ACPNS Masters students are being offered for the first time a fantastic unit on evaluative thinking and practice. Offered as a special elective, this unit provides the know-how to bring about positive social change to complex environments using evaluative thinking and practice.
The unit, BSN404 Evaluative Thinking and Practice, will be held in the first semester of 2016 and aims to explore and analyse current themes in evaluative thinking and practice for the good of society. An invaluable unit for project, program and organisational managers and administrators, it explores the key principles of evaluative thinking and practice relevant for a range of social contexts, with a focus on improvement for public good. Areas such as stakeholders, approaches, evidence, narrative and presentation of evidence for unique contexts are described and investigated.
Bringing a tremendous amount of practical and theoretical understanding of evaluation to the unit is lecturer, Dr Lyn Alderman. Dr Alderman is the president of the Australasian Evaluation Society and Editor of the Evaluation Journal of Australasia. At QUT she is the Associate Director of Academic Quality and Standards which is part of the Chancellery’s Learning and Teaching Unit. Speaking about the unit, Dr Alderman states “There is both national and international drivers for evaluation to become a core skill for all managers whether they procure evaluation services or conduct their own evaluation of projects and programs. If you belong to a nonprofit organisation and you would like to develop a core understanding and skill set to help ‘know how you are going’, then this unit will be of great assistance.”
This is a special offering and may not be available beyond 2016. Students who would like to know more about this unit, including how to enrol, should contact the Centre on 07 3138 1020 or email acpns@qut.edu.au.
