Data Isn't a Four-Letter Word

Data Isn’t a Four-Letter Word: Measuring Your Impact (4 Sessions)

Taught by Naava Frank and Laura Shefter

This four-part learning lab will take you through the process of data collection, from start to finish, equipping you with knowledge and tools you can use to measure the impact of experiential education in your organization. Each session includes practical tools and worksheets, as well as resources from the Schusterman Data Playbook by Rella Kaplowitz. The learning lab will teach you about each of the four stages of measurement: determining your goals, collecting data, analysis, and communicating results. Together, we will apply these steps to measuring experiential education outcomes. As part of this lab, you can engage in your own data collection practice to apply your newly acquired skills and tools, with the support and feedback of a hevruta partner. Finally, you will learn important concepts, terms, and questions that will empower you to become a critical consumer of data. Upon completion of this lab, participants will receive a certificate of completion in “Using Data to Measure Impact.” 

Naava Frank

Naava Frank, Ed.D. is Founder and Director of Naava Frank, LLC. Naava consults to foundations and non-profit organizations on networks, professional development, and using data to be proactive and measure outcomes. Naava is a nationally recognized expert in the use of communities of practice and networks in the Jewish community. Naava holds an Ed.D. from Harvard Graduate School of Education and a B.A. from Barnard College/Columbia University.

Laura Shefter

Laura Shefter is an Ed.D. candidate at the William Davidson School of Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary where she studies professional identity and professional development. She focuses on experiential education and has a background in Hillel work. Recently, Laura served as a coach for summer camp inclusion professionals who were doing action research. Laura has a B.A. from the University of Toronto, where she is originally from.   

The Experiential Jewish Education Network

The Experiential Jewish Education Network, funded by the Jim Joseph Foundation, currently serves the 200+ graduates of the four experiential Jewish education connected programs launched under the Jim Joseph Foundation Education Initiative at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, The Davidson School of the Jewish Theological Seminary and Yeshiva University.

The Experiential Jewish Education Network strengthens the professional knowledge, skills, connections and leadership capability of experiential Jewish educators, increasing success, innovation, collaboration and engagement in the Jewish community.

Follow-Up

For more information about the Experiential Jewish Education Network contact Micol Zimmerman

To sponsor a webinar series or sign up to participate in a webinar series contact Naava Frank

Testimonial: "I am already supremely impressed with the level of professionalism this offering is providing."

Advisory Committee

Thank you to our Advisory Committee: Dr. David Bryfman, Deborah Grayson Riegel, and Rella Kaplowitz for their feedback, guidance, and support. 

Thank you to Pearl Beck for being a project mentor. Our appreciation to Mark Young and Dr. Jeffrey Kress of The Jewish Theological Seminary for their encouragement and expertise. Our gratitude to the Jewish Evaluation Network of UJA Federation of New York.  

Why Do So Many Online Communities Fail?

by Naava Frank

The good news is that technology has created unprecedented opportunities for people to meet like-minded peers to learn, collaborate and support each other. The bad news is that so many of these well-meaning and inspiring projects that have enormous potential to help people and strengthen causes, are failing. Not just in the Jewish community, throughout the nonprofit world, hundreds of thousands of dollars (at least) have been spent over the past decade on designing systems that ended up not being utilized. I don’t mean to point a finger – my guess is most of us have participated in, dreamed of, sponsored, or funded one of these projects. And there is no simple answer to explain what went wrong. What I would like to present today is a way of thinking that in my experience has helped communities succeed.

The idea is that when we focus on building a technology infrastructure, we often neglect to build an accompanying relationship infrastructure. The word community can be defined as “a group of people with a common background or with shared interests within society.” Those interests may be shared geography, affiliation, values, purpose, enemies or problems.

When you bring a group of strangers or acquaintances together for a gathering, a party, you don’t expect them to suddenly bond, reveal their secrets or foibles, or become best friends. So why do we expect that if we build a website or community platform which is even more remote than an in person gathering, people will jump in and participate? An online space has fewer social clues such as age, clothing, body language or accent than a face-to-face gathering. When we go online the only social clues we usually get are an email address or name, and if we are lucky a small image of the person. We all know how resistant we are to completing the profile section of online social platforms, even though it would help a lot.

So what would you do if you were a host or hostess at a cocktail party? You would circulate and get to know people, introduce people to each other that have shared interests, maybe set up some games or some interesting conversation pieces. You might encourage a few of the more gregarious folks to help make people feel comfortable. There might be some people you would not invite because they cause trouble.

In order to make online communities successful we need to pay attention to the relationships not just the technology infrastructure. We need to help people find each other and connect around shared interests.

