Evaluation methods

Five Finger Feedback

Let your students draw the outline of their hand on a sheet of paper and let them fill it out according to the description below or draw one big hand on a big sheet and let all students fill out one outline.

Explanation to the meaning of the five fingers:

Thumb: What I liked best…

Index finger: This is what I want to point out …

Middle finger: I did not like this …

Ring finger: that was my piece of jewelry/ that’s what I take with me…

Pinky finger: that missed out a bit …

Traffic light Feedback

Hand out green, yellow and red cards to your students. Ask the following questions and let the students show how much they agree (green: fully, yellow: partially, red: not at all):

I liked this activity
I understood the meaning of this activity
I made me think about…
It produced an understanding of….
It changed my attitude/ it made me think about my perception of …
…

The teacher writes down the statements and the votes on a flip chart. If the participants want to comment on their vote, they can, or it can be debated at the end.

REFERENCES

„Coaching in der internationalen Jugendarbeit“ von IJAB

Suitcase Evaluation

Bring those three items and place it in the middle of the classroom: suitcase, dustbin, office shelf

The suitcase symbolizes “I take this content, good experience, feeling etc. with me, because it was important to me”.

The dustbin symbolizes “I don’t need this; negative content, experience etc.”.

The office shelf symbolizes “I don’t need that content right now, it was a neutral experience, I can not integrate this content, feeling and experience for myself now, but it might get helpful/ meaningful later”

Give your students some time to write key-words on cards and let them place the cards next to the items that symbolizes their attitude towards this key-word.

Line-up Feedback

Let your students stand in one line. Ask them the questions below and tell them that stretching up with the arms in the air means “fully agree” and to squat down means “I absolutely disagree”. Every position between crouching and stretching is an individual nuance of agreement/ disagreement.

Questions:

I liked this activity
I understood the meaning of this activity
I made me think about…
It produced an understanding of….
It changed my attitude/ it made me think about my perception of …
…

Circle

Ask participants to stay in a circle. Then ask questions regarding how they liked the activity, depending on how they liked it,they will go towards the centre or stay at the edge.

Pizza

Draw a circle on flipchart and ask each participants how they liked the activity. If they put a dot in the centre it means they liked it a lot, if they out a dot on the edge, they didn’t like it at all.

Dartboard

Hang a poster with a dartboard on the wall.

The dartboard has 4 concentric circles and it is divided in 4 areas (or more): expectations, agenda, personal commitment, new learning.

Distribute a market or 4 small colored stickers to the participants

Ask them to evaluate the seminar placing place themselves in the corresponding area:

● where their expectations met?

● where they happy with the agenda?

● how much they felt actively involved and committed?

● did they learned new things?

The blob tree (Pip Wilson)

The Tree: this is a place, a group or an organisation. It could be your family, a club, a group of friends, a church, a school, an office, a football team, a group that travel by bus, a set of friends on msn, the latest panellists on ‘Britain’s Got Talent’, or even just yourself. By being a tree it doesn’t restrict itself to a single place so it can be used in any context. There is a platform and a rope to swing on. What do they symbolise? They might represent safety, leadership, separation, fun or wastefulness? It depends upon how you feel as you look at them, and how you feel that day! Sometimes there is more than one tree, because the way other groups interact with us affects how our group feels.

The Blobs: these are a variety of characters expressing a variety of feelings. It’s very important to use the name Blobs, rather than he or she, as they are not white males or females, but genderless and colourless. Ask questions such as, “How do you think this Blob feels?” or “Which Blob do you think is the saddest and why?” This neutral term includes everyone and keeps the Blob tool as open as possible. Members of your group may continue to ascribe gender to the Blobs, but as long as you set the lead, most of the group will adopt your expressions. The Blobs in the Tree are interacting too, as all groups do. They are also interacting with the Tree. They have placed themselves on the Tree, or are trying to get on the Tree. Their places are important to consider. Some people only feel able to select from the Blobs at the bottom of the Tree, whilst others tend to fly straight to the top! The selection of a Blob is a snap-shot of how that person is feeling at that very moment. Some people record a date next to the image to retain that for their work. In talking at a conference of educational psychologists, Ian discovered that many use the Blob Tree sheet as a visual assessment tool, recording their client’s responses straight onto the sheet.

The Grass: under the Tree, and away from it, is the grass. It conveys being outside the Tree, a place where you might go after climbing out of the Tree. This isn’t necessarily a negative place. After a youth group, a day at work or an evening out with one’s family it is nice to retreat and relax away from the group dynamic. So the grass might simply be that – a place of respite. It can also be a place of opposition to what is going on in the Tree. As such, it is worth exploring what people mean when they say, “I want to be on the grass”. The proximity to the Tree is worth noting as again it gives clues as to how people are feeling at that moment in time.

REFERENCES

https://www.blobtree.com/pages/frontpage

Knowledge tree

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Gather qualitative statements about satisfaction and learning success of an event (e.g. a class exchange or an intercultural encounter)
To explore, celebrate and make pupils aware of the rich diversity of experiences that different people bring to any group.
To assess the learning experiences of the pupils

TIME 30 minutes

NECESSARY MATERIALS

You draw on a large sheet of paper a tree (roots, trunk, branches, leaves). If a large plant is available, the wrapping paper can be replaced by a real plant.

Cards in three colors for each participant (green, red, yellow).

STEP-BY-STEP DESCRIPTION OF THE ACTIVITY

The participants have the opportunity to write down on the cards some of their experiences:

on the red cards (the “ripe fruit”): the successful experiences and the knowledge that I will take with me;
on the green cards (the “unripe fruit”): I want more of this, it was interesting but still needs to be developed;
On the yellow cards (the “rejected fruit”): this was no success, this should not happen again).

The cards are either hung in the plant or glued to the wrapping paper: the ripe fruits at the top of the tree crown, the unripe fruit slightly below the branches, and the yellow cards, falling on the ground.

The moderator reads the collected cards and asks questions. If necessary, individual statements can be discussed.

RECOMMENDATIONS / TIPS

The method does not provide quantitative information; there is a risk that e.g. individual negative or positive utterances are overestimated, although the majority view is different. However, a combination with quantitative methods is possible.

REFERENCES

http://www.dija.de/toolbox-interkulturelles-lernen/methodenbox-interkulturell

Other ideas:

https://www.salto-youth.net/tools/toolbox/tool/sequential-evaluation.1066/

https://www.salto-youth.net/tools/toolbox/tool/evaluation.953/

https://www.salto-youth.net/tools/toolbox/tool/evaluation-by-scale.473/

https://www.salto-youth.net/tools/toolbox/tool/multiplex-cinema-evaluation.1632/