Issue link: https://takingitglobal.uberflip.com/i/1542824
R. Adeboye, C. Flewelling,V. Ogbole, E. O'Sullivan 64 Accordingly, the number of teachers mentioning a given outcome should not be interpreted as evidence of the extent to which that outcome was achieved 33 . Rather, this line of questioning was designed to elicit teachers' perspectives on how, and whether, they saw these outcomes emerging in their classrooms. Some teachers described how Connected North deepened students' understanding of the subject matter, whether that be deepened mental connections, new skills, or broadened horizons that gave students a sense of a greater range of possibilities for their futures. For example, one teacher of younger students described how they would sometimes refer back to things they had learned in Connected North, noting that "it's a different avenue for them to help remember some of the things we're trying to teach them." A teacher of older elementary students described how they had worked to hone their approach to participating in Connected North, so that they could capitalize on the presence of experts by asking probing questions, which even impressed the Content Providers with their acuity. Write-in responses to the teachers' survey, provided additional signals of increased student understanding. A moderate number of responses (99% positive) described things like how the hands-on activities or practical applications of concepts supported students' grasp of those concepts, and how simply learning the concept in a different way was helpful to some students, e.g., "Sometimes a different teacher helps students understand a different concept in various subjects. Not everyone learns the same way." The student survey also provides mild positive evidence for this outcome: over the evaluated period, 76% of respondents at least somewhat agreed that they had "learned something new from the guest speaker." This seems like a reasonable level of success, though (as noted above in the context of another student survey question) caution should be exercised in interpreting this result as, owing to how the question was framed, there is no clear comparator for this statistic. That is, it is not known how many students would claim to have learned something new from a regular school lesson, without Connected North. As mentioned above, broadened conceptions of future career and educational pathways was also regarded as a dimension of increased understanding. Relevantly, 44% of surveyed students at least somewhat agreed that they "see more options for careers and post-secondary education in my future." Based on the classification rubric used, it was determined that this statistic did not provide meaningful evidence either for or against the idea that Connected North sessions have been contributing to student understanding. 33 This consideration applies to all semi-structured interview data in this evaluation, but is particularly salient when considering outcomes given the structure of the related interview questions. "After doing the [heart dissection session] we kept referring back to it as we were learning about the heart. Students could easily picture the different chambers of the heart and how the valves work because they had seen them and felt them during the dissection." -Teacher Survey Respondent