This I should have know about myself, since as project manager, in the planning phase, where tasks are identified and sequenced, using sticky notes on a wall is very helpful to me.

Source:  http://omerad.msu.edu

or

Source:  http://www.nefe.org 

My Intro to Program Planning & Evaluation in Adult Education @ OISE

Where would the summer be headed without a glimpse into the happenings at OISE at the University of Toronto.  This time around, it's a bit of a new experience given the birth of our dear little Shugga Plum.  Now two months old, it's time I venture back out into the real world beyond spit-up, diaper changes and baby coos.


What did the real world hold in the first class of Program Planning and Evaluation in Adult Education?  An introduction, of course, to the others in class, the course materials, and what's ahead.  Given that my occupation as project manager has been to focus on building and managing projects, primarily e-learning over that last few years, I'm quite anxious to see how the transition from project to program plays out and of course how program planning differs from project planning.  There is evaluation built into the project management cycle but to evaluate an education program may prove to be a different experience perhaps.  


Given that by the end of this course, we will have the opportunity to develop a program plan and evaluation, some of the topics for such plan could be:

• A continuation of the Adult Computer Literacy "project" at SEHC (phase two)
• A new program plan for Chronic Disease Self-Management for corporate employees
• A "green" office education workshop for the home care office setting

Or perhaps something completely different, we'll see what ideas the second class brings.