Three weeks went by so fast! Thanks to everyone who contributed to this discussion and shared their thoughts, models, and resources on this complex topic. I have been re-reading our postings and find that there are a few more ideas brimming up for me which I hope to share beyond our official end date.
One of my big "take aways" occurred to me during our webinar: one thing we can do as informal learning providers is to help make explicit to our learners how they assess and understand their own learning. These "infrastructure" skills can serve to strengthen their engagement in lifelong learning (formal, informal, nonformal and all their fuzzy nooks).
Thank you again for this opportunity to learn with you!
Another idea that came up in this seminar was looking at SCoPE and the seminars here as a model of informal learning and how we might assess the activities here. I wonder - what would we look at? Below are a few possibilities that come to mind:
- Participants (who we are; demographics)
- Patterns of usage on the site
- Assessment of learning
- what was learned
- impact of seminar
- satisfaction/ challenges/ successes
- what was learned
- Organization and design of content
I love this question Caren poses about SCoPE seminars and what we would look at to evaluate them. It's always a challenge to get at the "impact" of any informal learning activity. If conversations that take place in SCoPE are being woven into reflective pieces in blogs and elsewhere then that to me is a strong indicator that the discussions here are of value. I heard from a colleague recently that he has seen SCoPE seminars listed in résumés along with formal courses and workshops.
So this reminds me that it's important to look for indicators of success revealed by the individuals who have actually participated in the informal learning activity.
So this reminds me that it's important to look for indicators of success revealed by the individuals who have actually participated in the informal learning activity.
In reply to Sylvia Currie
Re: Reflections--indicators of success re SCoPE seminars
by Christine Horgan -
Sylvia:
Your May 5 posting reflected on how we evaluate the success of SCoPE seminars....I don't know if adding the seminars to my annual performance review documents counts as a success measure, but I do that. I also recommend the seminars to collegues, and if I'm in a seminar that is particularly relevant to an individual, I'll chat with that individual directly.
Chris Horgan