I had a chance to peruse the conference book with Chris and saw some of the workshops offered.  Chris and i have talked primarily about the parent workshops/sessions and the possibility for example of visiting one of the model programs of parent/family engagement.  In addition, i saw a few other sessions: parental involvement index looking @ conceptualizing and measuring parent involvement, use of ipad for real time evaluation and a mixed method study of a six year gear up grant.  Chris and i will be talking more on Wed so i will have more to share then.

Chris and i met yesterday afternoon to debrief about the GEAR UP Washington conference.  We did discuss the itinerary and most importantly she shared information regarding data/research to support the importance of family/parental involvement in program outcomes and impact.  We are on to something.  I found several research articles and a dissertation whose findings point to the critical role of family/parental involvement in outcomes for first generation college bound students.  I shared the revised framework with her based on our shared understanding of re-thinking reshaping evaluation.  As a result we posed three things for the to do list: 
1.  Develop a revised evaluation framework that reflects what services GEAR UP performs--we need to know what is everyone doing, are we all doing the same thing etc.  This can help us develop a uniform tracking system/documentation
2.  Visit each grantee
3.  Complete geomappimg
4.  Determine what key information should we gather to better understand family and community engagement.

Not discussed...my question --does GEAR UP have a strong partnership relationship with community college system? 

We agreed to meet again on Wed@ 10:30 to further continue this discussion.

I have been reviewing a draft of a proposal from a few years ago that may prove to be a working model for our mixed method approach for evaluating GEAR UP 2012-2017.  There are several factors that make this a good conceptual model:  (1) first the age group for inquiry was geared toward adolescents--middle school age youth (2) interests in ecological/developmental factors that promote positive youth outcomes  (3) what makes GEAR UP successful as a gateway to post secondary education (4) building on best practices, the creation of a best practice GEAR UP model and (5) best practice and model for African American males. 

One more critical aspect that may support our efforts, this was a proposed mixed methods longitudinal study which works well in the context of GEAR UP programming which follows youth from middle school -high school.

I  tinkered with the model from the draft proposal and attempted to upload this to my blog but ran into a roadblock so i will attach this to my hard copy or send via email if that is more convenient. I replaced a few constructs to reflect GEAR UP's program characteristics and the areas we have identified as important in determining program impact.

Today i had an opportunity to explore California's GEAR UP program.  First of all i was impressed with the website  that served as a hub for all  of the program sites.  Of particular interest and excitement to me was the family engagement discourse.  At first glance on the website you get the sense that families and communities are important.  There is a Parent Institute & Quality Education arm of the program that spearheads family /parent engagement.  Very encouraging--there is also an accompanying project research model and there is more.  This research model begins for this year's middle school cohort and is titled the Family Initiatives project.  Anyway i should have a copy available tomorrow for everyone to look at.

I also see where the CA GEAR UP program will be presenting a workshop at the DC conference on social media and advocacy and there will also be a presentation by their director.

I did see the email from Kelli--the doc student and sounds like her research questions and model is timely for our mixed methodology evaluation model.  Again, i think looking at California's model might give some additional insights.

Ok that's all for now and i am sure more dialogue will take place tomorrow.

Chris and i met to discuss mapping and an ideas for a innovative framework.  Some key questions we both arose as a result of key parts or fundamental aspects of the framework.  For example, some questions that help us think more deeply about evaluation:
1.  What is the vision and mission of MI GEAR UP?
2.  How is this vision/mission articulated in the program ?
3. Is there a centralized location where MI GEAR UP program info can be accessed for parents, students, interested stakeholders?
4.  Do we all have the same understanding regarding the mission/vision/ goals and how is this monitored or evidenced in evaluation and program outcomes?

We went on to discuss the Stanford article on shared outcomes which echoed critical areas for rethinking and possible reshaping evaluation.  Chris shared her experience from the NY conference and the results of her exploration of other programs. We then went on to discuss Bronfenbrenner's ecological model and how we might incorporate this into the mapping project.

So we first needed to succor the list of participating middle schools which Ingrid forwarded to us.  Ingrid did forward today so we took a look at the list.  We can now begin mapping and use this informationto create a framework that may be a hybrid--mapping, Bronfenbrenner and the Shared Outcomes Framework.

