Date and time: Wednesday 29 April 12.30pm - 2.00pm AEST
Topic: QLD Interactive Session: Thinking Bee Odyssey: A serious game to sharpen the thinking skills behind evaluative judgement
Location: The End Room, Brisbane Square Library, 266 George Street Brisbane 4001
Presenter: Sam Abbato | Visual Insights People
Register online by: 27 April 2026

Thinking Bee Odyssey: A serious game to sharpen the thinking skills behind evaluative judgement

Sound evaluation practice depends on more than rigorous methods. Sharp evaluative thinking provides a strong foundation for evaluative decision-making. The ability to make rigorous evaluative judgements about the merit and worth of programs is one of the most demanding cognitive tasks evaluators face, and one of the most discussed challenges in the field right now. Yet the core thinking skills that underpin those judgements are seldom articulated and practised explicitly.

At this interactive session, Sam Abbato introduces Thinking Bee – Odyssey, a board game designed to train nine core thinking skills in a collaborative, hands-on setting. Played in teams, the session centres on a real evaluative challenge: participants will work through a common scenario that requires them to apply critical, creative, reflective, and practical thinking to arrive at a defensible evaluative judgement.

The game also highlights what AI can't replicate — the collective intelligence that emerges when evaluators reason together, challenge assumptions, and weigh evidence in context.

You'll leave the session with:

• A clearer understanding of the thinking skills that underpin evaluative judgement, and how to further strengthen them
• Practice identifying and applying nine essential evaluative thinking skills in a realistic evaluation scenario
• Greater insight into your own thinking patterns, strengths, and blind spots (metacognition).

In an era where AI tools are reshaping how evaluation is conducted, the distinctly human capacity for evaluative reasoning has never been more important, or more worth investing in.

The session also includes time for networking. Places are limited — please register only if you can attend.

Presenter details:

Sam has over twenty years of experience as an evaluator and a depth of expertise across both qualitative and quantitative disciplines. Her academic grounding in quantitative methods is built upon a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physiology and an MPH and PhD in social epidemiology (University of California at Berkeley).

She became an independent evaluator after teaching qualitative and quantitative methods for three years at the University of Queensland. Sam is passionate about effective communication and evaluation capacity-building using a pictures and stories approach and academic rigour of evidence. Sam leads the multidisciplinary team at Visual Insights People with capability in videography, graphic communication, cartooning, animation, virtual reality, systems thinking, and organisational psychology.

Over the last decade and a half, Sam has guided numerous organisations and government departments in building their evaluation capacity and is dedicated to developing frameworks, tools, and activities to strengthen the culture and practice of evaluation.

 Numbers are limited for this in-person event - please only register if you plan to attend.

This free event has been organised by the QLD Regional Network of the AES. Our seminar series provides an opportunity for you to meet with AES members and others in the evaluation community and to share and learn from the experiences of fellow evaluators. Please also check your email address is correct on your registration form before submitting.