About the series
NSF is constantly working with the community to improve the quality of the proposals that are submitted. The first workshop will help the participants understand the importance of evaluation in education development grants, the processes used in completing an evaluation, and some of the issues that must be addressed in these processes. The second workshop will review common strengths and weakness in our Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) proposals and discuss ways for enhancing the strengths and eliminating the weaknesses. Both sessions will help attendees prepare more meritorious proposals.
"Evaluation of Educational Development Projects," October 10, 2007, 3:30-6:30 PM
This workshop is intended for faculty members who are either seeking external support for educational research and development projects or are engaged in efforts to improve the educational experience of their students. The goal of this workshop is to prepare engineering faculty members to work with an evaluator to plan and implement an effective evaluation of an educational development project. In pursuit of this goal, the session intends to increase the participants' awareness of the purpose and uses of evaluation, of the role of goals and outcomes in the evaluation process, of the nature of cognitive and affective outcomes, and of evaluation tools for documenting and monitoring these types of outcomes. The workshop consists of a series of small group activities using a think, share, report, and learn format. In this format, group members first reflect on their own current conceptual understanding of the issue, then share these ideas in small groups and then with the large group, and finally hear an expert's opinion. Through this process, participants will increase their conceptual understanding of the issues and correct some of their misconceptions. The workshop will address six issues: (1) using goals, objectives, and outcomes in project evaluation, (2) evaluating cognitive outcomes, (3) interpreting evaluation data, (4) evaluating affective outcomes, (5) writing an evaluation plan for a proposed project, and (6) working with an evaluator.
"Strengths and Weaknesses in NSF Curriculum Development Proposals as Identified by Reviewers," October 13, 2007, 1:30-3:30 PM
The goal of this session is to enable participants to prepare more competitive NSF curriculum development proposals by making them aware of the role that reviewers play in the proposal decision process, the factors that reviewers consider in processing proposals, and approaches for anticipating and responding to these factors. The session is based on an analysis of the engineering proposals submitted in the CCLI Phase 1 competition in 2005 and 2006. The analysis will identify the most common strengths and weaknesses cited by the review panels in discussing the proposals. The interactive session will be structured so that the participants will develop an understanding of these data and identify approaches for enhancing these strengths and dealing with these weaknesses as they prepare future proposals. This session will also use a series of interactive exercises employing a think, share, report, and learn format. In the first exercise, the participants will explore the common strengths and weaknesses cited by reviewers. Subsequent exercises will focus on approaches for dealing with specific strength and weakness areas.