Ahh notes on the hottest day close to a record;  cool inside the UM center.  Ok....I  read an interesting article in epigenetics.  Interesting discovery that challenges how we  think about human development--stress, environmental change can alter the human destiny.  Another glance at the article on shared outcomes-- how do we continue to enable the environment and expand the capacity of the community/environment?

Gear UP does implicitly  play a meaningful role in social transformation--that fits with Bronfenbrenner's concept of the role of the chronosystem in human development.

My paragraph to VISTAS
Greetings VISTAS; as you know we are preparing for another successful year with GEAR UP.  We appreciate the hard work and dedication that you contribute to the program.  Your role is critical to the success of the program.  It is with this understanding that the U-M Evaluation Team would like to schedule a session with you to gather information about your program experience and discuss your insights into best strategies for working with GEAR UP students and their families.  The following are some possible dates or let us know what works for you and what accommodations you will need.

Thank you for your time and commitment to GEAR UP's success.

Sincerely,
Gloria Thomas
VISTA & Program Assistant

Really good day for revisiting the Kery Daly article on the theories that families live by.   He uses the metaphor of negative spaces as a way of thinking about important aspects of family life that educators and family scientist fail to capture and that we choose to foreground in studying families.   Daly goes on to state that one reason why this failure occurs is that we are the primary consumers of knowledge produced.  I also revisited Lev Vygotsky's work on the context of education and human development. Some key points for insights into GEAR UP evaluation:

1.  How can we capture the experience of being family? For example
what is the everyday reality of gear up families?
2.  What is the socio-historical context and the narrative of gear up families and communities?
3.  What is the cultural matrix of gear up program context?
4.  "Greatest irony in family theory is the reluctance to talk about love in contemporary family process"
5.  Family stories represent a critical cultural vehicle for how families define themselves:  what they believe, what they value and how they act.
6.  How does or can gear up evoke a new cultural cartography in first generation college bound youth ?
7.  What does the negative space of print involvement look like--activities/roles parents engage in or do to support their child's participation that is not captured in current evaluation process?

Today i am searching for an article in Stanford's SIR (social innovation review) title Virtual Models for Real Issues-- a form of computer visualization described as agent based modeling.  No i am not a tekkie but just curious about the use of different frameworks to assess an issue so .....

More reflections on the article by Rodin & MacPherson--Shared Outcomes after another reading...found it :)

Ok, still a few bugs...i have a draft somewhere out there...  so here we go again..

Something we have talked about that the article on shared outcomes posits:  Evaluation Must Evolve and How does evaluation change lives?  Also from the APR i have gleaned some valuable information regarding the effectiveness of the program as well as  strategies that support achieving GEAR UP goals-objectives.  I've listed some questions/comments that these readings generated:

1.  What is GEARUP program success in the eyes of participating youth and families?
2.  Do we share with our communities about what works or does not work in the program in order to develop more effective strategies?
3.  (Vygotsky& Rogoff  flavor)  What is the socio-historical narrative of the communities we serve?
4.  Evaluation results...social transformation and accountability?
5.   Are there tech investments we can make to support/augment real time data and feedback?
6.  Who are our GEAR UP community stakeholders?
7.  What about the formation of critical friends who can act as monitoring partners and mini-grants to support this group?
8.  Use evaluation results to develop learning forums where we can highlight lessons and challenges
9.  Innovative tools that augment a culture that values evaluation as a resource for learning, collaboration and shared lessons
10.  What about a GPS storytelling project  for GEAR UP youth and families as a way to share evaluation outcomes (eg. Solutions) ?
11.  Outcome of  mixed methods methodology--creation of a shared outcomes model.

Time to blog.....I spoke with Ingrid Friday for a while about if vistas have participated in any sort of roundtable discussion/feedback about their program experience and she said no, not to her knowledge;  she also thought this would be something good for the program.  I shared our discussion about a possible focus group with the vistas as a way of getting feedback on the program and for example giving us more insight into parent/family involvement;  Ingrid was amenable to the such a possibility and felt it would be something positive for the program.

Next did a little at a glance at the work of Jualynne Dodson, interesting and more to come;  we both also share an interest in the study of the Black Church and its role in human development.  Back to GEAR UP.....  I did go on the Department of Education's website to locate possible examples of mixed method or qualitative research and in particular as it relates to parent/family involvement;  the result zero.  I did go on to research the site and found non GEAR UP related exemplars of innovative strategies for family, school and community engagement published in March 2010.  There is a National Family, School and Community Engagement Working Group.  I have the executive summary of the doc and i can share with you on Friday.  Two projects that with interesting family strategies were the New Visions for Public Schools out of NY and Tellin Stories out of DC.  The former teaches parents how to use student data to support high school graduation and college readiness and the latter home school relationships.

