Student Projects

Pitching Their Projects....

One team of students in HT123 Informal Learning for Children presents their final project -- "Grow with me Sesame" -- to visiting executives from Sesame Workshop, the children's producer that created Sesame Street.

After their presentation, the group received detailed feedback from the Sesame experts, instructor Joe Blatt, and the course teaching assistants.

Over the course of two intensive days, all 65 students in the class pitched their projects to Sesame Workshop -- an exciting payoff to their semester-long research and development work. This year's course topic was improving children's health knowledge and behavior; the designated audience was children ages 2 to 6, along with their parents and other caregivers.

In T506, Evaluation for Informed-Decision Making, students presented their final reports via video conferencing as well as in person.

Student group conferences with Project ASSERT staff

NASA's Robotics Alliance Project (a science program for teachers and students), community outreach programs at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass., and Project Assert, an online professional development program for teachers on race, gender, and class, were the programs for which students developed evaluation plans. These presentations were the culmination of an intensive semester's work -- interviewing staff, collaborating in groups, mining documents for information, and more. Read more about this course and the work with NASA.

Instructor Ilona Holland talks with NASA staff via video conferencing.

T523 Students Present Findings to WGBH Producers

A new children's television series and its accompanying website were evaluated by HGSE students in fall 2005, in T-523 Formative Evaluation, taught by TIE faculty member Ilona Holland.

Students presented their evaluation findings to Time Warp Trio producers from WGBH-TV who will use the findings to plan future episodes of the show and make improvements to the website. Nine- and ten-year old children and fourth- and fifth-grade teachers were the subjects in the evaluation studies.

TIE Students Advise NASA's Mars Student Imaging Project

Recently NASA's Public Engagement Program brought in a TIE team to observe and evaluate the effectiveness of their Mars Student Imaging Project (MSIP). MSIP is a high-priority NASA-funded education program. The TIE group -- all participants in Ilona Holland's course on Program Evaluation for Informed Decision Making (T-506) -- included Professor Holland, teaching fellow Joel Obermayer (TIE 2005), and graduate students Deycy Avitia, Rashid Barner, Nicholas Carkner, and Monnette Fung.

The team would need to collect data from first-hand observation and interviews. Background material included NASA's broad MSIP goals and earlier program plans.

On a sunny day in March 2005, NASA flew the team to Phoenix to observe MSIP in action. MSIP, run by Arizona State University, allows groups of 5th - 12th grade-school students to do original research about Mars using the same process as NASA's scientists. The day proved to be illuminating and the team came away having learned a lot:

The visit to the Mars Student Imaging Project not only revealed how some NASA objectives are programmatically achieved, but also revealed disparities between NASA's and MSIP staff's goals. For example, NASA's central office identified reducing the achievement gap and diversifying NASA's workforce as the two main goals for its programs. However, the main goal of the ASU MSIP staff was to increase science literacy by "teaching the scientific process." Although ASU's goals for its program could be a vehicle for achieving NASA's, there were no clear indications that these two sets of goals were being connected along the way! Through observations and conversations with program staff and teachers, I was able to identify peculiarities, strengths, and evaluation needs of the program that were not apparent elsewhere. -Deycy Avitia

The TIE team designed a broad range of studies to help MSIP as it moves forward and, in the process, applied what they were learning in Program Evaluation to the real world.

Elliot and Kim: Analytical Thinking

Before coming to the TIE program, Kim Zern finished her undergraduate degree in Computer Science and Mathematics at Ursinus College in 2001. She held internships with Merck Research Labs in Online Education and with the Museum of Science in Informal Science Education. Elliot Targum graduated from Haverford College in 1999. Before entering the TIE program he worked for two years for Exploration Summer Programs, an educational enrichment program for children grades 4 through 7.

What was the motivation behind this project?

Elliot: This prototype came out of our goal to create an aid for students who are studying for the GRE. Then it expanded to people from all different walks of life with different backgrounds to have some fun while improving their analytical skills.

Kim: We noticed that many people have trouble with the analytical section of the GRE. The traditional way of solving analytical logic games is with pencil and paper. It only allows for one style of learning. It's an abstract way of thinking but it's a concrete way of doing. We wanted to utilize some other learning styles, such as visual and spatial, to get into the analytical frame of mind. We used drag-and-drop functionality, and pictures so people can make visual and spatial representations rather than just X's and O's in a chart.

How did you know what approach to take?

Kim: We sent it out to friends and family all over the country to get the opinion of people who hadn't actually taken the GRE. We made a lot of revisions according to their comments. One of the biggest challenges was transferring puzzles from paper form into graphical form. Designing a solvable puzzle is also harder than you would think.

Elliot: We created the icons on paper, cut them out, and solved the puzzle by moving the icons on a table before it ever ended up on the computer.

Learn more about T522 Educational Software Project Design.

Robyn: Evaluating Cancer Care

During spring semester 2002, students in Lecturer Ilona Holland's Introduction to Evaluation of Technology-Based Programs (T506) prepared evaluation plans for several organizations such as Cancer Care Connection, Plimoth Plantation, and Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST). Cancer Care Connection (CCC), a Delaware-based non-profit organization, worked with the class to develop an implementation plan for evaluating their telephone response line that provides information and support to people living with and affected by cancer.

According to CCC President Paula Breen, "In addition to the report, we benefited enormously from the process of interacting with bright, concerned, and motivated professionals. The students asked probing, insightful questions. We answered as best we could, but many of those questions will linger as topics of ongoing inquiry for us. Most of all the 'class time' we shared with the young women and men in Cambridge was an oasis for reflection for CCC staff caught up in the world of a start up non profit agency. Most days we feel like we are building the aircraft in flight as we construct a service for which a very immediate need exists. The students helped us to pause (in itself a gift) and communicate with each other as well as with the class group."

Robyn Viloria was one of the students working with Cancer Care Connection. Below she talks about the project.

What have you learned about evaluating technology-based programs?

When evaluating any program, you have to identify the stakeholders, clarify the mission and goals, and then develop criteria for success. Oh yeah, always use more than one method of data collection!

How have you enjoyed the experience?

I liked working for a real client. The organization was very willing to communicate via conference calls and email. It was very satisfying to know that the evaluation we were putting together was going to be of real value to the organization and could possibly impact their program in the future.

How do you think you will use what you've learned in the future?

I will definitely use these skills while writing any proposals or reports. It gives me a list of basic questions to ask when looking at something with a critical eye. It also forces you to think things all the way through and identify any assumptions you made about a situation.

Learn more about T506 Evaluation for Informed Decision-Making.