Sealll international

Breaking the rules?

Dear SEALLL-members and participants,

great idea to install a blog for our web-wide conversation!  As i found out, you can also subscribe to the blog's feed - so evr'ytime some new post or comment is published, i immediatly get notification using my mailingsoftware... great feature!

EDUCON and its partners in training and consulting have decided to take a closer look on "consultants self-evaluating their service for managing customers in lifelong learning". so, we are kind of "stretching" the grid's cell-spacing ;-) if needed, we could also declare this kind of view as "teachers evaluating teaching and programm". in which cell would you, dear reader, put our question?

we think, this is some quite tricky view, because: participants in courses or seminars are used to fill out forms or answer questions at the end of a course. but if we work with people managing educational and vocational institutions, universities or european projects, there is no routine, no certain culture of self-evaluation of consultants.

to say it in a more personal way: i don't feel guilty asking participants in a seminar, how satisfied they were. but when i ask managers, i feel like stealing their time. so maybe the aim is, to find ways of self-evaluation, that are useful for the managers, teachers, trainers... our customers themselves AND tell me more about the consulting i do.

so: if you got any suggestions for us, please let us know by answering this post or e-mailing me: office@educon.co.at.

good luck to all of you,
Wilfried

Dear colleagues,

 

now something about my fourth’s member – the Volunta (the educational institution of the German Red Cross)

 

at present there are several questions which could provide a starting point. Here the first:

 

The Volunta provides the so called “Freiwilliges soziales Jahr” (FSJ). The target group consists of two actors. On one side there are young persons (15 to 25 years old – they like to orientate themselves before going to university or doing an apprenticeship), on the other side there are social institutions (emergency medical services, nursing homes etc.), which like to benefit from their manpower that is reasonably priced.

To have a FSJ means for the young person to work for such a social institution (during a period of 12 months) and to have a certain number of training days (25 days).

Now the Volunta not only arranges the FSJs but also provides the 25 training days for the young persons doing the FSJ.

One important mandate the Volunta gave itself is to provide to every young person interested in a FSJ the same opportunity to obtain a FSJ. This is: Even those youngsters who are educationally marginalised should have the possibility to obtain a FSJ (what means: Should have the possibility to develop as a person by doing a FSJ).

But there is a difficulty: The social institutions are only interested in young persons who are hard-working, reliable, honest etc. So the Volunta tends to place only her best candidates. The consequence is: The Volunta tends to neglect the sketched mandate (give everyone the same chance).

Now one SE activity within the Volunta could be to develop a selection procedure that allows even to place educationally marginalised youngsters (because the Volunta knows: These youngsters won’t disappoint the social institution and these youngsters will benefit from the FSJ).

 

Perhaps you have ideas how to provide a correct selection?

 

All the best,

 

Karl

 

Member Activities in Germany

Dear Colleagues,

at present three of the German members are doing SE (the forth member is still discussing appropriate questions to be answered by SE).

They are using the following questions as starting point:

1. The participants of an educational course form a specific group. Within such a group there will be members with a certain standard of knowledge and within such a group there will work certain group dynamics. Is it possible to optimize the composition of such a group? The objective: The perfect learning environment for the individual as much as for the group. Rita from the Kreisvolkshochschule Offenbach is designing and using appropriate tools for some courses of the KVHS Offenbach.

2. To what extend is it possible to optimize the own performance as a teacher? The objective: A teacher who meets the needs of the learners. Heike (Der Paritätische, branch office Frankfurt) is using tools she designed with regard to specific requirements in her field.

3. Support programmes have target groups. To which extend does the support programme „Hessisches Modellprogramm zur Förderung von Qualifizierungs- und Koordinierungsmaßnahmen für bürgerschaftliche/ehrenamtliche Arbeit im sozialen Bereich“ arrive the members of its target group? The objective: A better allocation of grants. Sybille (Der Paritätische, branch office Offenbach) optimizes the allocation of grants she is responsible for.

Next weekend I will sketch some questions I’m diskussing with the member “Volunta”.

All the best,

Karl

Progress in Holland

Dear all,

Let me tell you about our SEALLL adventures in Holland.

All members started a self evaluation project in their organizations. Jaap and I had some individual meetings with each member, and we met as a group twice to discuss the projects together. Such a central meeting is scheduled for the end of November again.

The evaluation subjects are:

• Self evaluation to create insight in the necessary content of a training for voluntary staff members for single parent holidays (YMCA). This project is in progress, a lot of data is collected this summer during the holiday weeks. By the end of the year a new training will be developed, based on the self evaluation material. (cell: management -> program)
• Self evaluation to support a new team to create a shared orientation and vision (ROC). This is a complicated project, because there is much distance between the initiator and the team. (cell: management -> teachers)
• Self evaluation to discover what the member does in her role as a manager, to make her team more self responsible or not (Cardea). (cell: management -> management)
• Self evaluation of the evaluation system used in the organization. (cell: management - > management/programm)

Our members all have very busy schedules. They are motivated for the concept of self evaluation and really want to use it, but sometimes it is hard to find the time. Getting together was helpful, everyone was motivated again. We made a schedule to be able to see what should be done and when. 

Our members needed to convince colleagues of the value self evaluation can have. We facilitated them by creating a short description of the project SEALLL and a succinct description of the meaning and value of self evaluation (in Dutch).

I would really like to hear about what is happening in other countries!

Kind regards,

Selma

modern times

Dear colleagues,

Sealll on a weblog seems like a great move to me. If I had to self evaluate our project I would say this is a good example of how a self evaluation can lead to improvement. Our communication needed re-vitalisation and so Guy decided to try out this new approach. Sealll goes virtual, Sealll surfes the web. Sealll enters a new ages of cross european communication. I am curious to see your responses and to hear about the initiatives taken in the various countries. Here we have been meeting with Lydia, Leatitia, Lieke and Ria and we worked on initiatives for self-evaluative activities in each of their organisations. The truth is that the reality proves to be a bit more problematic than we anticipated, but the flame is still burning and a new meeting has been planned.

I hope this log will support our communication.

Seallled with a kiss,

Jaap