What does relationship infrastructure consist of? Roles, protocols, norms, expectations, motivations, mission and purpose and other social structures. (Think about Daniel Pink’s work on motivation.) Note I said motivation – not incentives – research has demonstrated that incentives are only good for simple tasks not for complex knowledge based tasks. So let me be concrete about what relationship infrastructure looks like:

This past week I was working with the National Consortium of Deaf-Blindness – they are just finishing up a platform for a national community of practice that includes representative from 50 states. They want to introduce the platform to their 20 staff members. We talked about the usual approach – a technology training – letting staff get in the site and press buttons. The focus was on technology. Then we asked ourselves, how can we do this in a way that develops relationships – both relationships between people and relationships to the mission of the organization? We came up with the following protocol.

• We paired people up – intentionally thinking about who might benefit from doing this work together – make sure someone who is technology averse is paired with someone who is technologically comfortable. Maybe pair people who work on the same team? Or maybe pair people across teams?
• We sent them into the platform with an assignment. While they are in the site and “kick the tires” we helped them imagine what it would be like driving the car. We gave them some guiding questions to think about.
• Name 3 ways this platform can help you forward your mission.
• Name 2 technology improvements you would like to see for this platform.
• Name 1 surprise from this experience.
• We asked everyone to post these responses in the site so that others can see how their peers respond to the experience. (Thereby giving them another opportunity to get to know others – by reading their responses.)

Relationship infrastructures have to be carefully matched to the culture of the community, stage of development of the community (how well do people know each other) and many other factors. Just like technology may need to be revisited and upgraded, the relationship infrastructure needs to be revisited and changed as the community changes.

So next time you think about designing a technology platform for a community – don’t forget to take the time and effort and get the expertise you need to build the accompanying relationship infrastructure that will ensure the success of your investment.

Naava Frank, EdD, is a consultant and researcher focused on the impact of communities of practice and networks. She can be reached at naavafrank1@gmail or knowledgecommunities.blogspot.com

Cross posted from EJewishPhilanthropy May 2, 2013  check out the comments section of  this blog post on EJewishphilanthropy for some interesting follow up comments.

Testimonial

February 26, 2013

 

Dear Naava,

 

I just wanted to let you know that it was truly a pleasure to work with you. Not only did I very much enjoy interacting with you but I also learned a lot from you. One thing that stands out in my mind from our work on the Bruria project is your careful attention to the critical role of reflection in the learning process, even if it means giving up on 'covering more ground' for the sake of really solidifying other elements that were learned.  I also so much appreciate your warmth and openness- I always felt like you really listened to what I had to say and were genuinely interested in my ideas and thoughts.

 

It was such a pleasure to work with you.

 

Warm regards,

 

Ilana

Ilana Turetsky, Ed.D.

Faculty, Azrieli Graduate School

Teacher Community Success Stories

Naava Frank coaches community of practice facilitators to build the capacity of Jewish day school educators at Yeshiva University Institute for University School Partnership (YU School Partnership/YUSP)

2 success stories covered in the YU press below

CoP of Talmud Teachers

CoP of Navi (Prophets) teachers

Testimonial

"I want to thank you for guiding us in the process of building this community of practice. I think the work itself and community we are creating has so much potential, and the role you are playing is really important. I look forward to our continuing work together!"

Rabbi Bridget Wynne
Executive Director
Jewish Gateways

Testimonial

"Thank you very much for being a masterful guide this year....Very helpful and will continue to be very useful."

Chelsea Bailey, Communal Leadership Specialist at Board of Jewish Education of New York
Former Asst Prof in Early Childhood Education at New York University

Empowerment and Self-reliance: Building a Sustainable Congregational Learning Model

Empowerment and Self-reliance: Building a Sustainable Congregational Learning Model (A White Paper Forthcoming from Knowledge Communities)
Knowledge Communities worked with Congregation Beth Israel (Charlottesville, VA) to build the grassroots-lead community learning program called Shabbat Connections.

Naava Frank of Knowledge Communities collaborated with Congregation Beth Israel (CBI), the only congregation in Charlottesville (VA), to build their award winning Shabbat Connections Program (SC). The collaboration reaped numerous insights, new ways of working and a program that exceeded everyone’s expectations for two-years, supported by funding from the Legacy Heritage Foundation.

KC facilitated monthly phone calls with congregational staff, Rabbi Dan Alexander, Ms. Ellen Dietrick and Rabbi Tom Gutherz. Their words attest to the effectiveness of KC’s role in the program.

Rabbi Dan: Naava is a good listener and synthesizer and asks provocative questions. We valued the way Naava's questions created a different perspective for us, so we could get outside of ourselves. Sometimes the perspective she brought was philosophical and helped us get beyond the mechanical mode of how to get the program done. There was value to having a person outside that we had to explain things to. It helped us think it through and explain it to ourselves.

Rabbi Tom: A useful trick that we learned was to ask “What goal do you want to accomplish” as opposed to “How do we get things done?” Then we planned starting at the end and met our goals.

Ellen Dietrick: Naava really listened to us and joined with us, understood our perspective and worked with us. A lot of pieces were new, including focusing on questions, the reflective component, evaluation afterwards. These gave us new frameworks and tools. We often “use her lines” e.g. Naava would say ..

Look for the white paper in the upcoming weeks. Sign up at our website: http://www.knowledgecommunities.org/