You are seeing this message because your web browser does not support basic web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing and what you can do to make your experience on this site better.
The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.
Permission to Use Materials: In consideration for your agreement to the terms and conditions contained here, the President and Fellows of Harvard College, c/o the Harvard Graduate School of Education, grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to access and use Harvard Family Research Project publications hosted on the Global Family Research Project Site.
User may download material from the Site only for User's own personal, non-commercial use. User may not otherwise copy, reproduce, retransmit, distribute, publish, commercially exploit or otherwise transfer any material. The burden of determining that use of any information, software or any other content on the Site is permissible rests with User.
User will seek permission or licensing for any commercial use requests from the Harvard Graduate School of Education Office of Sponsored Projects.
Achieving Excellence and Innovation in Family, School, and Community Engagement Webinar Series
These webinars provided opportunities for stakeholders representing national, regional, and local organizations to learn about family, school, and community engagement research and innovations, as well as best practices from the field.
Evaluating family engagement strategies to demonstrate their impact on student learning is essential for strengthening practice, and is becoming an increasingly important factor in securing program funding. Yet evaluation in this field is still in a developmental phase, and there are few clear guidelines available for identifying meaningful indicators of successful family engagement efforts.
This webinar will highlight promising approaches for evaluating family engagement strategies, address challenges in defining and measuring outcomes, and provide guidance for building evaluation into a family engagement plan from the beginning. By defining measurable objectives early in the planning process, it becomes possible to connect family engagement efforts to important milestones—such as increases in parents’ understanding of how to support learning at home—as well as the ultimate goal of increased student achievement.
Evaluating Family Engagement Strategies will be presented through a roundtable discussion among evaluation experts and will address questions such as:
What are some meaningful indicators of effective family engagement strategies?
What role does evaluation play in supporting the sustainability of family engagement efforts?
What roles do parents, school staff, and other stakeholders play in these evaluation efforts?
How would robust, ongoing evaluations help advance the family engagement field?
The roundtable format allowed time to address questions and comments from the webinar audience. And, for the first time in this webinar series, we invited the audience to submit questions in advance. We received some very thoughtful and compelling questions! Due to time constraints, we were able to address only a few, but send thanks to all those who contributed.
Featured panelists include:
Moderator: Heather Weiss, Founder and Director, Harvard Family Research Project
Rebecca Maynard, Commissioner, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE), U.S. Department of Education
Kate Gill Kressley, Senior Research Associate, RMC Research Corporation
Eric Dearing, Associate Professor of Applied Developmental Psychology, Lynch School of Education, Boston College
Amy Aparicio Clark, Project Director, Education Development Center, Inc.
Kathleen Hoover-Dempsey, Associate Professor of Psychology and Education, Vanderbilt University
Design Thinking for Social Innovation (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2010)
This article explores how using “design thinking,” a process used for improving how a product looks and functions, can also be applied to solving complex social problems, such as health care and education.
A Conversation with Michael Quinn Patton (Harvard Family Research Project, 2002)
This Q&A article in The Evaluation Exchange reveals historical and emerging trends in evaluation practice.
Drowning in Data (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2006)
This article questions whether evaluation data are currently put to good use by funders, donors, and others who demand them in the name of accountability, and discusses critical issues nonprofits need to consider in deciding how to best evaluate their work.
How to Develop a Logic Model for Districtwide Family Engagement Strategies(Harvard Family Research Project, 2009)
This step-by-step guide is designed to help you understand and develop a logic model for family engagement efforts, and includes specific guidance for selecting performance measures to track progress. While the tool is designed to help guide school districts’ family engagement strategies, the principles can be applied to other settings and organizations as well.
Data Collection and Evaluation to Promote Student Learning(Mirr & Rudo, Parental Information and Resource Center Directors’ Conference, 2011)
This PowerPoint presentation provides guidance for collecting and using student-level data to evaluate your program’s family engagement efforts.
Action Steps for Telling Your Story with Student Data (Mirr & Rudo, 2011)
This guide, which serves as an accompaniment to the PowerPoint presentation referenced above, walks you through the process of using student data to communicate your program’s accomplishments, and includes tips for determining the best types of data for different circumstances.
Tools for Latino Family Outreach: Supporting Student Success in the Middle-grades and Beyond (PALMS, 2006)
This tool guides educators through a process for building a family outreach program. The toolkit focuses on planning for postsecondary education, but can be used more broadly if desired. It includes bilingual data collection instruments that teams can use to inform goal-setting for their programs and assess progress toward reaching their goals.
Evaluation for Continuous Improvement (Harvard Family Research Project, 2002)
This issue of The Evaluation Exchange is designed to help organizations adopt a “culture of inquiry” that embraces evaluation to help continuously improve its practices. The articles provide insight into different evaluation techniques that don’t require much time or funding to implement.
Youth Development in Community Settings: A Community Action Framework(Youth Development Strategies, Inc, 2002)
This paper introduces a framework for examining community-based activities and their intended outcomes. Through the lens of this framework, evaluators can more easily determine what outcomes are the most relevant to their initiative, in what order the outcomes should occur, and other factors that may influence these outcomes.
Six Steps to Effective Evaluation (Glenaffric, 2007)
This handbook provides best practices and information on effective strategies, organizational tools, and sample data collection instruments for projects that require collaborative interactions.
Enhancing Program Performance with Logic Models (University of WI, Extension Program, 2003)
This website offers an online learning module and tools for developing a logic model to guide an evaluation plan.
free-range thinking Newsletter
This series of articles from Andy Goodman’s free-range thinking newsletter discusses how the use of stories can create more compelling narratives than data-driven analyses alone.
Rethinking scale: Moving Beyond Numbers to Deep and Lasting Change (Educational Researcher, 2003)
This article defines a new way of thinking about “scale” in education reform. By looking at scale through the lens of four interrelated dimensions—depth, sustainability, spread, and shift in reform ownership—researchers can better inform policymakers as they craft reform strategies.
Disseminating Orphan Innovations (Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2011)
This article explores why some social innovations that achieve excellent results in one location are not easy to replicate in others. Written by a team that found success taking one initiative to scale, the article offers insight into how customizing innovations to new circumstances —versus replicating the original initiative—can make all the difference.
Evaluation’s Role in Supporting Initiative Sustainability(Harvard Family Research Project, 2002)
This paper offers ideas for how evaluation can ensure that a discussion about sustainability is started early and is maintained throughout an initiative.
Why Do Parents Become Involved? Research Findings and Implications(Elementary School Journal, 2005)
This literature review examines what variables can influence a parent’s decision to become involved in their child’s education. These indicators can help schools and other organizations create the conditions for increased family engagement.