Focus Group Protocol

Appendix F: Awardee Planning Focus Group Protocol

Questions for Primary Investigators’ Focus Groups

Summer of Innovation Kick-Off Meeting

Partners/Awardees Activities

• How have you identified and developed your SoI partnerships? Are there certain roles that you are having difficulty filling?

• What challenges have you encountered in developing the partnerships? Are there particular organizations with which you are finding it hard to develop a relationship?

• How are you planning to manage your program? How centralized do you think this management will be? To what extent will the local sites operate autonomously?

• How are you planning to manage the partnerships specifically?

• For the whole project, do you have a sense of how much additional funding you’ll need to meet NASA’s requirements beyond what has been awarded you? Have you sought additional funding beyond NASA’s SoI award? How successful have these efforts been?

• What sorts of guidance and support do you expect NASA to provide to enable you to operate independent of NASA SoI funding in the years to come?

• NASA is emphasizing continuous improvement of the activities. What do you think the NASA means by this? How are you planning to respond?

• Do you have any additional concerns about your partners and management issues as you move forward? What challenges are you anticipating?

Certified Teacher Activities

• How are you planning to recruit certified teachers? How are the recruiting activities going? How helpful are the recruiting materials that NASA provided you? To what extent have you customized them?

• What do you see as NASA’s role in the professional development for certified teachers? What resources do you expect them to bring?

• How and when are you planning to provide the certified teachers’ professional development? Why are you taking this approach?

• How are you planning to use certified teachers during the SoI student activities?

• Beyond professional development, what supports are you planning to provide certified teachers?

• What challenges are you anticipating in implementing the certified teacher activities?

Non-Certified Educator Activities

• How are you planning to use non-certified instructors during the SoI student activities? Why are you planning to use non-certified instructors for these activities rather than certified teachers?

• What supports are you planning to provide the non-certified instructors?

• What supports do you expect NASA to provide the non-certified instructors?

• How would you describe the relationship between your certified and non-certified teachers? Will they be collaborating with each other to lead the student activities?

• What challenges are you anticipating related to working with non-certified educators?

Student Activities

• How are you planning to recruit students? Do you have specific strategies for reaching NASA’s targeted groups of underserved and underrepresented students? How are the recruiting activities going? How helpful are the recruiting materials that NASA provided you? To what extent have you customized them?

• How are you planning to meet NASA’s summer requirements of 40 hours of STEM programming? How are you planning to use NASA curriculum materials and other resources? Do you plan to modify NASA’s curriculum materials? Will you be drawing on non-NASA curriculum materials?

• How do you expect NASA to support the integration of NASA resources into the activities?

• How are you planning to track and retain students so that the majority of those who participate in summer also participate in the school-year?

• How are you planning to meet NASA’s school-year requirements of 25 hours of STEM programming? How are you planning to use NASA curriculum materials and other resources? To what extent will this programming be integrated in the school day? How much will happen outside the school day?

• What challenges are you anticipating related to the student activities?

Closing

• Do you have any additional concerns about the upcoming SoI activities that we have not discussed?

National Aeronautics and Space Administration - Summer of Innovation Appendix F-3