- Year 2024
- NSF Noyce Award # Several
- First Name Kavita
- Last Name Mittapalli
- Institution MN Associates, Inc.
- Role/Position Other: Evaluator
- Proposal Type Workshop
- Workshop Category Track 1: Scholarships and Stipends
- Workshop Disciplines Audience STEM Education (general)
- Target Audience Co-PIs, Evaluators/Education Researchers, Other Faculty/Staff, Project PIs
- Topics Lessons learned from developing/implementing a Track 1 project / Track 2 project / Track 3 project / or Track 4 Research project, Program management 101
- Additional Presenter(s)
Nina de las Alas
Goals
The spaghetti and marshmallow activity aims to highlight the importance of participation, collaboration, teamwork, flexibility, and creativity in the project management and evaluation processes for Noyce grants- all Tracks. By working together as a team to build a stable structure, participants experience firsthand the value of diverse perspectives and collective problem-solving. The activity encourages adaptability, as initial designs often require careful planning, and adjustments, mirroring the need for iterative improvements in program evaluations (as well as research). This activity also fosters innovation, demonstrating that unconventional approaches can lead to robust solutions, outputs, and outcomes. Ultimately, this hands-on exercise underscores the significance of strong foundations, resilience, and teamwork in achieving meaningful and sustainable outcomes in any collaborative project such as the NSF-funded Noyce grant.
Evidence
Field experiencesProject management
Proposal
The spaghetti and marshmallow activity (1.5 hours) serves as an engaging, hands-on exercise designed to illustrate the key principles of collaborative evaluation for NSF-funded Noyce grants. Participants (benefiting Noyce PIs, CoPIs, Social Science Researchers, Senior Personnel, and Evaluators) will work together to construct stable structures using spaghetti and marshmallows (within 30 minutes), highlighting the importance of careful planning, diverse and inclusive perspectives, collective problem-solving, and teamwork. This activity will demonstrate the need for flexibility and adaptability, as initial designs often require adjustments, paralleling the iterative nature of evaluation processes for the Noyce grants. It also fosters creativity and innovation, showing how unconventional methods can yield effective solutions- outputs and outcomes. By emphasizing strong foundations, resilience, and the power of collaboration, this activity will provide valuable insights into conducting robust and meaningful project management and evaluations for Noyce grants.
