February 13th, 2018
NIMBioS/NISER Webinar series presents:
NSF INCLUDES Evaluation-Focused Webinars
Effective program evaluation is an essential component of STEM education and workforce development. These no-cost evaluation-focused webinars will help you develop evaluation plans that meet the needs of INCLUDES (Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science) Pilot and Alliance Projects.
Webinars will be of interest to individuals involved in current or upcoming INCLUDES projects, those considering collaborating in such projects, and STEM educators considering inclusion of formal evaluation in their projects.
Co-organized by the NIMBioS and the National Institute for STEM Evaluation and Research (NISER), these webinars are a continuation of the NIMBioS/NISER series of STEM program evaluation events for the NSF INCLUDES projects. The target audience members for this webinar are STEM educators who are carrying out STEM broadening participation projects, including leaders of NSF INCLUDES projects.
Webinars are recorded for later viewing. Please register for the webinar so that you can be notified when the recording is available.
Upcoming Webinar Topics
- March 1: Program Models as a Tool for Scaling up NSF INCLUDES Projects. Evaluation of projects often begins with a program model as a plan for successfully measuring activities, outcomes and impacts. When projects scale up to include multiple sites and projects, these models must also scale up. This webinar will engage participants with case study examples of evaluation design techniques than can be applied to the scaling up of INCLUDES projects. Communication strategies, program mapping techniques, and data sharing and analysis plans will give participants a tool kit for adaptation to their own project evaluations.
Registration link - April 5: Engaging Diverse Populations in Evaluations of NSF INCLUDES Projects. This webinar will provide insight into the ways in which cultural competency can contribute to mindful evaluation of diverse populations. We will address understanding of social and personal biases towards diverse populations and how we can we assure that we are not imposing our own beliefs into our research and evaluation. We will also discuss ways to understand social norms of diverse cultures. Participants in this webinar will explore approaches to identify potential barriers and opportunities for culturally responsive evaluation data collection.
Registration link - May 3: Qualitative Data in Culturally Rich Evaluations of NSF INCLUDES Projects. Evaluators often incorporate qualitative methods to understand the context through which participants from different backgrounds experience a program. Assembling knowledge from sources such as focus groups and interviews and layering them with methods such as observations, analytic memos, field notes, and reflective journaling, can help project leaders understand diverse perspectives. Participants in this webinar will engage with case study materials to code and analyze culturally rich data for program evaluation. We will share tools and methods for layering data in qualitative analyses with participants.
Registration link - June 7: Evaluation Strategies for Measuring the Broader Impacts (BI) of NSF INCLUDES Projects. Planning for the measurement of Broader Impacts (BIs) can feel overwhelming to project leaders. Some of the ways evaluators can encourage effective definition and measurement of BIs is through program and stakeholder mapping of outcomes related to BI goals, and through appropriate measurement tools. In this webinar, participants will examine different models for relating BIs to their project activities, and also tools for measuring progress towards BI goals.
Registration link
All webinars begin at 2 p.m. EST.