Author: Applied Management Sciences

Publication Year: 1978

Media Type: Report

Summary:

This guide is designed to address the information needs of the Arts Educator who functions as a manager of a program, project or other administratively definable unit in a local or state educational system. The material is derived from the experiences of four regional workshops sponsored by the USOE Arts and Humanities staff for their 1978-79 grant Project Directors.

Abstract:

This guide is designed to address the information needs of the Arts Educator who functions as a manager of a program, project or other administratively definable unit in a local or state educational system. The material is derived from the experiences of four regional workshops sponsored by the USOE Arts and Humanities staff for their 1978-79 grant Project Directors.

These guidelines provide more than a report on the workshops yet somewhat less than a detailed how-to handbook.

The two-day workshops, entitled The Communication of Experience, brought more than 80 local and state arts educators together in Boston, Oklahoma City, Phoenix and Indianapolis. The focus of the workshops, as of this guidebook, was project success and survival - and how to manage information in order to ensure it. Major emphases were put on the information arts educators need:  for their own projects' effective management (documentation); to convince others (evaluation); and to share among their peers (dissemination).

The underlying rationale for the workshops was that this information, regardless of how it is used, comes initially from the experiences of the project and staff as they work toward their goals. A major task of each project is the transformation of these experiences into information and its use to achieve success. Thus the title, The Communication of Experience.

While there were some presentations of how others have done things at the workshops, the major concepts were developed experientially - that is, each Project Director brought certain experiences into the sessions which helped shape what they took away from them. This guidebook, similarly, is not a transcript of workshop presentations or discussions. Rather, it is organized around a framework of questions which synthesize many of the concerns of the Arts Educator who serves as a manager. To the degree you share these concerns, the answers suggested on these pages may be of value. (p. 1-2)

CONTENTS
1. Introduction: Background, organization, definitions.

2. Information - who has it? Who wants it? For what? 
    Control and influence.
    Soft data/Hard data.
    Information in project problem-solving.

3. Reporting and dissemination:
         Reporting.
         Dissemination.
    Why, what, how.
    Packaging.
    Multiple audiences, media, content.

4. Evaluation: 
         What evaluation is.
         Conducting an evaluation:
              For program planning.
              For program improvement.
              For program justification.
         Steps in evaluation:
              Identification of audience needs.
              Identification of information sources: documentation. 
              The growth record process.
              Role of the documentor. 
              The project growth record. 
              Identification of resources (staff and money).
              Identification of a strategy - evaluation models:
                   Discrepancy evaluation.
                   Goal-free evaluation.
                   Illuminative evaluation.
                   Responsive evaluation.
                   CIPP evaluation.
                   Art-criticism evaluation.
                   Jurisprudence evaluation.

5. Summary -The management of information.

Appendix A. Background. 
                   Where we started...
Appendix B. Bibliographies. 
                   Selected tests in the arts. 
                   Questionnaire design and attitude measurement.
Appendix C. Evaluation articles and reports. 
                   A blueprint for program evaluation. 
                   Common evaluation hazards and how to avoid them. 
                   The camera as an evaluation and research instrument. 
                   Facilitation evaluation. 
                   How to evaluate educational programs, Vol. 2, No. 1. 
                   Evaluating an AGE program. 
                   An evaluation of the Twin City Institute for Talented Youth.

Arts & Intersections:

Categories: Arts Education