Sun Associates works with schools, districts, state departments of education, and other educational organizations nationwide. All of our work is grounded in a thorough understanding of technology's role as a tool for improving teaching and learning. We take a broad approach to technology implementation which emphasizes the need to link the efforts of teachers, students, administrators, parents, and other community members in a common vision of the uses and value of classroom technology. Our staff have expertise in educational practice at both the K-12 and higher education levels.

Our approach is realized through services centered around:

• Evaluation of school and district educational technology implementation
• Assistance to school and district strategic technology planning committees
• Program evaluation services for educational projects related to many curriculum areas

In most cases, an important element of our work is capacity development in our client districts. Sun Associates works our clients to design evaluation strategies, professional development, and strategic plans which will inspire reflection and change. Our clients often choose to work with us to both facilitate plans and to implement some or all of their plans. We always strive to leave our clients in a position where they can be even stronger collaborators in the future.

Several examples of the firm's recent work are listed below. For direct links to some of our clients' websites, visit our Clients, On-Line page. Information on our staff - including resumes - can be found on the Sun Associates Staff page

Program Evaluation

School District Technology Audits

Sun Associates designs plans and procedures to evaluate and assess the impact of educational innovations on teaching and learning. We take clients beyond their current strategic plans and into an area where they can begin to assess their progress in meeting the vision and goals of these plans.

A Technology Audit of Brookline (MA) Public Schools– Sun Associates conducted a district-wide audit of the technology program of the Public Schools of Brookline.  The report  from this work helped inform Brookline’s program review of instructional technology.

Technology Audit and District Plan Facilitation for Newton (MA) Public Schools – Sun Associates has conducted a district-wide technology integration audit for Newton Public Schools during the 2006-2007 school year.  Follow-up work includes facilitation of local planning work with the ultimate goal of producing a new five-year strategic plan for the district.

Support to State Departments of Education

Sun Associates works with state departments of education to update the technology plans and to provide training support to local districts in the evaluation of district technology plans.

Creating 21st Century Classrooms Project – Vermont State Department of Education

Sun Associates is the external evaluator of a statewide project to develop teacher skills in the use and integration of Web 2.0 tools and other new media to support 21st Century learning. Now in its third cohort of teachers, evaluation work includes formative and summatively assessing teacher professional development, project management, and the actual classroom implementation and student learning impacts of the project work. Over the course of the next year (2010 – 2011), Sun Associates will observe and collect data from the approximately 70 teachers currently implementing the project in their schools across the state.

Long Range Planning and Program Evaluation Support to the U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Education

Sun Associates has created strategic plans and conducted multiple territory-wide evaluations of technology integration and implementation in schools and classrooms across the U.S. Virgin Islands. This unique environment allows us to address simultaneously issues typically associated with remote rural areas (e.g., isolation and poor communication) and intensely urban areas (high poverty, decaying school infrastructure, etc.). During the 2009 – 2010 school year, we have written the current territory-wide technology plan, both local district long-range plans, and have conducted a building by building assessment of effective teacher technology use.

State-wide Technology Plan and Local District Evaluation Planning -- Alabama State Department of Education

Sun Associates provides support to the Alabama State Department of Education in the creation of its 2007 – 2012 state technology plan and subsequent creation of a new approach to local technology evaluation.  This work includes providing consulting services to the state planning committee and State Education Agency staff. Follow up support to the state includes the development of two state-wide technology surveys and a pilot project with five districts (2006) and a subsequent cohort of 12 districts (2007 – 2008) to create unique local level technology assessment procedures.

Title IID Evaluation

For a number of years, we have engaged with a large number of Title IID and A.R.R.A funding recipients around the issue of external program evaluation.   We also work with all Northeast states to develop resources and approaches to address US Department of Education guidelines for Title IID evaluation.

Teaching American History Program Evaluation

External evaluation services are provided to U.S. Department of Education-funded Teaching American History (TAH) grants.

• Essex LINCs - Beverly (MA) Public Schools and Salem State College
• History Connected - Reading (MA) Public Schools
• Imagination, Invention, and Innovation - Billerica (MA) Public Schools
• Leadership in America - Andover (MA) Public Schools and University of Massachusetts at Lowell
• Making Freedom - Burlington (MA) Public Schools
• The Idea of Freedom - The Education Cooperative (TEC)
• Pathways to American History - Fitchburg (MA) Public Schools and Fitchburg State College
• Writing History - New Bedford (MA) Public Schools and Bristol Community College
• American Promises - Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association and Frontier Regional School District
• The Story of America - Fitchburg (MA) Public Schools and Fitchburg State College
• American Promises - Westfield (MA) Public Schools and Westfield State College
• Pursuing Justice - Public Schools of Brookline (MA)
• Emerging America - Hampshire Educational Collaborative
• Encounters and Exchanges in US History – Reading (MA) Public School

Large Scale Program Evaluation

Sun Associates provides program evaluation services to multi-state and regional funded initiatives from the U.S. Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, and various foundations and organizations. Recent projects include:

American History and Civics Initiative Meta-Evaluation and Program Support – Working with the WGBH Interactive, the Program Manager for CPB’s AHCI initiative, Sun Associates provided meta-evaluation support to this $20 million Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) initiative. The AHCI initiative has funded seven projects that use new and interactive media to support K-12 American History and Civics education. Sun Associates worked with the Initiative to guide the individual project evaluations to utilize common metrics for measuring the projects’ impact on student learning.

