Knology offers Learning Workshops to assist professionals in a variety of sectors with social science expertise. Led by our researchers, educators, and writers, these sessions are designed to connect professionals with practical information and skills. Want to see how these workshops have helped our partners? Read about the assistance we’ve provided to libraries, environmental education organizations, history centers, and art museums.
Logic Models
Are you designing a program or pulling together a proposal and don’t know where to start? Do you know the pieces of the program, but you're not sure how they fit together? Our Logic Model workshop provides an overview of the key components of building a logic model and a theory of change. We can spend one or multiple sessions facilitating your team's process of understanding logic models and theories of change for a proposal, a program, or for your entire organization.
Using Logic Models to Develop an Evaluation Plan
Once you have a logic model, what do you do with it? How do you know if your program is achieving the outcomes you are hoping for? We can guide your team on how to use your logic model as a foundation for your monitoring or evaluation plan. Over the course of several sessions, we will facilitate the evaluation planning process and outline the steps needed to measure outcomes and impacts.
Tools to Assess Capacity
An important part of the ongoing growth process is understanding a program or team's strengths and weaknesses, as well as its potential for change. There are several tools to assess capacity, such as SWOT and gap analyses. Across several sessions, we can walk your team through a design workshop to think about your opportunities and areas for growth.
Gap Analysis
Gap analysis is a tool to map out the current state of something, its future state, and the "gap" between the two. When we apply this tool to the state of knowledge about a program or project, the "gap" helps us develop an evaluation plan to build the missing knowledge. At the end of a gap analysis workshop, we can anticipate a clear pathway to a data management plan so that an organization knows the steps involved in successfully documenting their impact.
Survey Design
Have you created a survey for your audience, but you’re not sure if the questions address what you’re trying to learn? Or maybe you have the right questions, but you’re not sure if respondents might understand them? Or perhaps you’ve covered all of your points, but your survey is now 100 questions long. Good survey design can help you get the information you need without extra burden for respondents. In one or more sessions, we can review a survey you have designed and provide feedback on how to optimize it for your organization and constituents.
Evaluation 101
Do you want to build evaluation into your program, but don’t know where to start? There’s an overwhelming amount of information about evaluation available online, and it can be hard to choose what’s right for your organization. Over the course of several workshop sessions, we will guide you through an introduction to evaluation styles, philosophies, and methods, so you can make informed decisions about how to approach your own evaluation program. We can also conduct that evaluation ourselves.
How to Talk to Non-Specialists about Research
This workshop is designed for academic researchers and other types of specialists whose work involves technical language. We'll give you a quick introduction to cognitive linguistics — and then we'll use it to help you explain your work to journalists, policymakers, or whoever your audience is.
Interested in Setting Up a Learning Workshop?
Please get in touch with Knology CEO Joanna Laursen Brucker at joannalb@knology.org. We’ll then connect with you via email to discuss details, including scheduling, fees, and more.