On target

Draw a large target with four quarters on a flipchart sheet (see illustration).

Develop four different statements about the session/day, based on what you would like to receive feedback on, and allocate a colour to each one. For example:

BLUE: The problem analysis tool we tried today will be useful for my work.

RED: Today’s learning sessions on freedom of religion or elief were relevant to mycontext.

GREEN: Enough time was allocated for each activity.

YELLOW: I had plenty of opportunities to share my experiences and knowledge wit hothers during today’s activities.

Explain to participants that they are going to participate in a evaluation activity to give feedback on the day. Their task is to indicate their response to four statements by sticking coloured dots on the target you have prepared. Provide each learner with four different coloured dots and explain that each colour correspond to a different statement.

Explain that as you read each statement, they should place the corresponding coloured dot in the appropriate section of the target, placing it close to the centre if they strongly agree with the statement, and close to the outer ring if they strongly disagree.

DOTS ON TARGET (5 MIN)

Read each statement and invite the participants to come up and place their dots on the target.

QUICK PLENARY DISCUSSION (10 MIN)

After you have gone through all the statements ask the participants to llok at the target to see how the session/day/training was rated. The clusters of coloured dots should clearly indicate the group’s rating of the day’s work. Ask them to share and comment on their observations.

Thank the group for their valuable feedback.

Vote with your feet: Instead of using coloured dots on a flipchart, use chalk to create a huge 4-ring target on the floor, labelling the rings poor, average, good and excellent. As you read each statement out participants should move to stand on the appropriate part of the target. Ask some people to comment on why they have chosen to stand in the different rings.

End of training:

For an end-of-training participatory evaluation, make four targets with four questions each – for example, one target for logistics, one for facilitation, one for contents and one for learning objectives. Prepare four questions for each target and ask participants to respond to all 16 questions on all four targets in one go. By looking at the spread of dots on the different targets, you can quickly see what you need to focus your plenary discussion on in order to get more in-depth feedback on problems or more detail about what they think went well and why. This is a good way of evaluating many aspects quickly, in a participatory way. (Add 5 minutes to the time for ‘dots on target’ and 10 minutes to the time allowed for plenary discussion.)