RI-ITEST Project Evaluation – RI-ITEST is a National Science Foundation-funded “ITEST” project held by the Concord Consortium. This project involves training teachers to use computer-based modeling software to engage students in analysis of data related to physics and chemistry. RI-ITEST is now implemented in several dozen schools in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts. Sun Associates is the project evaluator for RI-ITEST. In this work we conduct classroom observations of teachers and students using the modeling activities, observe project professional development and assess project outcomes using a set of performance indicators we developed specifically for this project.

Field-Based Data Collection for the Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory’s (NEIREL) Long-Range Study on Literacy – Sun Associates worked with NEIREL and its partners AIR and CAST to implement a two year study of technology-based literacy interventions. This study was built around a quasi-scientific research methodology that compared the efficacy of Thinking Reader to other non-technology-based literacy interventions.

NEIRTEC Evaluation -- Sun Associates served as the program evaluator for the Northeast and Islands Regional Technology in Education Consortium (NEIRTEC). NEIRTEC was one of 10 U.S. Department of Education technology technical assistance projects.

NH Preparing New Teachers 2 Evaluation -- Sun Associates is the program evaluator for this $1.2 million/year US Department of Education "PT3" grant. The grant is administered by the NH Department of Education and serves all Institutions of Higher Education in NH. The overarching goal of the project is to improve pre-service education faculty’s capacity to integrate technology as a tool for learning.

Other Program Evaluations

• St. Louis (MI) Public Schools Technology Evaluation– formative evaluation of technology’s impact on teaching and learning.  This project is a pilot for ultimately developing evaluation projects 11 districts in this Central Michigan educational service region.
• Katonah-Lewisboro (NY) Schools Technology Evaluation - formative evaluation of the impact of technology on student achievement and teacher behavior in the district.
• Evaluation of Lexington (MA) Public Schools Technology Plan Implementation – evaluation of the impact and effectiveness of professional development initiatives to develop teacher technology skills and technology infused curriculum.
• Evaluation of Cambridge (MA) Public Schools’ Technology Staff Development Process – evaluation design and implementation of the district’s “design team” approach to technology staff development.  Additional components included examination of district-developed curriculum activities and student technology proficiencies.
• Assessing Technology's Impact at the Classroom Level, Fayette County (KY) Public Schools -- creation and implementation of an evaluation design framework to examine technology's impact on student achievement and teacher productivity.
• Project Evaluators for the Development of a Systemic Improvement Protocol and Product Catalog – summative evaluation for an NSF-funded project to create a rating and review protocol for systemic reforms arising from state systemic initiatives (SSIs).
• Project Evaluation for Co-nect Schools’ Comprehensive School Reform Grant – in partnership with Rockman et al., Sun Associates has designed and implemented the program evaluation for this large, multi-year, CSR grant.  Work involves profiling Co-nect’s services and documenting the effectiveness of this program at the local school level.
• Evaluation of USVI Technology Literacy Challenge Fund Grant Implementation – working with Learning Innovations at WestEd, Sun Associates profiled the work and documented the impact of three years of federal TLCF funding in the 38 schools of the U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Education.  Findings have been used to design new programs and procedures for technology allocation in the Territory’s schools.

Implementation Projects

Massachusetts Department of Education, New Teacher Technology Mentor Training -- Development and implementation of mentor teacher training for a school year 2000/2001 TLCF-funded project involving 51 schools across the state.  Sun Associates is responsible for training mentor teachers in effective mentoring,  professional development strategies, and technology integration.

Mercer County (WV) Public Schools Integrating Technology in the Curriculum Institute – Development and implementation of a technology professional development institute for 23 schools in this large, mostly rural, school district. Sun Associates created and facilitated a summer institute with 150 participants and then conducted follow-up sessions across the district in Fall, 2001. 

Independent Schools Teacher Mentoring Project, St. Thomas/St. John (USVI) District – Sun Associates designed and implemented this intensive teacher mentoring project in St. Thomas, VI.  Sun Associates staff worked with teams of teachers to design technology-infused curriculum units and then worked directly with these teachers, and their students, to implement the units over a two-week mentoring residency.

West Bolivar (MS) School District -- This intensive, three-day, summer professional development Institute was designed to jump-start a team of technology-using teachers in a rural Mississippi school district. Participants were oriented toward "best practice" strategies in technology integration and learned a variety of skills in curriculum mapping and planning. Then, small teams of participants created technology-infused curriculum units that they would actually deploy during the coming school year. The Institute website was maintained as a "work in progress" for the teacher participants.

Lynn (MA) Public Schools -- Sun Associates has developed professional development for Lynn Public Schools' in-building technology facilitators. Over the course of the 2002-2003 school year, we have offered a session on developing project-based learning units and another on WebQuests.

Home	Search	Contact Us

Information on this site that has been produced by Sun Associates is Copyright 1997 - 2010 Sun Associates and is available for individual, one-time, use by educators. Duplication is prohibited without permission. All other material is the property of its authors and Sun Associates makes no warranty for its use or accuracy.