MISO (Maximizing the Impact of STEM Outreach Through Data-Driven Decision-Making): Building and Evaluating a Community of Practice

This paper describes the second phase of MISO (Maximizing the Impact of STEM Outreach through Data-driven Decision-Making), a campus-wide project, funded by the National Science Foundation, at North Carolina State University. Central to the second phase of the project is the creation of a Community of Practice (CoP) among STEM outreach providers on campus. During the first phase of the project, outreach providers were brought together to develop a better understanding of their goals and strategies for their programs. Over this past summer (the midpoint of the project), the external evaluator undertook a comprehensive review of how successful the project has been at fostering a community of practice using Wenger’s (2011) CoP model. This model describes five cycles of a CoP and was used to frame a set of questions to be posed to the outreach partners in this project as part of semi-structured interviews. All key stakeholders were contacted with seven in-depth interviews conducted. Described is an analysis of these interviews and the lessons learned thus far for creating a campus-wide community of practice of STEM outreach providers and the development of data-driven decision-making tools to help support the continuous improvement goals of these programs. Findings from the evaluation indicate growth over many of the cycles of a CoP with stronger evidence found in the earlier cycles, but considerable promise of future growth. These findings will be highlighted as well as the future strategies for building the community, as informed by this evaluation.