Goals

Over the course of the semester, we will develop a roadmap for equitable policy evaluation – in problem identification and formulation, interventions and analysis, and implementation and evaluation. Through team-based projects focusing on policies targeted at the challenges faced by different populations and people, we’ll generate concrete examples of what such a process could look like across domains.

Expectations and Evaluations

We will test and expand our understanding through a semester-long team-based application to a chosen population, problem, policy. Grades will depend on your learning and contribution to this collective effort, which will be assessed by a combination of individual work and team-based work.

Contributions to Material/Class (50%):

The individual work is directed at supporting everyone’s ability to effectively contribute to a series of team memos.

• Reading annotations (36%): To facilitate understanding and discussion we’ll all contribute to collaborative annotation and commenting on the reading using Perusall. I will review these ahead of class to help organize our discussion.

  We have reading assigned on eighteen out of twenty-eight days (excluding 8/25). Contributing annotations to readings for at least twelve days is necessary for full credit. Make at least four full contributions for a given day’s reading.

  A full contribution will go beyond agreeing with a point or asking a question. It will engage a point, connect it to other ideas we might learn from, amend it to suggest a more limited or wider scope, note conditions under which it is more or less relevant, ponder how it might inform your project or other work of which you are aware, ask a question and provide an initial answer. If others have already commented on a passage and you want to address and elaborate on the initial comment (beyond basic agreement), you should. Think about the kinds of things you might raise in a discussion and bring them up in the annotations.

• Collaborative Evaluations (14%): Each week (beginning the week of 8/30), you’ll evaluate your own contributions for the week on a scale from 1 to 3 with a shot (e.g., one sentence) explanation:

  1. I attended, but my head wasn’t in it or I didn’t prepare and didn’t speak.
  2. I offered some comments and stayed engaged, but I know I could do more; or my contributions across the week were uneven.
  3. I was fully prepared and engaged and contributed ideas that transformed the way others understood the material or moved our collective understanding forward.

  Once you begin submitting team-based work, you’ll submit a similar evaluation of your contributions as well as those of your team members after each brief is submitted.

  If we have conflicting interpretations of your performance, we’ll chat. Final evaluation of your contributions is collaborative: you’re proposing an initial assessment that will be evaluated by me.

Project Brief Work (50%):

See more about the project briefs

• Pre-brief sketch (5%), 9/15 (by 11:59pm), 2 page outline/bullets

• Problem identification brief (10%)

  • Round robin, 9/22
  • Presentation, 9/27, 3 minutes presentation and 3 minutes of Q&A
  • Written brief, 10/1 (by 11:59pm), 1500 words max (~ 3 single-spaced pages)

• Policy Intervention brief (10%)

  • Round robin, 10/13
  • Presentation, 10/18, 3 minutes presentation and 3 minutes of Q&A
  • Written brief, 10/22, 1500 words max (~ 3 single-spaced pages)

• Policy Implementation brief (10%)

  • Round robin, 11/3
  • Presentation, 11/8, 3 minutes presentation and 3 minutes of Q&A
  • Written brief, 11/12, 1500 words max (~ 3 single-spaced pages)

• Policy Equity brief, (15%)

  • Round robin, 12/1
  • Presentation, 12/6
  • Written brief, 12/10, 2,000 words max (~ 4 single-spaced pages)