Chapter 2 Methodology for Lining Up Cohort of Educators

To recruit highly qualified teacher applicants to participate in the project, we took the following approach.

2.1 Opportunity Announcement

We developed a flyer (Figure 1) to attract applicants and articulate the project requirements. In the flyer, we provided contact information and links to the project webpage for more information for those interested. We also articulated out what would expected during each time frame and phase of the project (summer, fall/winter, spring) to quickly help readers get a sense of what the opportunity was about.

Figure 1. Example of announcement flyer used to recruit educators into the 2017-18 cohort.

We posted the flyer to online sites as well as disseminated an email announcement across existing channels for educators in the areas surrounding each participating university. Additionally, through university partners, previous educators, and/or internet-based searches we identified potential list serves, email lists, social media, and discussion boards to post the project announcement in order to increase the visibility of the opportunity for a wider range of educators to apply.

2.2 Application and Acceptance Process

We used the online survey tools Qualtrics and Google forms to collect applications from interested educators. We found that using an online platform made it easier to disseminate the application more broadly to interested applicants as well as to share the responses of applicants more easily among the distributed Sci-I Project team throughout the country.

Through the application process we worked to gain a better sense of the applying educator’s by including questions regarding the applicant’s demographics and teaching history, their content knowledge and comfort with data and the sciences, their approach to and confidence in teaching the process of science, and their current usage of real-world data in their teaching. Our application form from the 2017-18 application cycle can be viewed here.

Then came the fun part as we reviewed the amazing applicants! First we removed incomplete applications. Then we used the overall goals of the project to guide our review of the applicants. We scored each candidate with a 1-yes, 2-maybe, 3-no, for each of the following three criteria:

Overall match with project goals - How well did the applicant articulate a desire to embody the project goals in their teaching?
Strength in science practices / data skills - How well did the applicant explain their current approach to teaching the practices of science and to integrating data into their teaching?
Desire for real science experience for students to increase students’ engagement/ excitement in STEM - How well did the applicant communicate wanting to use real world experiences to engage their students further in science?

Each member of the Sci-I Project team reviewed the responses from each applicant through a blinded data table. Meaning one member of the team removed all of the personally identifying information from each applicant’s response before any applicant was reviewed and scored. Our intention was that this created a more objective initial review of the applicants, rather than a scoring based on known qualities of individuals.

After each Sci-I Project team member scored the de-iendtified applicants, one member of the team would average the scores across all reviews and connect those score values with the personal identifying information. As a project team we convened a conference call to discuss the results across all three categories, as well as any other information anyone from the team knew about the applicants. In our experience, sometimes educators looked great on paper but had a known history of not following through and thus were avoided. Also a known educator who would be a great candidate but did not complete the application well was considered to be included in the cohort. This process helped us balance responding to all interested educators’ applications as well as our personal experiences with some of the applicants.

As we were finalizing which educators would be offered spaces in the upcoming cohort, we tried to include schools that served predominantly underserved and underrepresented students. We accessed data for these criteriea through self-reporting by applicants and/or by researching the schools from which teachers had applied using the appropriate state Department of Education online databases. During the review process we also made sure to review the demographics of the schools. We wanted to provide the opporunity to educators and students from a wide range of educational settings, rather than just a selected group of schools. Additionally, we strongly encouraged educators to apply with a colleague from their school, as we have found that such partnerships results in better follow through with the project given a built in support system within the school. Therefore, we prioritized educator pairs from the same school higher than individual applicants (as indicated in the flyer, webpage, and application).

Finally, after reviewing each applicant individually, we reviewed the composition of the cohort as a whole in order to make our final decisions about which educators to offer spots in the project. Ideally we aimed for 10-12 educators from each geographic location within a cohort (meaning 5-6 schools located within 1-1.5 hours of the hosting university for the Student Research Symposium). Once selected, we sent acceptance emails to each educator and asked for a response within three weeks to confirm their spot within the project (example of the acceptance email that we sent to teachers in Missouri in 2017 can be accessed here). If there were applicants who were accepted but no longer interested in participating, we offered their spot to someone on the waitlist again to increase the number of teachers and students able to participate in the project each year.

2.3 Letters of Agreement with Educators / Administrators

In addition to asking each teacher to confirm their intention to participate in the project, we also asked everyone to complete a Letter of Agreement in conjunction with their supervisor. This letter helped communicate the expectations for participating in the project throughout the year for both the teacher and the supervisor.

The Letter of Agreement outlined what:

Participating educators, students, and schools would gain from participating in the project (including the amount and timing of stipend(s) for participating educators).
Expectations of work and timeline of components for the educators to complete as part of the project successfully.

(The Letter of Agreement template that we used for the Missouri cohort during the 2017-18 implementation can be accessed here.)

We asked supervisors/administrators to sign the Letter of Agreement as well as the educators to encourage communication before the start of the project about what participating would entail, and also to articulate what supports the educators may need from their supervisors to fully implement the project.

2.4 Communication Pre-Workshop

We predominately used email to communicate with participating teachers between acceptance to the project and the start of the week-long summer workshop, as all teachers used that communication medium. Beyond reminding educators to complete and send their signed Letters of Agreement, we also sent regular emails to share necessary information in the weeks leading up to the workshop.

We worked to be as transparent as possible with regards to setting expectations for the week-long workshop. Therefore, we captured as much information as possible in an initial email to provide a document of record for participating teachers to refer and revisit. This included things like:

Details regarding travel and accommodation logistics for the workshop;
Requests for information about any food restrictions or accommodation requirements during the workshop;
Information about the workshop, what to expect, what to bring, how to get here, where to park, etc.;
Suggestions of things to do prior to the workshop (e.g., materials to read or explore ahead), as well as a reminder of expectations for the project following the workshop;
Descriptions of the prepared data files that we would be using during the workshop, for those interested in looking through the data a bit before the workshop (we made these available through a shared Google folder for all participants at the workshop);
Draft workshop agenda (with the caveat that it would most likely change a bit before the workshop started); and
Requests for emergency medical information to have on file during the workshop.

Examples of the emails that to we sent 3-4 weeks ahead and 1 week ahead of the workshop can be accessed here from the 2017-18 implementation.

We fortunately were able to reimburse participants for their travel and accommodations during the summer workshop and compensate them for their participation in the year-long project via a two-part stipend from our grant. We found that these financial assistances were greatly appreciated by all of the teachers, and key aspects that enabled some teachers to participate who otherwise would not have been able to had they had to pay out of pocket or ask their schools to pay for their participation. Given that we were paying the participating teachers, we therefore also communicated ahead of the workshop all of the details about the reimburesements and payments. We also provided a packet of information at the workshop which included all of the paperwork necessary to pay the participants. An example of the Travel Reimbursement Information from the 2017 summer workshop can be accessed here.

In addition to our email correspondences prior to the workshop, we asked participants to complete a pre-workshop survey so that we could best tailor the summer workshop for the wants and needs of the participating educators in that cohort. This helped use to fine tune the order, flow, and depth of the activities we did during the workshop.

We also included questions in the pre-workshop survey that provided our baseline evaluation data for all of the participating teachers. See Seeing the Impact of the Sci-I Project section for more details about our evaluation approach overall.