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PPE offers UCCE capacity building trainings Aug. 4–Oct. 27

To help UC Cooperative Extension personnel with planning programs and projects, engaging California communities, civil rights compliance, and evaluating programs and assessing their impact, UC ANR Program Planning and Evaluation is offering interactive online trainings that highlight UCCE examples. 

For 2026, they have added a new training to dive deeper into using observation as a method. This is a 15-part series offered a la carte. Participants are invited to select individual sessions of interest or take the complete series.

UCCE academics, community educators, supervisors and other program staff should attend. New UCCE advisors, specialists, academic coordinators and other academics are highly encouraged to take the entire series to build their program development competencies. 

Area directors and county office administrators are encouraged to attend the “Writing Strong Impact Statements” training on Oct. 27 to workshop impact statements for their County Spotlights, which are due Nov. 2. 

The trainings are hosted by the UC ANR Program Planning and Evaluation team, UCCE evaluation specialist Vikram Koundinya, UC ANR climate-smart agriculture academic coordinator Samuel Ikendi, UC Master Gardener Program impact and evaluation coordinator Jocelyn Mobley, UC Informatics and Geographic Information Systems (IGIS), and UC ANR Office of Civil Rights.

Trainings are scheduled on Tuesdays and a few Thursdays Aug. 4 through Oct. 27. See dates and times below.

Register for a session or the series.

Topic

2026

Date/time

PresentersDesired Outcomes: Participants will gain…

Defining Clientele & Civil Rights Compliance Planning 

8/4

10 a.m.-noon 

Kit Alviz, David White, Priyanka Vyas and Jocelyn Mobley

With recorded examples from UCCE professionals

  • Understanding of how to define clientele groups and strategies for collecting baseline data 
  • Understanding of civil rights compliance goal examples 
  • Understanding of tools available to track annual progress against goals

Improving All Reasonable Effort and Engagement with New Audiences

8/11

10 a.m.-noon

Kit Alviz and David White

With guest speaker: Elizabeth Moon, UC ANR Director of Workplace Inclusion and Belonging   

  • Understanding of public notification requirements
  • Understanding of programmatic strategies to conduct and document all reasonable effort
  • Understanding of programmatic strategies UCCE employs to increase opportunities for program participation
  • Understanding of how to collect, tally and report audience attendance and demographics into an online reporting system

Conducting a Needs Assessment 

8/18

10 a.m.-noon 

Katherine Webb-Martinez and Vikram Koundinya

With guest speaker: Devii Rao, Livestock and Natural Resources Advisor

  • Understanding of needs assessments basics (why, what, how, when)
  • Understanding of how to write good needs assessment questions
  • Understanding of how to use the findings to inform how you focus and develop your program 
  • Feedback on your needs assessment approach or on your draft instrument/questions 
Using Delphi Method for Needs Assessment

8/25

10 a.m.-noon 

Vikram Koundinya and Katherine Webb-Martinez

With guest speaker:  John Diaz, University of Florida

  • Understanding of how the Delphi method can be used in needs assessment
  • Understanding of how the Delphi method can be adapted for different situations
  • Understanding of how the Delphi method was used in three research and evaluation studies
Brown Bag: Navigating Institutional Review Board (IRB)

THUR

8/27

Noon-1 p.m.

Jennifer Sedell, Katherine Webb-Martinez and Kit Alviz 

  • Understanding what the IRB is
  • Understanding of how to locate and navigate IRB decision-making tools  
  • Understanding of common forms and processes 
  • Understanding the basic steps of navigating required trainings

Practical Methods to Measuring Outcomes 

9/1

10 a.m.-noon 

Katherine Webb-Martinez and Vikram Koundinya 

With UCCE Advisor or Specialist guest speakers 

  • Understanding of how to define program theory and connect to UC ANR’s condition changes/public value
  • Hands-on experience defining outcomes and measurable indicators and using a program logic model
  • Understanding of options for evaluation data collection methods to measure program participant outcomes
  • A draft evaluation plan
Best Practices for Writing Strong Evaluation Plans for Grant Proposals

