Educational Proposal Development

NSF Proposals, including CAREER

The EERC provides both proposal-preparation consultation and assessment and evaluation services for NSF CAREER as well as other proposals, both external (e.g., NSF, NIH, etc.) and internal (e.g., Provost’s Innovation in Education award). The EERC will develop an assessment plan for an education-related proposal that aligns well with the instructor’s learning and instructional objectives. This is done after personally consulting with the instructor or proposal writer about his/her instructional goals and objectives. Assessment activities may include survey, interview/focus group, or reflective protocols, classroom observation, statistical analysis of student performance data, and/or qualitative content analysis of student open-ended perspectives, among other activities.

Assessment & Evaluation

We provide assessment and evaluation services for proposals and grants. Please contact Renee Clark , Director of Assessment, for more information. The following are assessment instruments and references associated with measuring different aspects of engineering student learning. Please contact Drs. Mary Besterfield-Sacre or Larry Shuman prior to using an instrument. Note web versions are available for all instruments.

The following two papers provide our overarching philosophy regarding assessment and measuring students' learning.

• Besterfield-Sacre, M. and LJ Shuman. "The Future of Assessment."Designing Better Engineering Education Through Assessment: A Practical Resource for Faculty and Department Chairs on Using Assessment and ABET Criteria to Improve Student Learning, edited by Spurlin, J., Rajala, S., & Lavelle, J., 307-327. Sterling, Va: Stylus Publishing (2008). 
  
  
• Shuman, L.J., M. Besterfield-Sacre, and J. McGourty. "The ABET 'Professional Skills' - Can they be Taught? Can they be Assessed?"Journal of Engineering Education 94, no 1 (2005): 41 - 55.