A Guide for Planning and Evaluating Your Program.
Developed by the Idaho Commission on the Arts.

Welcome

This planning handbook serves as a companion to the Idaho Commission on the Arts Guide to Grants, Awards, and Services.

The Idaho Commission on the Arts is a steady champion in bringing understanding to young people throughout our state on the role of arts in our lives and society.

In recent years, all areas of education are taking place in an environment of increasing demands for accountability. From in-school practice to outside funding, project planners are being asked to establish specific performance goals stated in quantifiable and measurable terms.

This can be good news for arts education. After many years of "knowing" great things take place when young people are engaged in the arts, our hope is that the planning, evaluation, and documentation described in the Arts Education Project Designer's Toolbook will aid in taking your good work one step further - to clearly show what can happen as a result of arts education projects and programs. This ability becomes the best advocacy of all. Good stories that share results have the potential to ensure that good programs in arts education continue - and grow.

Throughout the Toolbook you will find principles and processes to help you prepare a plan describing the course of action you will take to achieve the results you desire.

We are pleased to share these resources with you.
Ruth Piispanen
Arts Education, Director

CONTENTS:

I    Identifying Outcomes

II   Developing an Evaluation Plan

III  Designing Program Activities

IV Reporting and Using Your Results

       Program Planning Worksheets

INTRODUCTION

Do you see a need to create a new program in arts education? Is there an opportunity to better integrate the arts into student learning? Would you like to develop a partnership between teachers and community arts resources? Do you want to make a contribution to the field and to children's lives?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, the Arts Education Project Designer's Toolbook will be useful to you. It has been developed for the Idaho Commission on the Arts to help its constituents plan and evaluate their programs. For artists and community members working in an educational setting, it will provide an introduction to educational planning and related terms. For teachers, it will provide a helpful review. Using the Toolbook will help you develop superior programs and competitive grant applications for local, national, or private funding.

The Toolbook has four sections. These mirror the powerful approach often known as "backward design":

I. Identifying Program Outcomes
What should students know, understand, and be able to do? This section shows you how to set goals or objectives (we call them outcomes) that are worthwhile, measurable, and feasible.

II. Developing an Evaluation Plan
How will we know if students have achieved the desired results and met the standards? This section helps you design processes that will determine whether your outcomes are attained.

III. Designing the Project Activities
What teaching methods will be most suited to achieving the desired results and meeting the standards? In this section, you will design activities to bring about the outcomes you plan.

IV. Reporting and Using your Results
How will the evaluation be used? This section helps you present your results to others.

The Toolbook includes examples of quality grant applications funded by the ICA. Each section follows those examples through the planning process. The end of the Toolbook contains worksheets that you can complete to design your own program.

Question: Why should I use this apparently "backwards" sequence? Why develop the evaluation plan before I determine the program activities?

Answer: If you design your evaluation around the desired outcomes, you will develop a plan that measures your success.

Planning the activities first often results in an evaluation that merely records those activities. You need to evaluate the attainment of your outcomes, not whether the activities took place.

Worksheets
Worksheet 1: Establishing Outcome
Worksheet 2: Planning the Evaluation
Worksheet 3: Planning the Activities
Worksheet 4: Reporting Results