To Truly Understand Some Lack of Embarrassment is Key

To Truly Understand Some Lack of Embarrassment is Key

by Meghan SchiedelNo Comments
Why are kids so good at asking why? As adults, we also want to know why, but crucial differences between kids and us get in the way of really understanding why (or why we don’t) seek the answer. So whether you want to know why visitors to your museum are not coming back after their first visit or wonder why employee satisfaction is down, the keys lie in cultivating our inner child to get to the answer to both simple and complex questions. Kids’ lack of embarrassment is a key factor in their strengths in exploring the world around them. Toddlers and small children are not embarrassed about not knowing something. We, as adults, are terrified to look stupid in front of others. We are socialized to think that we are stupid if we don’t know something. Unfortunately, years of schooling and working in teams have provided plenty of experiences that enforced this idea. We may remember once asking why and...
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Are You Getting This?

Are You Getting This?

by Meghan SchiedelNo Comments
It is a widely shared experience to be hosting a training or workshop and look into the crowd of participants staring back at you and wonder, are they getting it? In the previous post, I shared about pre-assessments and how they can help your workshops or training become more engaging through proper pacing and meeting students where they are. In this post, I’ll share another form of assessment that will allow you to measure participants learning in real-time to give you information to improve your training to meet the needs of the participants. This type of assessment is often called formative assessment. What is a Formative Assessment? The Yale Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning defines formative assessment as a form that allows both instructor and student to monitor progress toward achieving learning objectives by identifying misconceptions, struggles, and learning gaps.  These assessments are often characterized by their informal nature. They are usually embedded in a lesson and take less time to complete. They...
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Power of the Pre-Assessment

Power of the Pre-Assessment

by Meghan SchiedelNo Comments
Are you planning a workshop or upcoming training? Wondering what the best way not to bore your trainees is? Or you might wonder, how should I assess employees’ existing knowledge? You might also be asking yourself, how do I know what they know or don’t know? All of these questions can be answered by using the power of the pre-assessment. Pre-assessment is crucial to ensure the proper pacing of information. For example, if you think people attending your training know more than they do, you risk jumping into the deep end with trainees who metaphorically don’t know how to swim. They might find your training confusing or overwhelming and leave with a sense that they weren’t understood or, even worse, that they are stupid or unable to learn content they should be able to grasp. Alternatively, if you don’t assess for knowledge that trainees already have, you might get feedback that the training was easy, not helpful, or even a...
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How to Develop Training Objectives

How to Develop Training Objectives

by Meghan SchiedelNo Comments
After reading the last post on the power of objective-based training, I hope I have you convinced it is worth your time to create and use objectives to drive your training. You might now be asking yourself, “how do I start when writing training objectives?”  You want clear, concise objectives; for this, I love the ABCD model presented by The University of Connecticut’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. This acronym stands for audience, behavior, condition, and degree.  Audience When thinking about your audience, you will want to consider who is coming to your training and what are their academic and experience backgrounds. You may also want to consider what are their cultural and linguistic backgrounds. For the objective statement, you will most likely use a noun like participants or attendees.  Behavior Behavior is the part of the objective that describes what you will observe and measure. You want to strive to use the most accurate and specific verb. Vague verbs like know or understand are nearly...
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The Power of Objective-Based Training

The Power of Objective-Based Training

by Meghan SchiedelNo Comments
How many times have you been to a training where the instructor or facilitator dives right into the material, and you are so confused about what will be covered and why you are even trying to learn this in the first place? I know I have been to many of those and have, unfortunately, probably led a few of them too. That was before I started using objective-based training. Objective-based trainings are trainings designed around desired outcomes or objectives. These trainings clearly state the goals, identifying what trainees should be able to do after completing the training. Here are the three reasons I love this style of training so much. First... Objectives force an instructor to get real with the constraints they are dealing with for a specific training. Many outcomes that you might want are entirely unreasonable if you do a one-hour virtual training. The outcomes shape what you will teach, but the constraints shape your results.Things to consider when looking...
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Setting Baselines and Targets

Setting Baselines and Targets

by Meghan SchiedelNo Comments
If you have created a logic model and are in the process of developing indicators of success as part of your evaluation plan, you must understand the process of setting baselines and targets. Targets Targets are pre-established goals set for the program, and they help create a path and end destination for what you hope to achieve with a program or service (the intervention). Often defined in numbers or percentages, they indicate success. Include these numbers in your logic model to help all stakeholders see how success is measured. For example, if your team is creating a STEM career internship for girls, a sample target might be that 90% of participants completed the full three-month internship. This completion rate target is SMART and indicates success in the short term. If you want a target that helps you show long-term impacts of the intervention -the internship- you might wish to a follow-up interview after five years, where you look for 50% of interns...
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Developing Indicators of Success

by Meghan SchiedelNo Comments
Success indicators (see my previous post) are crucial to monitoring and measuring the success of a program or service. In this post, I will explain how to develop indicators of success and help you to identify when to use them. Step 1: Identify Your Team  The research staff should develop indicators of success during the planning phase of your program design process in close collaboration with the program staff. If you don’t have a research team, designate who will be responsible for the oversight of the research. If any government or NGO counterparts are designing the program and have explicit knowledge of the program goals and objectives, you will want to include them.   Step 2: Identify What to Measure  Next, determine which inputs, outputs, or outcomes (see my post: What is a Logic Model?) of the program are most important to track. A program will likely use many indicators to assess the change that results from the intervention. These can be pulled from the...
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Success Indicators

Success Indicators

by Meghan SchiedelNo Comments
I’ve shared about logic models in previous posts; these are visual tools to help you develop successful programs or services. One of the critical pieces within a logic model is developing agreed-upon outcomes that indicate that the program is successful. To measure these, we need tools called success indicators.  How do they assess the outcomes of a program?  They do this by defining its characteristics or variables and then tracking those characteristics over time or between groups. Clear success indicators are the foundation of any effective monitoring and evaluation system. Organizations need success indicators for two reasons. The first is to track how a program is working and moving toward progress in reaching specific goals. Program staff and the program leadership team need to measure this change over time and make adjustments in real-time to help achieve the desired outcomes. The second reason these clear indicators are required is for accountability. Key stakeholders may contribute to the design of a program, but it is ultimately...
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The Survey Workshop

The Survey Workshop

by Meghan SchiedelNo Comments
I have enjoyed collaborating on this workshop with Kyle Bowen, the founder of SuperHelpful, a research firm devoted to helping museum leaders create more innovative organizations through research. Why a survey workshop? The short and honest answer: Because a survey is what your museum wants to use to listen to its audience. We would like to help you make an effective survey and use the opportunity to work with you to help your organization identify its strategic goals and develop new evaluation skills that your team will use long after completing the workshop.  The beauty of this remote workshop series is that there is no limit to the number of participants from your organization, and whoever you choose to participate in will have customized learning opportunities based on your organization and goals. Yes, you will have a ready-to-use survey tool when you complete this series. Just as importantly, you will also have a team that is more confident in openly talking about...
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