PI Planning Interview Protocol

Appendix 17: PI Planning Interview Protocol

The National Evaluation of NASA’s Summer of Innovation

Summer of Innovation Planning Interviews

CONSENT SCRIPT

Hello! Thanks so much for coming! My name is [Name], and this is my colleague [colleague name]. We work for Abt Associates/EDC, which is a research firm in Boston/DC. Abt Associates and its partner, Education Development Center (EDC), are conducting an evaluation of NASA’s Summer of Innovation. As part of this study, we are collecting data from the national awardees to learn about how the plans for this summer’s SoI activities.

The evaluation of NASA’s SoI Project will provide insight into this year’s implementation and the feasibility of NASA’s SoI requirements and appropriateness of NASA’s training and support of the activities. The approach will allow NASA to document the implementation of the SoI activities across the awardees to better understand what worked and what did not during FY2012. The results of this evaluation are intended to ultimately inform future decisions about programmatic requirements and supports.

We expect that our discussion will last about 60 minutes. We will be taking notes during our conversation to ensure accuracy and we would like to audio-tape this conversation, with your permission. Your responses will be used to examine the implementation of SoI activities. No individuals will be identified by name. If you have any further questions that we may not be able to answer about this evaluation or this conversation, please contact Teresa Doksum, Abt Associates’ Institutional Review Board Administrator, at (617) 349-2896, or Hilary Rhodes, the Abt project director of this study at (617) 520-3516. Please note that these are toll calls.

INTERVIEW PROTOCOL

Now, let’s get started.

1. Big Picture (10 minutes)

• What are you trying to achieve this summer with the SoI activities? How do you plan on making this happen?

• Over the long term, how might your SoI program’s activities influence student learning and acquisition of skills?

2. Partners/Awardees Activities (15 minutes)

• How have you identified and developed your SoI partnerships? Are there certain roles that you are having difficulty filling? Which aspects of the partnerships are easiest to establish and why? Which, if any, have taken more effort than you expected?

• Please describe your program management structure (e.g., centralized, decentralized) and how you will communicate with partnerships. Which aspects do you expect to work smoothly? Which, if any, do you expect to pose challenges?

• Please describe any non-NASA funding or in-kind support you think your program will receive. Where are these additional resources coming from?

• How are you planning to monitor/improve activities?

3. Classroom Teacher & Informal Educator Activities (25 minutes)

Now I am going to ask you a few questions about your program’s educators. For SoI, NASA distinguishes between two types: classroom “certified” teachers, those who educate students in school classrooms during the school day, and informal educators, those who work with children outside of school classrooms, typically outside of the school day. Informal educators, for example, may work with students in afterschool clubs, summer camps, at science centers, and at youth development organizations.

• Please describe recruitment of classroom teachers and informal educators. Which aspects of recruitment are going/have gone well? (e.g., outreach strategies, recruitment materials) Which aspects, if any, have already or may pose challenges? How have you/will you try to overcome these challenges?

Now I have a few questions about your program’s classroom teachers.

• What role will classroom teachers play during the SoI summer activities? Which aspects of working with classroom teachers do you expect to go smoothly/face challenges, if any? How do you think you’ll overcome these challenges?

• Please describe the professional development and other supports you plan to provide classroom teachers. Why have you developed this approach?

• What role do you expect NASA to play in the SoI professional development for classroom teachers? What resources do you expect it will provide?

Now let’s talk about your program’s informal educators.

• What role will informal educators play during the SoI student activities? Which aspects of working with informal educators do you expect to go smoothly/face challenges, if any? How do you think you’ll overcome these challenges?

• What supports are you planning to provide the informal educators?

• What supports do you expect NASA to provide the informal educators?

• What challenges, if any, are you anticipating related to working with informal educators? How do you think you might overcome them?

4. Student Activities (25 minutes)

• Please describe your recruitment strategies (including outreach techniques, materials etc). How are you going about recruiting students who are typically underrepresented in science? Which aspects are going smoothly (if still in process) and which, if any, are causing you concern?

• What are the learning objectives for your program?

• How are you planning to use NASA curriculum materials and other resources during the summer? How do you plan to modify NASA’s curriculum materials? Why? (NOTE – it may be too early for them to know,, so be prepared to discuss what might prompt them to modify and how they would go about it)

  • Probes:

    • How are you modifying the NASA activities to align with students’ needs?

    • How are you modifying the NASA activities to align with local and/or state standards?

    • How are you modifying the NASA activities in regards of the lesson pacing and level of content difficulty?

• How do you expect NASA to support the integration of NASA resources into the student summer activities?

• How are you planning to track and retain students so that the majority of those who participate in summer also participate in the school year?

• What challenges, if any, are you anticipating related to the student activities, either during the summer or school year?

5. Closing (10 minutes)

• Do you have any additional topics about the upcoming SoI activities that we have not discussed?

Abt Associates Inc. Appendix 17 17-4