Date: Tuesday, November 25, 2025
Hi, we are Dr. Angelicque Tucker Blackmon, Dr. Zhina Shen, and Sydney Okland from the Division of Research and Evaluation at Innovative Learning Center (ILC), LLC.
We believe that evaluation is more than measuring outcomes. It’s about translating program data into growth, and every dataset tells a story. Dr. Angelicque Tucker Blackmon and Dr. Zhina Shen lead ILC with a shared commitment to helping STEM educators in higher education see how evaluative insight can strengthen programs.
Earlier this year, the National Science Foundation launched a pilot program designed to accelerate the translation of emerging technologies for national security. Over the summer, our team led an evaluation study of a STEM initiative focused on National Security and Intelligence. We examined how academic innovation and global collaboration work together to prepare students as future national security career professionals. Hot Tip: Our evaluation approach reduces clients’ cognitive load about evaluation. Thus, they remain focused on cultivating career pathways for students who are the next generation of national security and intelligence leaders.
Our firm developed an evaluation engagement model that leverages our expertise around using real-time collaboration, data visuals, and an adaptive feedback cycle with the project team (refer to the ILC web-based engagement model publication). To execute our evaluation engagement model, we conduct bi-weekly Collaborative Insight Meetings with clearly defined agendas. During each meeting, we moderate the cadence of information delivery, integrating verbal explanations and visual cues to reduce cognitive load. Our team pays close attention to participants’ non-verbal cues and uses this meta-data to adjust the discussion depth in real time. During one meeting, the PI exclaimed, “You all have significantly reduced my anxiety!” Our Collaborative Insight Meetings strengthened the partnership between our team and the project team, ensuring evaluation insights are applied and integrated into the project’s development.
By leveraging data from the Collaborative Insight Meetings, utilizing data visuals to depict our evaluation process, sharing our evaluation deliverables, and building interactive dashboards, we keep our clients engaged throughout the evaluation lifecycle. Our evaluation engagement model allows our clients to see trending patterns across implementation phases, and facilitates their immediate adjustment to program activities, leading towards accomplishing goals and objectives.
We learned the benefit of structured Collaborative Insight Meetings on data-driven decision-making. Specifically, we saw how our client engagement model enabled the project team to build their capacity for evaluation, describe the impact of their national security and intelligence project on students, and take steps towards emerging funding opportunities to continue designing and implementing national security and intelligence programming that build future-ready talent.
Dr. Blackmon, Principal Evaluator, has spent over twenty-five years weaving data and humanity into stories of transformation. As a nationally recognized thought leader in STEM education program evaluation, she brings both creative insight and technical precision to every project. Her approach helps project teams turn evaluation into opportunities for deeper insights and awareness. Dr. Zhina Shen, is ILC’s Director of Research and Evaluation. She holds a Ph.D.in Learning Disabilities and Behavior Disorders from The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) and dual master’s degrees in Statistics and Special Education, also from UT Austin. She specializes in advanced statistical modeling, mixed-methods design, and meta-analysis, ensuring that every evaluation is not only rigorous but meaningful within context. Sydney Okland is ILC’s evaluation analyst and Ph.D. candidate in Psychology at UT Austin. Known for her calm precision and steadfast reliability, she brings both analytical rigor and reflective care to every project. Sydney applies her expertise in research design, statistical analysis, and data visualization to assess program outcomes and translate complex data into actionable insights.
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