PI Post-Summer Interview Protocol

Appendix 18: PI Post-Summer Interview Protocol

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.

Post Summer PI Interview Protocol

1. Warm-Up

• What do you consider your greatest achievement this summer?

2. Partnerships

• Which aspects of working with partners worked well during the summer (and why)? What would you like to change vis-à-vis working with partner organizations and why?

• What do you expect these partnerships to look like moving forward? In what ways do you think they will change?

• How are you planning to adapt the program given NASA’s reductions in funding in the years to come?

3. Summer Implementation Educator Activities

• Please describe the recruitment efforts for teachers.

  • What worked? What didn’t?

  • What challenges did you face?

  • What opportunities did you experience?

• Please describe the professional development that was offered to teachers.

  • How did the sessions vary?

  • What types of modalities were used? Were they in person, virtual, hands-on, demonstrations, etc? Did you find that some modalities were more successful in supporting the teachers than others? How?

  • What do you think teachers gained from the PD?

  • How would you like to see the support for teachers improve in the future?

Student Activities

• Please describe the student activities/camps this summer. What did a typical day look like for students? [What were the core components of the student activities?]

• How similar were the camps across all locations? In what ways did the activities differ across locations?

  • Probe - Were they stand-alone? Integrated into partner’ camps? Both?

  • Probe - How was NASA content used – alone or in conjunction with non-NASA content? How was the non-NASA content used?

  • Probe - How was funding distributed across locations?

Successes & Challenges

• Overall, what successes did you have in meeting NASA’s requirements, regarding:

  • Reaching and retaining underserved and underrepresented students

  • Reaching and retaining classroom teachers

  • Providing professional development to classroom teachers

  • Using NASA curriculum materials and other resources

• Overall, what challenges did you have in meeting NASA requirements? How did you address these challenges?

  • Reaching and retaining underserved and underrepresented students

  • Reaching and retaining classroom/certified teachers

  • Providing professional development to classroom teachers

  • Using NASA curriculum materials and other resources

• What other challenges did your program face?

• How, if at all, did the successes and challenges vary across all of your locations?

• If you could start over, what would you do the same? What would you do differently?

4. Closing

• Do you have any additional thoughts about this summer’s SoI activities that we have not discussed?

Abt Associates Inc. Appendix 18 18-3