Hi, I’m Elena Coman. I’ve been working for over 20 years on civic and computing education programs, designing and growing initiatives and teams in the Romanian nonprofit sector.
My work focuses on teacher development, curriculum and lesson design, and on helping organisations improve how they design and run education initiatives over time.
I’m always interested in conversations about how organisations learn from practice, especially in education.
What I work on
Much of my experience has been in civic education and computing education. I’ve worked closely with organisations and educators to translate learning goals into concrete lessons, methods, and classroom practices that support critical, creative, and computational thinking. In recent years, this work has also extended to questions around AI literacy, with a focus on how educators and students can engage with new technologies in ways that support agency and thoughtful use.
I lead program and partnership development at Asociația Techsoup, where I work on new program ideas, relationships with funders and partners, and on learning from practice to inform program decisions and advocacy.
Alongside this role, I support other nonprofits in making sense of their educator-focused programs and how well these fit the contexts they operate in.
I’m based in Berlin and currently pursuing a professional master’s in Monitoring and Evaluation in Germany.
How I work
Across this work, I tend to stay close to practice, paying attention to how programs function in real settings rather than how they are described on paper.
My approach to evaluation is informed by realistic and utilization-focused perspectives, with an emphasis on clarity, coherence, and learning over time.
I’m interested in how organisations use evidence to support judgment and decision-making, and I tend to favor approaches that are attentive to context, relationships, and lived experience.