We are delighted to invite Jonathan Schulte, Elizabeth Rahman and Amy Smail, co-founders of the Evaluation Reading Group, to discuss their experiences and reflections on establishing a reading group, which has evolved into an informal network or community of practice that supports learning and provides a space for evaluators to come together, discuss challenges, read about new methods and approaches, and to reflect on their practice.
The Evaluation Reading Group – experiences and reflections.
Session Overview:
“In this LEG session, we’re excited to share the story of our cross-institutional reading group on evaluation. Over the past two years, the group has brought together academics and practitioners with an active interest in evaluation and working in diverse contexts in higher education. We’ll reflect on how our community evolved from discussions on methods to a space for reflexive, peer-based learning and collaboration, and discuss how the group has impacted our professional development. A significant portion of our session will be dedicated to open discussion—we’re keen to hear your thoughts on such communities and to exchange ideas on similar initiatives.”
Date and time: Tuesday 10th June, 10:00-11:00.
To sign up please click the link and you will be forwarded a calendar invite (note the session is online only via Microsoft Teams): https://forms.office.com/e/n26x2PTrbH
Presenter Bios:
Jonathan Schulte is LSE’s Evaluation Lead. He coordinates, supports, and conducts evaluation projects across the institution. Jonathan also chairs LSE’s APP Evaluation and Monitoring Group and leads on the development of the institutional evaluation strategy, trying to join up work across APP, TEF and internal priority areas. Jonathan’s recent work has included evaluating the impact of LSE’s contextual admissions policy and methodologies for student-co-creation in evaluation.
Amy Smail is lead on evaluating teaching and learning practices at the University of Cambridge. Working with both the Education Development and Research Development Teams and colleagues across the wider university, Amy loves to inspire the use of creative evaluation. She is currently leading on several projects that include storytelling with academics, visual drawings of a ‘PhD superhero’ and photo voice with first year students.
Elizabeth Rahman is the Senior Evaluation Officer in Education Policy Support at the University of Oxford. She recently completed two research projects: one, an in-house project on the diversity of student experiences, which piloted a range of participatory methodologies; the other, a sector-level public policy challenge investigating the integration of student voice in evaluation practice.
Lancaster Evaluation Group 
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