Experience that meets
complexity.

Silver State Evaluations provides external evaluation for a USDA-funded organic wheat research partnership led by Utah State University. The evaluation considers how the collaboration functions, what stakeholders experience, and what the partnership can learn from its work.

Evaluation planning, interviews, and survey development provide a foundation for gathering stakeholder feedback. Bringing those perspectives together supports reflection on the partnership and identifies opportunities for improvement.

A portfolio of more than 35 child-care initiatives supported by federal pandemic relief funding required both a consistent evaluation approach and attention to individual projects. The work combined evaluation planning, extensive stakeholder data collection, and summative reporting across the portfolio.

Evaluation plans and matrices connected project questions to surveys and interviews. Field staff coordination, stakeholder interviews, and integrated analysis supported project-level reports, while review of data and analyses strengthened the consistency of deliverables.

Research-practice partnerships in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and the Republic of the Marshall Islands connected K–12 systems with community colleges to strengthen students’ preparation for postsecondary mathematics.

Marisa Crowder managed this work through McREL’s Regional Educational Laboratory Pacific. The partnerships co-developed mathematics transition courses with education leaders, drawing on local priorities and classroom knowledge to address the transition from high school to college-level coursework.

Evaluation of community programs at the Walnut and Pearson facilities in Clark County centered on stakeholder perspectives and the information needed to understand program experience.

An evaluation plan, tailored surveys, and interview protocols connected the questions to fieldwork. Stakeholder interviews and qualitative and quantitative analysis brought complementary evidence together to inform understanding of the programs.

A partnership between Washoe County School District and the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning supported implementation and evaluation of a district-wide social-emotional learning curriculum. The work also developed a student self-report measure aligned to the district’s SEL standards.

Marisa’s contributions included quantitative and qualitative research and management of large, multiyear datasets. Stakeholder data summits brought educators into the interpretation of findings, connecting student measurement with district decisions about SEL implementation.

Annual project-team surveys and interviews provided a view of collaboration within a multidisciplinary research partnership. The evaluation drew together team members’ experiences to support reflection on how the project was working.

The work included analysis of recurring survey and interview evidence, reporting, and presentation materials. Final-phase evaluation leadership in 2023 included analysis and distribution of the final survey, bringing earlier involvement through to project closeout.

Through The ElevatEd Initiative, Marisa Crowder has supported a workforce needs assessment for the College of Micronesia–FSM, helping the institution understand how it can prepare students for employment.

Her work also includes training the College of the Marshall Islands’ Director of Institutional Research in qualitative research methods and data governance. These engagements support colleges in identifying workforce priorities and strengthening their internal research capacity. Additional work with a Minnesota education agency focused on measures of student mathematics engagement.

The national cluster evaluation of the Fire Science Exchange Network examined how research reaches the people who use it. Surveys gathered perspectives from fire science consumers, producers, and the public, complemented by web analytics on engagement with science exchange resources.

This experience includes survey research using snowball recruitment, analysis of website engagement, and contributions to the 2016–2018 evaluation reports. Automated Google Analytics reporting through Google Sheets made recurring analysis more efficient and reduced repetitive reporting work.