Stephen Jeanetta

Mary Simon Leuci

Johanna Reed Adams

The Community Development Academy provides participants the opportunity to become more effective as they work in community settings, using a shared set of professionally recognized principles and values that both incorporate and build upon the Principles of Good Practice of the Community Development Society. The program provides opportunities for participants to try out new ideas, relate the work they do to current research in community development and create learning networks among peers. The program is in its 9th year with more than 600 participants completing at least one course of the three-course sequence.

A recent evaluation, which included 204 respondents to a survey of more than 400 past participants in the program, focused on the learning of the participants and the extent to which program outcomes were attained. One outcome of the evaluation was a better sense of how to evaluate community development education programs. A taxonomy, modified from the Bloom's taxonomy of learning (1964), emerged from the evaluation process. The data shows evidence that learning occurred at the following levels:

1. Understanding.
2. Understanding and application.
3. Understanding, application and internalization.
4. Understanding, application, internalization and change in the community or organization.

In this program we will explore the findings of the evaluation and discuss implications for the evaluation of community development education programs.