As the Senior Evaluation Associate at Facing History, Brittany collects and analyzes data to assess the impact of our programs and resources. Get to know her, as well as what she does for Facing History!
Why are evaluations important?
Evaluations are important because they offer us an avenue of understanding. Teachers and students provide feedback for us to grow as well as highlight what aspects of our work are effective and have the greatest impact.
What role does the evaluation team play in summer professional development?
Summer professional development evaluations are a fundamental part of our work. We’ve been evaluating them for nearly two decades. At the end of select summer professional developments, participants complete a survey rating their experience. Across the last ten years of data, ratings have been consistently high across the board in terms of the seminar’s impact on educators and whether participants would recommend the professional development to others.
What’s one of your favorite things that educators or students have shared with you?
My favorite thing that educators have shared time and time again is that going through a professional development helps rejuvenate them. Our programs reinvigorate them to stay in the field and to continue implementing equity work in their classrooms, which is more important now than ever.
My favorite thing that students have shared is that because of Facing History they were more willing and able to engage with people who held different perspectives than them. Students have shared that they have become more open, accepting, and understanding of different viewpoints as well as more confident sharing their own perspectives and beliefs.
What’s next in store for Evaluation at Facing History?
We have two key priorities we’re shifting towards. First, we want to conduct more student data collection. Through student outcome studies, we intend to gather data directly from students about their academic and behavioral outcomes. Second, as we focus as a larger organization on school and district work, the evaluation team is similarly moving towards school and district evaluation projects so that we can better understand what is working in these contexts.
