This book uniquely captures program evaluation concepts, methods, and strategies that are most useful to nonprofit leaders, social science professionals, and students as they engage in evaluation practice. Readers will learn how to work with key stakeholders to determine answerable questions/design studies and analyze, interpret, and report useful findings.

Evaluation Practice for Collaborative Growth highlights the approaches, tools, and techniques that are most useful for evaluating educational and social service programs. This book walks the reader through a process of creating answerable evaluations questions, designing evaluation studies to answer those questions, and analyzing, interpreting, and reporting the evaluation's findings so they are useful and meaningful for key stakeholders. The text concludes with a chapter devoted to the shifting landscape of evaluation practice as it faces complex systems and issues that are shaped by society. Additionally, the author provides a list of knowledge and skills needed to adapt to a changing landscape and encourages organizations to use evaluation as a mechanism for learning and adapting to change. Her orientation toward community-based approaches and social justice prevail throughout the book's content and align well with a reader's desire to be inclusive and accountable in programing efforts. Nonprofit leaders, social science professionals, and students will find this book helpful for understanding basic program evaluation concepts, methods, and strategies.

Explains how to better evaluate professional development in order to ensure that it increases student learning, providing questions for accurate measurement of professional development and showing how to demonstrate results and accountability.

Teacher evaluation systems are being overhauled by states and districts across the United States. And, while intentions are admirable, the result for many new systems is that goodoften excellentteachers are lost in the process. In the end, students are the losers. In her new book, Linda Darling-Hammond makes a compelling case for a research-based approach to teacher evaluation that supports collaborative models of teacher planning and learning. She outlines the most current research informing evaluation of teaching practice that incorporates evidence of what teachers do and what their students learn. In addition, she examines the harmful consequences of using any single student test as a basis for evaluating individual teachers. Finally, Darling-Hammond offers a vision of teacher evaluation as part of a teaching and learning system that supports continuous improvement, both for individual teachers and for the profession as a whole.

The Evaluation Practice Handbook offers comprehensive information and practical guidance on how to prepare for and conduct evaluations in WHO, and gives guidance on the utilization and follow-up of evaluation results and recommendations. Most importantly, it shows how an evaluation culture can be mainstreamed throughout WHO, outlining stakeholders responsibilities and supporting our staff to commission or carry out high-quality evaluations in accordance with WHO s policy, that conform to current best practices and the norms and standards of the United Nations Evaluation Group. This handbook clarifies roles and responsibilities in evaluation and documents processes, methods and associated tools. It describes the main phases of an evaluation--i.e. planning, conducting the evaluation, reporting, and managing and communicating outcomes--and provides operational guidance and templates to assist those responsible for evaluations to comply with the Organization's evaluation policy. The handbook is divided into two parts: * Part One (chapters 1 and 2) covers the definition, objectives, principles and management of evaluation in WHO. * Part Two (chapters 3-6) provides practical guidance on preparing for and conducting an evaluation, detailing the main steps to carrying out a quality evaluation in compliance with WHO's evaluation policy (Fig. 1). Annexes provide templates, standard documents and a glossary that can be used for the different phases of the evaluation process.

Surveys are a cornerstone of social and behavioral research, and with the use of web-based tools, surveys have become an easy and inexpensive means of gathering data. But how researchers ask a question can dramatically influence the answers they receive. Sheila B. Robinson and Kimberly Firth Leonard’s Designing Quality Survey Questions shows readers how to craft high quality, precisely-worded survey questions that will elicit rich, nuanced, and ultimately useful data to help answer their research or evaluation questions. The authors address challenges such as crafting demographic questions, designing questions that keep respondents engaged and avoid survey fatigue, web-based survey formats, culturally-responsive survey design, and factors that influence survey responses. Additionally, “Stories from the Field” features provide real world experiences from practitioners who share lessons learned about survey design, and end-of-chapter exercises and discussion questions allow readers to apply the information they’ve learned.

The second edition of the Impact Evaluation in Practice handbook is a comprehensive and accessible introduction to impact evaluation for policy makers and development practitioners. First published in 2011, it has been used widely across the development and academic communities. The book incorporates real-world examples to present practical guidelines for designing and implementing impact evaluations. Readers will gain an understanding of impact evaluations and the best ways to use them to design evidence-based policies and programs. The updated version covers the newest techniques for evaluating programs and includes state-of-the-art implementation advice, as well as an expanded set of examples and case studies that draw on recent development challenges. It also includes new material on research ethics and partnerships to conduct impact evaluation. The handbook is divided into four sections: Part One discusses what to evaluate and why; Part Two presents the main impact evaluation methods; Part Three addresses how to manage impact evaluations; Part Four reviews impact evaluation sampling and data collection. Case studies illustrate different applications of impact evaluations. The book links to complementary instructional material available online, including an applied case as well as questions and answers. The updated second edition will be a valuable resource for the international development community, universities, and policy makers looking to build better evidence around what works in development.

An authoritative guide to educational supervision in today’s complex environment The Wiley Handbook of Educational Supervision offers a comprehensive resource that explores the evolution of supervision through contributions from a panel of noted experts. The text explores a wealth of topics including recent and dramatic changes in the complex context of today’s schools. This important resource: Describes supervision in a historical context Includes a review of adult learning and professional community Reviews new teacher preparation and comprehensive induction systems Contains perspectives on administrative feedback, peer coaching and collaboration Presents information on professional development and job-embedding learning Examines policy and implementation challenges in teacher evaluation Written for researchers, policy analysts, school administrators and supervisors, The Wiley Handbook of Educational Supervision draws on concepts, theories and research from other closely related fields of study to enhance and challenge our understanding of educational supervision.

When collaboration works, the results can be breath-taking! But it doesn’t always deliver on its potential. Collaboration has been defined as "an unnatural act practiced by non-consenting adults". And often that’s exactly what it is! Some collaboration can be painfully difficult with the result that problems are either ignored or smoothed over until the collaboration falters or disintegrates, or self-interest and personal agendas take over and conflict quickly arises. Collaboration and partnerships work well in the aid sector because they have to – no one body has the resources to solve massive problems on their own. Business often sees the advantages of collaboratively sharing costs without fully recognizing the shift in mindset that is required to take managers with a “winner takes all” worldview and get them performing effectively in a win-win world. Part of the solution lies in bringing consciousness to the workplace and developing it as a core competence. A conscious approach to business relationships, planning, and delivery can enable individuals and organizations to truly think about what they are doing, make changes where needed, and become more effective. It is a particularly effective way of managing the multiple and occasionally conflicting stakeholder objectives inherent in any collaborative project. The author draws on his experience in the aid sector and with non-profit organizations to describe the building blocks that underpin successful collaboration, and inspires us to re-think the way we work together, for good.

Outlining the principles J. Bradley Cousins and colleagues developed to guide collaborative approaches in evaluation, this text provides case studies for how these principles have then been applied in practice.