Externally Funded Projects
Consultations and Evaluation for Engineering Education Proposals and Grants
Many federally funded grant projects require researchers to include information on how the educational portion of the work has been successful or has impacted students. The Leonhard Center’s Assessment and Instructional Support (AIS) faculty can provide consultations on engineering education proposals including education evaluation. However, our capacity to join research teams is limited, and it is constrained by National Science Foundation (NSF) policy.
When requesting a consultation that may result in the Leonhard Center joining your research team, please keep the following in mind:
- Contact the Leonhard Center early in your writing process. You will have more success working with us if we have sufficient time before the submission deadline to prepare materials and establish the details for how we will be working together.
- Specific project requirements. To prepare for our consultation with potential collaborators, please send us the request for proposal (RFP) under consideration, the RFP deadline, and a brief overview of your project. Some examples of NSF calls that the Leonhard Center has previously worked on include:
To request a consultation to discuss your externally funded project, please email the Leonhard Center.
Please note that the Leonhard Center does not have the capacity or necessary contacts to support K-12 outreach. Faculty interested in K-12 outreach or assessment as part of their research should contact Tracy Peterson in the College of Engineering Center for Engineering Outreach and Inclusion or the Center for Science and the Schools within the College of Education.
Leonhard Center Support for CAREER Proposals
Due to the high volume of interest in submitting for an NSF CAREER (Faculty Early Career Development Program) award, the Leonhard Center offers support in the form of annual workshops and a CAREER awardees’ learning community. Faculty within the Leonhard Center, who have expertise in engineering education, educational psychology, and assessment, host multiple spring workshops to aid faculty in writing the educational component of their CAREER proposal. Additionally, the Leonhard Center has launched a learning community of all Penn State College of Engineering CAREER award recipients. Through this learning community, CAREER awardees will have the opportunity to participate in meetings—facilitated by the Leonhard Center—focused on their needs regarding the educational component of their proposals, such as evaluation, project sustainability, and dissemination. For more information, email the Leonhard Center.
