The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

School of Education Research Supports Community Partners, Provides Learning Opportunities for Students

By Bruce Buchanan


Dr. Holly Downs leads a team of Educational Research Methodology students through a program evaluation in the Dominican Republic last year. 
 
Doing well while doing good.

The School of Education’s Educational Research Methodology (ERM) Department is bringing together teaching and research to better prepare graduates for the workplace and to serve worthwhile organizations, both on campus and in the community.

 

Dr. Holly Downs, Applied Educational Evaluation an Invaluable Resource to UNCG Programs

One of the School of Education’s most successful community-focused research projects is the work being done by Dr. Holly Downs’ Applied Educational Evaluation students. After having learned theory and background in the Evaluation of Educational Programs class, Downs’ students engage in practical applications of evaluation methods. This includes conducting real-life research for an actual community partner agency.

“This is the third time we have used a community project to teach this class,” Dr. Downs said. The first year, the ERM graduate students teamed with UNCG’s Core-Math Project. The second year, students worked with the Advanced Training for Outstanding Mathematics & Science Scholars (AToMS) program, which provides hands-on science and math learning opportunities for students. This year, ERM students are partnering with the UNCG’s Math Emporium program, which is an approach to teaching mathematics that eliminates class meetings and replaces them with a learning resource center featuring online materials and on-demand personalized assistance, coordinated through the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. Fifteen students are participating this year in the evaluation of the program.

While the collaborative coursework is a great learning opportunity for the ERM students, Dr. Downs said there also are real, tangible benefits for the partner organizations, which receive the research at essentially no cost.

“You teach the community partners what good, theory-based evaluations should look like,” she said.

Dr. Holt Wilson, an assistant professor in the Teacher Education and Higher Education department who leads the Core-Math Project, said Associate Dean Terry Ackerman put him in touch with Dr. Downs when the Core-Math grant was funded.

“Dr. Downs agreed to serve as the evaluator and asked if she could use the project as a context for teaching her evaluation course,” he said. “I enthusiastically agreed as I also was planning to use the project as a teaching context for my own mathematics education graduate students.”

The Core-Math Project is an effort by UNCG mathematicians and mathematics educators to design and deliver quality, sustainable professional development for elementary school math teachers in high-needs schools. Downs’ students conducted comprehensive surveys of and interviews with teachers and school administrators participating in Core-Math, focusing on their satisfaction, learning and needs.

Dr. Wilson said, “The Core-Math project continues to be very successful in supporting teachers in learning about students’ mathematical thinking and student-centered instructional practices, largely due to the high-quality formative evaluation efforts of Dr. Downs and the ERM graduate students. In all stages in our planning and implementation, the evaluation team has been present to offer insights into the participants’ learning that our team would not have had without them.”

Aundrea Carter, an ERM graduate student who participated in the Core-Math research, said the project provided her and her fellow students with real-life project planning and pre-production experience, as well as experience conducting evaluations.

“One great thing about it is students get ownership in what happens,” she said. “Dr. Downs gives us a lot of room to maneuver, but she’s always there to help if we need it.

Carter said the initial Applied Educational Evaluation project went so well students were invited to present their findings at a national conference, which proved to be another invaluable experience.

Dr. Julia Jackson-Newsom, who co-led the AToMS learning community, said the ERM support provides a service many organizations simply couldn’t obtain on their own. AToMS is designed to attract students in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields and retain them once they enter those disciplines.

“From a project management standpoint, you want to be carefully analyzing what’s working and what’s not working,” she said. “(The Applied Educational Evaluation research) was incredibly valuable.”

Dr. Jackson-Newsom noted Dr. Downs and the ERM students attended weekly AToMS meetings in order to better understand their program.

“They were all very professional and very persistent,” she said. “They invested a great deal of time in their research.” Their final report was sent to a variety of people across campus, including senior administrators.

In the Math Emporium partnership, ERM students are surveying and interviewing students, administrators and even teaching assistants involved in the Math Emporium to gauge the program’s impact and try and reduce the number of student withdrawals from this hybrid learning program.

Dr. Downs said, “The cool thing about this course is that it’s a lot like herding cats. It’s so exciting to see how students learn and grow through the process.”



OAERS Program Provides Real-World Opportunities for Program Evaluation



In addition to the work being done by Dr. Downs’ class, Dr. Randy Penfield is leading the ERM Department’s new Office of Assessment, Evaluation and Research Services (OAERS). One component of OAERS is its Nonprofit Evaluation Support Program, which is a partnership with UNCG’s SERVE Center.

“The idea was that our students get trained in data analysis, which is used in all types of contexts,” Dr. Penfield said. “One of those contexts is in the evaluation of nonprofit organizations.” Through this type of substantive data analysis, he said, nonprofits can better measure where they are meeting their goals—and where they can improve.

OAERS matches internship opportunities of professional organizations with ERM graduate students seeking practical experience in assessment, program evaluation or research methodology. These organizations include schools, school districts, charities and other local not-for-profit entities.

Dr. Penfield said, “There is a tremendous need in Guilford County for nonprofit organizations to evaluate how they are doing.” Many of these agencies have to give annual reports to their funding bodies, or apply for grants to get necessary funding. Dr. Penfield said the type of analysis performed by ERM students can help nonprofits strengthen their reports with objective data and provide evidence for continued or increased funding.

The OAERS Nonprofit Evaluation Support Program provides nonprofits with an initial consultation pertaining to their evaluation needs, staff training in the area of program evaluation and, if necessary, additional program evaluation and data analysis support. It also provides ERM students with an outstanding on-the-job learning opportunity. As with Dr. Down’s ERM Program Evaluation class, the program integrates teaching, research and service.

“Our students are involved every step of the way,” Dr. Penfield said. “They are getting valuable experience and these nonprofits are getting the support they need.”

So far, he said the response from Guilford County nonprofits has been encouraging. The Guilford County Nonprofit Consortium is one major organization engaging with the OAERS Nonprofit Evaluation Support Program, and Dr. Penfield said he is always looking for more nonprofit partners.

UNCG’s Institute for Community and Economic Engagement (ICEE) is supporting the Nonprofit Evaluation Support Program.

“Everything about OAERS is about giving students practical learning experiences,” Dr. Penfield said. “That’s what I find exciting about it.”

For more information regarding the services provided by the OAERS program, please visit: http://erm.uncg.edu/oaers/

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  3. Research is key for improving things like nonprofit software and technology, so I'm all for these types of research projects!

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