Startland Education partners with Kansas City area schools to bring “human-centered design thinking to the classroom” with the goals of inspiring future leaders of social change and entrepreneurship.

UERC and Startland are collaborating to design, refine, and implement a robust and scalable evaluation of Startland’s student and teacher-facing education initiatives. The evaluation is examining changes in skills, attitudes, and academic engagement among students participating in Startland programs, the impact of Startland’s professional development programs on teacher mindset and indicators of teacher retention, and he forces that influence participation and successful implementation of design thinking in schools.

The utilization-focused design of this evaluation is deeply participatory and iterative in nature, with a primary goal to ensure the usefulness of the process and the information it generates. The UERC team is working closely with Startland staff, key stakeholders, and educators and administrators from partner schools to understand their varied information needs and engage them in the evaluation process.