Merhaba from Hatay! Today I finished conducting a training for the team at the Kirikhan Community Center (KCC) on the new monitoring and evaluation system for their Turkish, English, Computer, and Life Skills activities. The goals of the system are to determine:
1. Whether students are learning what they are supposed to learn, according to the learning objectives identified by staff.
2. Whether the training staff has the capacity and resources they need.
3. What can be improved about the courses, and what other activities are needed.
Overall, the goal of the M&E system is to identify what is going well and what can be improved about the course content, instruction, and materials. Based on this information, Kirikhan Community Center staff will make and implement plans to improve and strengthen the courses.
The administrative and training staff here have been fantastic collaborators. They were such troopers as we went through the often tedious but always crucial process of identifying our objectives for each course, and developing indicators to determine whether we are meeting those objectives. They provided supremely helpful and creative input on the tools we will use to collect our monitoring and evaluation data. We’re getting feedback and ideas from participants on what to improve about the activities, providing time for staff to meet and collaborate to solve curriculum and instruction challenges and meet psychosocial needs in the Center, and having staff do peer observations of each other’s classrooms. And now we are ready to pilot!
Courses have been on break the past several weeks at the Community Center, but women have still been coming to the Center to sew embroidery on bed covers, paint wooden boxes, and make delicious cezerye (a sweet made from carrots and coconut) while their children play in the Kindergarten upstairs. Women proudly showed me how they selected a color they liked to paint the box, then after it dried applied a picture or pattern. As a final touch, they embellished the outline of the pattern with glittery paint. These boxes and other household utensils are very popular in Kirikhan.
This week, I was drawn into the kitchen by the sound of drums. Women were boiling carrots and sugar together to make cezeyre, and dancing together to the rhythm of the drums. It was fun to see so much joy…and to share delicious cezeyre.
1. Whether students are learning what they are supposed to learn, according to the learning objectives identified by staff.
2. Whether the training staff has the capacity and resources they need.
3. What can be improved about the courses, and what other activities are needed.
Overall, the goal of the M&E system is to identify what is going well and what can be improved about the course content, instruction, and materials. Based on this information, Kirikhan Community Center staff will make and implement plans to improve and strengthen the courses.
The administrative and training staff here have been fantastic collaborators. They were such troopers as we went through the often tedious but always crucial process of identifying our objectives for each course, and developing indicators to determine whether we are meeting those objectives. They provided supremely helpful and creative input on the tools we will use to collect our monitoring and evaluation data. We’re getting feedback and ideas from participants on what to improve about the activities, providing time for staff to meet and collaborate to solve curriculum and instruction challenges and meet psychosocial needs in the Center, and having staff do peer observations of each other’s classrooms. And now we are ready to pilot!
Courses have been on break the past several weeks at the Community Center, but women have still been coming to the Center to sew embroidery on bed covers, paint wooden boxes, and make delicious cezerye (a sweet made from carrots and coconut) while their children play in the Kindergarten upstairs. Women proudly showed me how they selected a color they liked to paint the box, then after it dried applied a picture or pattern. As a final touch, they embellished the outline of the pattern with glittery paint. These boxes and other household utensils are very popular in Kirikhan.
This week, I was drawn into the kitchen by the sound of drums. Women were boiling carrots and sugar together to make cezeyre, and dancing together to the rhythm of the drums. It was fun to see so much joy…and to share delicious cezeyre.