Thinking
Writing to question, reflect, learn, and see differently.
A closer look at how this approach plays out in real engagements.
Frameworks
Artifact Gallery
Tools and frameworks for thinking more deeply about evaluation, learning, and practice.
Ways of Knowing in Evaluation
Four interrelated ways of knowing that shape evaluative practice.
Knowing Self
Knowing that comes from ongoing reflection on our own experiences, values, assumptions, identities, and positionality. It involves looking inward to understand what shapes our perspectives, being present to recognize our emotions and reactions in the moment, and looking outward to consider how these influence our interpretations, interactions, and engagement with others.
Knowing Others
Understanding other people's experiences and viewpoints with empathy and respect, while embracing the ambiguity that results from our inability to fully know anyone else's world.
Knowing the Discipline
Drawing on our training, methods, theories, professional standards, values, and principles to do the work well.
Knowing the Common Good & Equity
Paying attention to fairness: who benefits, who's left out, and what would make things better for everyone.
Rather than offering a definitive framework, the primer is an invitation to notice and examine the knowledge we draw on—especially when the methods or the textbook don't tell us exactly what to do.
Ways of Knowing in Evaluation: Resources for Reflection and Practice →Organizational Capacity for Learning: An Emerging Framework
Why are some organizations better able to learn from evidence and experience than others? Drawing on my work in evaluation capacity strengthening and the organizational learning literature, I’ve been developing a framework that explores the conditions, orientations, and capabilities that shape an organization’s capacity to learn.
This working framework introduces three interacting dimensions of organizational capacity for learning, considers how power and context influence learning, and offers a lens for reflection and inquiry rather than a prescribed approach.
Explore the Framework →Critical Reflection in Practice: Pause Points
A set of 23 reflective prompts organized around the six steps of CDC's 2024 Program Evaluation Framework — designed to stimulate critical thinking about how we practice evaluation, not to prescribe what we should reflect on.
Read the Full Framework