Thinking in Ink - Introduction to the Blog
In my role as Director of Partnerships, I work with staff and students from schools across the North East of England to design and implement educational projects. The over-arching aims of the work are to raise attainment and aspiration in young people. While it has been fairly easy to count the 'countables': number of schools, number of students, 'student hours', staff CPD hours, it is a whole other challenge to measure the longer term impact of this work.
How can we know that the careers talk provided the spark of inspiration, that the extra curricular club instilled character, that the assembly instilled the desired values?
How can we know if our educational interventions have long term impact?
Having read widely around different impact measurements and approaches, including the excellent work of external agencies such as ImpactEd, I felt the issue so fundamental that it really needed doctoral level consideration. Thankfully, others have already done the work!
This blog is a way of organising my learnings from the research around impact. I aim to 'think in ink' around how the research suggests we should structure and implement educational projects with impact in mind.
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In particular, I will write about the power of Complexity Theory for framing conversations around impact; the difference between outcomes and impact; and reflections on current and future projects.
Instead of providing reference lists at the end of each post, I will collect them in this separate page.
Each post will end with a list of my current reading, listening and watching.
How can we know that the careers talk provided the spark of inspiration, that the extra curricular club instilled character, that the assembly instilled the desired values?
In brief:
How can we know if our educational interventions have long term impact?
Having read widely around different impact measurements and approaches, including the excellent work of external agencies such as ImpactEd, I felt the issue so fundamental that it really needed doctoral level consideration. Thankfully, others have already done the work!
This blog is a way of organising my learnings from the research around impact. I aim to 'think in ink' around how the research suggests we should structure and implement educational projects with impact in mind.
.png)
In particular, I will write about the power of Complexity Theory for framing conversations around impact; the difference between outcomes and impact; and reflections on current and future projects.
Instead of providing reference lists at the end of each post, I will collect them in this separate page.
Each post will end with a list of my current reading, listening and watching.
Recently, I have enjoyed:
> this podcast episode where Graeme Lawrie MBE talks to Juliet Corbett about the difference between impact and outcomes, "...impact is long-term, it is what we achieve over time; whereas outcome is measured at the end of each event... all of those bits of data from the outcomes feed into the overall impact. In fact, there is no algorithm for impact as it is impossible to define. However the fact that you are holding yourself accountable, using data to improve, means everything".
> Mark Mason explains Complexity Theory and implications for Education here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vk2s7gumXMY
> Charles Handy's The Second Curve is an excellent read, in particular around planting 'Golden Seeds' -something that will be re-visited in a future post.
You can contact me in all of the ways below:
Email: j.a.smith2106@gmail.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-smith-12199619/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Educatinghuman1
> this podcast episode where Graeme Lawrie MBE talks to Juliet Corbett about the difference between impact and outcomes, "...impact is long-term, it is what we achieve over time; whereas outcome is measured at the end of each event... all of those bits of data from the outcomes feed into the overall impact. In fact, there is no algorithm for impact as it is impossible to define. However the fact that you are holding yourself accountable, using data to improve, means everything".
> Mark Mason explains Complexity Theory and implications for Education here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vk2s7gumXMY
> Charles Handy's The Second Curve is an excellent read, in particular around planting 'Golden Seeds' -something that will be re-visited in a future post.
You can contact me in all of the ways below:
Email: j.a.smith2106@gmail.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-smith-12199619/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Educatinghuman1
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