9/8

10 a.m.-noon

Vikram Koundinya and Samuel Ikendi

With guest speaker: Greta Landis, University of Wisconsin-Madison

  • Understanding of the importance of developing a strong evaluation plan in grant proposals
  • Understanding of best practices for writing evaluation plans in grant proposals
  • Understanding of real-life examples for the shared best practices
  • Understanding of how a strong evaluation plan is written and implemented
Best Practices for Using Observation as a Method 

9/15

10 a.m.-noon

Kit Alviz, Vikram Koundinya, and Jen Sedell

With guest speakers: Najat Elgeberi, University of Nevada-Reno, and Fanny Hernandez, University of Connecticut

  • Understanding of when and why to use observation as a method for needs assessments and evaluations
  • Understanding of local examples that used observation to collect data for needs assessments and evaluations
  • Hands-on experience utilizing an extension-developed observation protocol 
GIS Methods for Needs Assessment & Outcome Evaluation

9/22

10 a.m.-noon

Priyanka Vyas and Andy Lyons
  • Skills to apply spatial thinking and techniques in conducting needs assessment and program evaluation 
  • Understanding of tools to obtain secondary data for a geographic area of interest
  • Ability to create a custom map of a geographic area with relevant layers of interest
  • Understanding of factors driving geographic variation in program outcomes
  • Ability to identify different sources of spatial and contextual data to evaluate program outcomes

Best Practices in Developing and Running Focus Groups

9/29

10 a.m.-noon

Jen Sedell, Christina Becker, Vikram Koundinya and Samuel Ikendi

With guest speaker: Janessa Hartmann, UCCE Community Nutrition and Health Advisor 

  • Understanding when and why to conduct focus groups as part of needs assessments and evaluations
  • Understanding of the best practices for designing focus groups for needs assessments and evaluations
  • Hands-on experience developing a focus group protocol
  • Practical tips on conducting focus groups

Best Practices for Developing Surveys & Basics of Sampling Methods

THUR

10/8

10 a.m.-noon

Vikram Koundinya, Samuel Ikendi, Kit Alviz and Jocelyn Mobley

With guest speakers: TBD

  • Understanding of the best practices for designing online and paper surveys
  • Hands-on experience developing good survey questions
  • Understanding of some online survey bot mitigation and detection methods
  • Understanding of different outcome measurement survey designs
  • Understanding of different survey sampling methods and when to use them
Using Ripple Effects Mapping (REM) Method in Program Evaluation

10/13

10 a.m.-noon

Vikram Koundinya and Kit Alviz

With guest speakers: Greta Landis, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Julia Van Soelen Kim, UC ANR

  • Understanding of how to use REM in assessing the impact of extension programs
  • Hands-on experience of REM method using an example case

Methods to Analyze Surveys: Continuous Quantitative Data (Analyzing and Presenting Pre-Post Evaluation Survey Data) 

10/20

10 a.m.-noon

Samuel Ikendi and Kit Alviz
  • Understanding of measures of central tendency and variability
  • Hands-on experience analyzing and reporting frequency distribution in pre/post tests using Excel
  • Understanding of different types of mean difference tests
  • Hands-on experience running a paired or dependent samples t-test in Excel, interpreting the results and reporting the findings
  • Understanding of levels of quantitative data (e.g., nominal, ordinal, interval, ratio)

Methods to Analyze Surveys: Qualitative Data 

THUR

10/22

10 a.m.-noon

Jennifer Sedell and Christina Becker

  • Understanding of types of qualitative analysis that can be done on open-ended survey data for program evaluation
  • Hands-on experience of coding qualitative data and extracting themes using Excel, and reporting the findings
  • Practice identifying a mixed methods design to evaluate a program

Writing Strong Impact Statements

10/27

10 a.m.-noon

Katherine Webb-Martinez and Christina Becker

With Mark Bolda, Chair of the Academic Assembly Council Personnel Committee

  • Hands-on experience connecting your project/program outcomes to condition changes/public value
  • Understanding of how to write strong impact statements
  • Academics: hands-on experience organizing your program activities into themes using condition changes 
  • Area Directors: feedback on County Spotlight impact statements 

For more information:

LogisticsANR Program Support, Maria Alvarez, mgalvarez@ucanr.edu or (530) 750-1258

TrainingKatherine Webb-Martinezkatherine.webb-martinez@ucop.edu or (510) 987-0029

Webpage: https://ucanr.edu/dept/ce-program-evaluation/trainings