My thanks to Philip Horn who was nice enough to send me the spreadsheets I referred to in my last entry.
As I mentioned in my earlier entry, the spreadsheets are a type of evaluation and planning tool that allows artists/agents/presenters look at where they are in their professional lives and where they want to be. I imagine the forms also would help the National Arts Leadership Institute decide what types of classes need to be offered, what regions they need to be offered in and perhaps, who they might tap to be future instructors.
Take a look at this Professional Development for Presenters sheet (Downloadable File in Adobe pdf format).They have the subject areas coded (artistic, business, leadership, etc) and allow the presenter to assess what their knowledge level is in each area and then presumably make plans for filling in those knowledge gaps.
They have a second spreadsheet which can help in making those plans. The Professional Development for Touring Artists (Also downloadable pdf) sheet is formatted slightly differently giving people a tool for planning when over the next few years they plan on acquiring new knowledge and skills, sharpening existing ones and taking action.
Certainly, these sheets are nothing you can’t find in any self-help book these days. However, as I mentioned, if NALI collects copies, they can be useful in planning courses and tapping into those individuals who claim they can teach the subject in their sleep. It is also of value to read the sheets if only to be aware of how much one didn’t know they didn’t know was probably worth knowing.
The Professional Development for Presenters sheet really struck a chord with me because there are a lot of similarities between it and evaluation instruments my college is developing in the course of its reaccreditation and assessment efforts. The big push these days is student learning outcomings which encompasses measuring and assessing beyond grading.
I don’t know how NALI intends to use these sheets, but in classrooms today a student would fill out the form before the start of the course showing where they felt their knowledge in the subject was, then at the end of the course they would get the sheet back and indicate where they felt their knowledge was. At this point, the teacher would also indicate on the sheet where they felt the student’s knowledge was. (In many cases, the teacher also marks the sheet at the beginning of the semester for later comparison. This wouldn’t be viable during a weekend conference though.)
This reveals all sorts of dimensions in a class. A person may get a C but feel satisfied with the class because they acquired the knowledge they sought. (Often my experience as an undergrad) Another may get an A but might be dissatisfied because they didn’t learn anything new having mastered the material earlier.
The process can also help a school, or in this case NALI, realize that what they are teaching and perhaps how they are teaching it isn’t effective if people are leaving with little more confidence in what they know than they arrived. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If people think they need to sign up for the “basics” course but turn out to be fairly familiar with the material, NALI can plan future offerings accordingly and rejoice at having a knowledgable constituency.
As Andrew Taylor says in his comments on the previous post it will be interesting to see how well NALI develops.