Today i spent time reading Stanford's Social Innovation Review; social innovation is defined as " a novel solution to a social problem that is more efficient, effective, sustainable or just than existing solutions..... family and community engagement in student learning is a fundamental innovation in itself". Questions i posed from the readings/research:

1.  Does Gear UP partner with any family/parent organizations, associations...?
2.  How much of a voice do parents have in shaping the GEAR UP experience?
3.  Is there an opportunity for students, families and parents to tell their stories?

In looking at the review's issue and focus for the month--evaluation and global philanthropy
an article by Judith Rodin and Nancy MacPherson posit interesting insights for our GEAR UP project-- rethinking, re framing and reforming evaluation.  They are as follows:

1.  Broaden inclusion of stakeholders in evaluations;  only when the voices of those whose lives we seek 2 impact are heard, respected and internalized will we be able to effectively evaluate with success.
2.  Broaden the objectives of evaluation to learn more....beyond the individual grant:  frame evaluation to take into account the drivers of unsustainability and causes of challenge being addressed to provide greater learning beyond the intervention.
3.  Regard evaluation knowledge as public good and share it:  an example of this i personally experienced was at NC A&T where a annual CD was produced called Solutions and it simply was families, individuals sharing the impact of Cooperative Extensions work on their lives--very powerful piece and here is an idea from me--maybe this is something parents could help produce or even a documentary, particularly with     the film industry becoming a more integral part of this community.

Ok that's all folks.  Got to work on bactchgeo  :) :(

Ok, still playing with blogging to see what i can and cannot do.  I am trying to figure out how to paste my batchgeo map...  I also have been reviewing cloud based data backups to see which one will work for the project and myself.  There seems to be a lot of cloud storage vendors???  So far i am interested in Just Cloud (best possible fit) MyPC Backup or ZipCloud so we shall see.  Most important i am reading up on how cloud storage works--i do better when i have a sense of a thing!

So for the past few days per last meeting with dr. gant, i looked at ecological models as a way of visualizing the evaluation process.  There is the data and then there is this process of human development that is also occurring with the individual and their respective family.  Something i thought about and recall from a pbs :) special on Amish families and viewing my fav show Criminal Intent and also the comments from other VISTAS:  " I wouldn't want to be away from the family". 

When we look at first generation post secondary (and even secondary in some instances)  the process of college/university matriculation requires transformation from poor/working/racial  to white middle class and at the same time how do you remain connected and viable to the family and community values and beliefs as place of origin???  I like Bronfenbrenner's model because the emphasis and impact of development across time--chronosystem.

Also for further explication, something powerful that Kerry Daly articulated-- family theory versus the theories that families live by.

Monday i took the opportunity to review dr gant's conversation regarding GEAR UP program evaluation.  Key points include creating a map/template that supports better understanding how to evaluate the community; i did go into batchgeo to play around.   I shared what i had data had been collected--demographic information on the city of Pontiac, history, current events related to school district and school docs with some information on academics.  I spent time thinking about innovative or strategic approaches to the Pontiac pilot model for evaluation.  I researched/reviewed a couple of theories in education anthropology that may be useful in at least thinking about the study of the community/context.  Again i am playing---perhaps a possibility for the development of a ground theory.  Kinda of like me in the kitchen, what's another interesting twist to sweet potato pie.

And i also reviewed Ruby Payne's work on class-based rules of thinking and doing.  If we think about it we are asking working class/poor youth to acquire another (middle) class based language and skill set.  There is an expected cognitive and cultural change as they continue to interact in the cultural milieu of their respective communities and families.

Tuesday i thought it would be good to review articles by Barbara Rogoff and Vygotsky, both of whom represent inquiry into culture, cognition and human development.  Don't know if i am on the right track but its a good way to begin the process of understanding the GEAR UP program in the context of the Pontiac community and the development/transformation of students from college/university as a thought  to a reality.   So from this perspective of ecology and human development we may also derive best practices and the process that determines which staff strategies become best practices.  For example developmental responses may be defined as apprenticeship, guided participation and participatory.  These concepts seem to be aligned with aspects of the GEAR UP program process that promote success or best practices; we'll see!