Empowerment Evaluation


Book Description

This Second Edition celebrates 21 years of the practice of empowerment evaluation, a term first coined by David Fetterman during his presidential address for the American Evaluation Association. Since that time, this approach has altered the landscape of evaluation and has spread to a wide range of settings in more than 16 countries. In this Second Edition of Empowerment Evaluation: Knowledge and Tools for Self-Assessment, Evaluation Capacity Building, and Accountability, an outstanding group of evaluators from academia, government, nonprofits, and foundations assess how empowerment evaluation has been used in practice since the publication of the landmark 1996 edition. The book includes 10 empowerment evaluation principles, a number of models and tools to help put empowerment evaluation into practice, reflections on the history and future of the approach, and illustrative case studies from a number of different projects in a variety of diverse settings. The Second Edition offers readers the most current insights into the practice of this stakeholder-involvement approach to evaluation. “One of the greatest evaluation innovations of the past two decades has been the development of a professional and systematic approach to self-evaluation called empowerment evaluation. This book offers you the latest, cutting-edge understanding of this powerful innovation and evaluation approach. May you be inspired and empowered as you adventure through the chapters in this outstanding volume!” —Stewart I. Donaldson, President-elect, American Evaluation Association, Claremont Graduate University “This twenty year follow-up to the original provides even better and richer stories about the versatility and utility of empowerment work in most social contexts. It expands our understanding of how empowerment evaluation is foundational to any effort to improve and measure growth in any community/social environment.” —Robert Schumer, University of Minnesota “This text brings empowerment evaluation to life, and in doing so it offers all evaluators a large body of relevant concepts and tools for designing, implementing, and assessing evaluation efforts that engage, democratize, and strengthen stakeholder’s self-determination.” —Gary J. Skolits, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville




Visual Knowledge Modeling for Semantic Web Technologies: Models and Ontologies


Book Description

"This book addresses how we can make the Web more useful, more intelligent, more knowledge intensive to fulfill our more and more demanding learning and working needs? It is based on the premise that representing knowledge visually is key for individuals and organizations to enable useful access to the knowledge era"--Provided by publisher.




Assessment Strategies for Self-Directed Learning


Book Description

This volume focuses on assessing students' abilities as self-directed learners. The authors use 'triangulation' to ensure that the assessment system is balanced and complete.







Empowerment Evaluation


Book Description

This outstanding group of evaluators from academia, government, nonprofits, and foundations explores empowerment evaluation, a method for using evaluation concepts, techniques, and findings to foster improvement and self-determination. Empowerment Evaluation begins with an in-depth examination of this type of evaluation as it has been adopted in academic and foundation settings. The book then focuses on the various contexts in which empowerment evaluation is conducted, ranging from resistant environments (in which significant effort is required to move from passive-compliance orientations) to responsive environments (that already have a tradition of self-determination and community organizing). Interesting highlights concerning the role empowerment evaluation has played in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' substance abuse prevention programs are detailed throughout the book. The contributors also provide down-to-earth tools and technical assistance needed to conduct empowerment evaluation. This volume concludes with themes that emerge from the chapters and recommendations concerning next steps. This serves to strengthen the links between empowerment evaluation and community capacity building. empow




Creating Significant Learning Experiences


Book Description

Dee Fink poses a fundamental question for all teachers: "How can I create courses that will provide significant learning experiences for my students?" In the process of addressing this question, he urges teachers to shift from a content-centered approach to a learning-centered approach that asks "What kinds of learning will be significant for students, and how can I create a course that will result in that kind of learning?" Fink provides several conceptual and procedural tools that will be invaluable for all teachers when designing instruction. He takes important existing ideas in the literature on college teaching (active learning, educative assessment), adds some new ideas (a taxonomy of significant learning, the concept of a teaching strategy), and shows how to systematically combine these in a way that results in powerful learning experiences for students. Acquiring a deeper understanding of the design process will empower teachers to creatively design courses for significant learning in a variety of situations.







The Advanced Project Management Office


Book Description

The Project Management Office (PMO) is a rapidly emerging concept in project management that has evolved in terms of its application, sophistication, and proven results. Most literature on the subject focuses on a specific facet or purpose of PMO. The Advanced Project Management Office: A Comprehensive Look at Function and Implementation provides a




Advances in User Modeling


Book Description

This book constitutes selected papers from the lectures given at the workshops held in conjunction with the User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization Conference, UMAP 2011, Girona, Spain, in July 2011. The 40 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in this book. For each workshop there is an overview paper summarizing the workshop themes, the accepted contributions and the future research trends. In addition the volume presents a selection of the best poster papers of UMAP 2011. The workshops included are: AST, adaptive support for team collaboration; AUM, augmenting user models with real worlds experiences to enhance personalization and adaptation; DEMRA, decision making and recommendation acceptance issues in recommender systems; PALE, personalization approaches in learning environments; SASWeb, semantic adaptive social web; TRUM, trust, reputation and user modeling; UMADR, user modeling and adaptation for daily routines: providing assistance to people with special and specific needs; UMMS, user models for motivational systems: the affective and the rational routes to persuasion.