Evaluation & program design

I serve as the external evaluator for a variety of STEM education reform projects.  I am an experienced evaluator, with over 20 projects under my belt, and I often provide mentorship to younger evaluators. I also provide project planning and design guidance.

My particular strength is to be able to synthesize results across multiple measures, providing meaningful recommendations to a project. My specialty is participatory evaluation, where I am embedded within the project to provide specific, rapid, responsive feedback resulting in continuous improvement of the project. I also focus on utilization-focused evaluation, where the evaluation process is designed to enhance use of the results. My primary strength lies thus in project strategy and improvement rather than summative evaluation.

I can help with:

Evaluation of departmentally-focused change initiatives

  • Faculty use of evidence-based teaching practices.
  • Faculty professional development. (*specialty)
  • Departmental engagement.
  • Institutional change.

Evaluation planning and project strategy

  • Developing a Theory of Change for your project (*specialty)
  • Evaluation planning
  • Structured brainstorming and design

Analysis and interpretation

  • Survey development and validation
  • Interviews and focus groups (*specialty)
  • Data analysis and interpretation
  • Process evaluation (*specialty)

Clients

Please see my list of current and former clients and their testimonials to have a better sense of my work.

Writing about evaluation

Enhancing Learning by Requiring Written Project Responses. Blog post on American Evaluation Association “AEA 365” blog. Full text.

Helping clients develop Theories of Change as an external evaluator.  Two-part blog series on American Evaluation Association “AEA 365” blog. Full text post 1 and post 2.

Visualizing results from an evaluative rubric. Two-part blog series on American Evaluation Association “AEA 365” blog. Full text post 1 and post 2.

Evaluation professional development:

As a mark of my professional engagement, I seek out many professional development opportunities as an evaluator.

Member: American Evaluation Association (AEA). 2017-present.

Member: Colorado Evaluation Network (COEN). 2018-present.

Courses and conferences:

  • Aspire Summer Institute (aspirealliance.org), 1 week professional development around inclusive practices for faculty and departments, completed June 17, 2022).
  • Inclusive STEM Teaching Project MOOC (inclusivestemteachign.org), 6-week professional development, completed May 13, 2022.
  • Preparing for a Successful Outcome Harvest, AEA Short Course, Feb 12 and 19, 2021.
  • Adapting evaluations in the era of social distancing, webinar, Evalu-ATE, May 2020.
  • Outcome evaluation, step-by-step, webinar, Evalu-ATE, March 2019.
  • Presenting data and information, one-day course, Edward Tufte, Boston, MA, March 2019.
  • Assumptions, Complexity and Culture, AEA E-study, Katrina Bledsoe, Jonathan Morell, and Apollo Nkwake, February 2019.
  • Mixed methods for research and evaluation studies, Percontor workshop, Julie Posselt, September 2018.
  • Survey question design, AEA E-study, Sheila Robinson and Kimberly Leonard, March 2018.
  • Intermediate consulting skills, AEA E-study, Gail Barrington, January 2018.
  • Eval 2019 Conference, American Evaluation Association, Minneappolis, MN, November 2019.
  • Eval 2017 Conference, American Evaluation Association, Washington, DC, November 2017.
  • 7 habits of highly utilized evaluations, AEA workshop, Kylie Hutchinson, November 2017.
  • Utilization-focused evaluation, AEA workshop, Michael Quinn Patton, November 2017.
  • Increasing web survey response rates, Percontor workshop, Paul Umbach, September 2017.
  • Data dashboards, AEA E-Study, Ann Emery, August 2017.
  • Data visualization, AEA webinar, Stephanie Evergreen, June 2017.