[an error occurred while processing this directive]

themes

 
 
 
 
 

Renewal Proposal text

From Melissa Burt
Date August 26, 2009

For those of you providing Scott and I with your text, ideas, and suggestions for the renewal, make sure you include the following points.

  1. Motivation (As Scott always says, you want to bring tears to the reviewers eyes)
  2. Activities you expect to conduct during years 6-10.
  3. Assessment/Evaluation (How you plan to do this... think qualitatively and quantitatively)

Remember, the Education and Diversity sections will be 10 pages total each, so please keep your text to 1-2 pages. Please send your text to us by September 1, 2009.

Scott will be sending out draft text as we discussed during our Education and Diversity meeting on August 17th.

Cheers,
Melissa

From Susan Foster
Date August 26, 2009

Hi:

I am working on a description of the following:
  • Mike Lacey and I will talk today about the idea to evaluate how W2U Spanish language pages are being used to support STEM education and ELL programs, etc.
  • Video dissemination through W2U. Note: Randy, Brian, and I plan to post some of LSOP videos in the fall to see how it works. My question to Randy, Brian, John, and Sue Ellen is, what would this look like with a longer term vision in the continuation proposal?
  • NEW IDEA - W2U has a NASA grant which is enabling our staff to produce Professional Development web seminars in partnership with NSTA. Should we do this during years 6 - 10 to get the CMMAP educational resources out to teachers across the nation AND as a continuing education opportunity for teachers who have completed the summer workshop? Scott and others CMMAP scientists/grad students could be guest speakers with Brian, Randy, and perhaps Lisa (W2U) as web seminar facilitators. The cost of that service would need to be build into the continuation budget.
  • Postcards from the field. We still think it would be interesting to follow the research life of a few grad students, if they are willing to tell in very simple terms on a monthly or quarterly basis what problem they are trying to solve, how they are trying to do that, and what results the have found (good opportunity for career role modeling, posting of imagery, photos, etc.) illustrating the process of scientific research.

Please send comments.

Susan

From Sue Ellen Campbell
Date August 26, 2009

Comments embedded with my initials (SEC)

________________________________________ Hi:

I am working on a description of the following:
  • Mike Lacey and I will talk today about the idea to evaluate how W2U Spanish language pages are being used to support STEM education and ELL programs, etc.
  • Video dissemination through W2U. Note: Randy, Brian, and I plan to post some of LSOP videos in the fall to see how it works. My question to Randy, Brian, John, and Sue Ellen is, what would this look like with a longer term vision in the continuation proposal?

    We hope to talk with you, Susan, about this, and are meeting with Brian tomorrow here. We'd love to have our videos also on W2U if they're close enough to your mission--they do have an adult audience, or at least an undergraduate college-level audience, which may be different, but maybe not TOO different. We should have a few videos ready quite soon that we could offer for this try-out as well. And we're thinking long-term collaboration between the Changing Climates video project and Brian's . . . . and, we hope, yours. SEC
  • NEW IDEA - W2U has a NASA grant which is enabling our staff to produce Professional Development web seminars in partnership with NSTA. Should we do this during years 6 - 10 to get the CMMAP educational resources out to teachers across the nation AND as a continuing education opportunity for teachers who have completed the summer workshop? Scott and others CMMAP scientists/grad students could be guest speakers with Brian, Randy, and perhaps Lisa (W2U) as web seminar facilitators. The cost of that service would need to be build into the continuation budget.

    We might also be able to contribute to this, if these seminars were to extend beyond atmosphere-specific topics . . . . . SEC
  • Postcards from the field. We still think it would be interesting to follow the research life of a few grad students, if they are willing to tell in very simple terms on a monthly or quarterly basis what problem they are trying to solve, how they are trying to do that, and what results the have found (good opportunity for career role modeling, posting of imagery, photos, etc.) illustrating the process of scientific research.


From Susan Foster
Date August 26, 2009

Hi Sue Ellen:

I look forward to hearing from you after you have you discussion with Brian about the videos. I also think the idea of bringing you topics and expertise into the web seminars is intriguing.

I guess we all need to do the best we can to provide text to Scott by Monday, even though these ideas may be a work in progress.

Susan

From Scott Denning
Date August 26, 2009

Hi everybody,

A work in progress is absolutely fine. I realize that I'm very late in getting you a "sample" 1-pager as promised, and I will try to get that done today.

One of the themes that has emerged from our meetings last week and yesterday (thanks, Raj!) is that a central focus of all our activities is to LISTEN rather than just TALK. This includes listening to people from many cultures and our larger culture. Michele's workshop last month showed me, for one, how differently the science-policy- stakeholder conversation is perceived outside of the natural sciences.

The CMMAP renewal proposal will include activities include face-to- face interactions with thousands of people of many cultures, and many millions of people all over the world. I hope to weave this theme of active listening into almost every aspect of the proposal, and I think it will be a compelling way to integrate the narrative.

Monday would be great, but we will appreciate dialog on the renewal Tuesday, Wednesday, and for the rest of the writing period as well. I will share drafts as I can.

Thanks!
Scott

From Mike Lacy
Date August 26, 2009

Dear E & D Colleagues,

Given our idea that for the renewal project, each of your will be responsible for your own evaluation, with my role being that of consultant, I wanted to remind you that I am absolutely available for consultation at the proposal to help you brainstorm, strategize, etc. about what kinds of evaluations you can offer. The best strategy is probably through a phone call, or some short write-up followed up with a phone call. I'm at (970)-491-6721 on campus.

I think that a process like this has a helpful clarifying role regarding goals and so forth, but of course I can also offer thoughts about what kinds of things are worth trying to evaluate, what kinds of evaluations would be possible and meaningful, and so forth. Also, with as little space as we will have, you will not be able to describe any evaluation plans in detail, so in my experience it becomes more important to not say the wrong thing, since you will not have space to say all the right things:-} For example, if the evaluation process you have will of necessity be suboptimal, we will want to find ways to signal that we aware of the problems but we are doing the best that can be done in context.

In thinking in these directions, it occurred to me that it might help some of you to think about various levels of evaluation. Not all projects are amenable to all levels, and it can be clarifying to think about what fits in your context. Here is one way think about levels of evaluation:
  1. Diagnosis: Diagnose the problem to which your intervention is a solution and identify the target population for your intervention.
  2. Monitoring: Is your program/intervention being delivered to the target population? Is the coverage uniform (or otherwise) appropriately balanced across this population? Is the intervention being delivered as intended?
  3. Impact: Is the project producing any of its intended impact? Is the impact it produces bigger/better than would be obtained from some alternative intervention?
  4. Efficiency: What is the cost of delivering the intervention? How does that compare to the benefits, to other means of accomplishing the same end, etc.

I'm just throwing these out because they can be helpful in stimulating your thoughts, not because every evaluation should or can accomplish all of them. However, you want to be careful that your evaluation description does not (implicitly) suggest that you have mistaken one of these for the other. For example collecting data about what and how much participants *liked* what they were doing (monitoring), and treating it as though it told you something about learning (impact) will give a bad impression to the thoughtful reviewer.

Regards - Mike

From Susan Foster
Date August 28, 2009

HI Mike -- It would good to discuss this concept with you by phone and even better to see it in writing. I like the idea of having you available to CMMAP educational programs as an adviser on how to improve program evaluation and effectiveness. Thanks for that idea. Susan
[an error occurred while processing this directive]