September 3, 2024
What’s Logic Got to Do with It?
The Programming with a Purpose educator team just completed another training series with new agents.
The overall goal of the training is to assist new agents with developing their knowledge and skills to deliver quality educational programs that make a difference in the lives of families, businesses and communities. This starts with building a clear understanding of the program development process and how to apply it to develop their own educational program plans.
One of the key elements in the training is the use of the logic model as a tool to guide education programming, implementation and evaluation. The logic model framework provides a succinct, “at a glance” picture of the programming and shows the sequential relationships among all program components and the intended results.
Programming with a Purpose participants were asked to work their way through the logic model and make a presentation based upon the logic model components. Each participant presented their potential programming by identifying each of the following:
a. Inputs, such as the resources needed to drive the program.
b. Outputs, such as the activities that serve the participants.
c. Outcomes, such as the results and changes that take place during and after program implementation.
Agents received feedback from fellow agents, specialists in attendance and the Programming with a Purpose educator team. A point of emphasis was placed upon how they were going to measure the success of the program.
Evaluating a program allows us to demonstrate its effectiveness or worth (summative evaluation) and provides information for improving the program (formative evaluation). It allows extension to tell our story about how our educational efforts make an impact for those we serve.
So I ask: What’s logic got to do with it? A great deal, I’d say, as ultimately the logic model is effective in identifying ways to improve our programs for the audiences and safeguard program success.
As we gear up for another year of programming, I encourage all of us to make use of the logic model as we evaluate our current programs and build new programs with an eye toward improving impacts that we can report back to our stakeholders.