This course is entirely practical field work. The prerequisite for this course is previous coursework at MIIS on program design, monitoring and evaluation-(DME) (at least one credit). Admission to the program is by instructor permission. It is a 4 credit course. This course is for those students who have determined that their proposed career trajectory requires the skills required to design, monitor and evaluate a program. The final deliverable is “resumé-able.”

It begins with a brief refresher on the basic elements of program design, monitoring and evaluation (DME), to include the logic model, theory of change, developing indicators for activities, outputs and outcomes, and integrating the concepts of social justice, complexity and systems thinking into DME.

The course participants will be formed into small teams to conduct an actual evaluation of a program designed to change a social condition. Previous evaluations have been conducted on a violence prevention program in Chicago and a food security program for Afghan Refugees run by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Sacramento. Every project will likely involve mutli-day fieldwork at the site of the evaluation. This is not an online exercise. The final deliverable is a report to the client organization with the primary goal of determining if their program “worked,” that is, change occurred as a result of the program. In some cases the program will be an “experiment” and the purpose of the evaluation is to assist the organization in their planning to scale up the program. Should the program fail to achieve the desired outcomes, it will be the task of the MIIS team to inform the organization of process and implementation failures that need to be improved.

May satisfy the DPP requirement for a SEMINAR; or, an Evaluation Course; or, Practicum (for second year students); or, elective. May not satisfy more than one of these basket requirements.