The Service-Learning office had received an email from the Massachusetts Campus Compact AmeriCorps program, reaching out to their fellow college partners around the state, to find out what evaluation and assessment tools they were using to create a successful program. They chose ten of the twenty-five colleges they are partnered with to interview, and BCC was one that stood out to them as having a valuable and successful impact on their campus.
On Wednesday December 4th, MACC travelled out from Boston to interview us on the evaluation and assessment tools we use to collect, track, and get results from our students, faculty, and community partners on community impact, and the work the VISTA contributes to.
We walked them through our recruitment and new paperless online sign up process, our presentation to each service-learning class, our database system created prior to VISTA, and the Service-Learning blog containing information on projects, classes, and updates.
We then discussed our pre-service student trainings designed by the VISTA in collaboration with our community partners specifically for students who tutor in the public schools or interview community assets for Pittsfield Promise. The VISTA also created post-training surveys to collect feedback to further improve the training experience.
When looking into the community impact being made and how BCC Service-Learning assesses that impact, it is through different assessment tools created by the Service-Learning Coordinator and the VISTA. Evaluations created by the first VISTA and a Service-Learning faculty member laid the foundation for finding out how BCC tutors impacted academic improvement and knowledge of educational resources for students in the Pittsfield Public Schools. This tool was revised and edited by the present VISTA and school partners to align with common public school language to therefore improve the quality and reliability of data collected.
Another tool used to measure community impact is through the Pittsfield Promise project. The VISTA tracks the number of interviews recorded in the Berkshire United Way database by BCC students. Out of the data collected, the VISTA created a categorized resource list to map the assets collected. The VISTA also tracks the number of participants at Pittsfield Promise community literacy events.
Other forms of evaluations that are done are end of the semester surveys to get feedback from the perspective of the students, faculty, and community site supervisors that evaluate the BCC student that volunteered with them. The Service-Learning office also tracks the number of hours through paper log sheets and a new online submission tool. The VISTA also makes site visits to Service-Learning students working with her main partners: Pittsfield Public Schools and Pittsfield Promise.
After sharing with MACC all that the BCC Service-Learning office uses when assessing the Service-Learning program, they were so pleased with all that we had to share with them, not only our materials, but our results. By sitting down and discussing all that we do in the Service-Learning office, it opened our minds to all the positive impact and success that has happened over the past few years. It was rewarding to be seen as a resource for the MACC office and the other campuses that are part of the Campus Compact. It was also great to be able to receive feedback from MACC on ways that we could improve on our program and our data collection. When saying that this interview was a success, it really was, in how much we were able to help out our MACC partners and it let us stop and reflect on the work we have been doing to remind us that we really are doing great work.