Request Proposal Educator Landscape Analysis

PROJECT OVERVIEW

For over 40 years, the Education division and now the Education and Community Engagement Division has been committed to supporting Geography Education across the United States and Canada with the primary focus on educators serving learners in K-12 classrooms and informal learning spaces. A lot has changed in the world since the inception of our work. The COVID-19 pandemic reconceptualized what teaching and learning looks like from in-person to remote learning among other changes.

The increased focus on and growth of technology integration in K-12 schools has also impacted learner engagement in both positive and negative ways. We are evolving our education and community engagement work to meet the needs of educators and learners for today and the future by leveraging this moment to redefine what National Geographic Education means for our existing audiences and those we seek to recruit.

As we prepare for the next phase of our Education and Community Engagement work, we want to design an end-to-end Educator Experience that takes into account the knowledge, skills, expertise, and interactions of educators and the earning journey an educator has with us. From their initial discovery and use of our resources and/or programs to post-engagement follow-ups, we want educators to become life‑long members of the NGS and NGS ECE community equipped with new knowledge and skills that will allow them to better achieve their desired outcomes as they build a strong connection to National Geographic.

In order to do this we need to understand who educators are, what they need, how they can learn from us and how we can learn from them.

To support this endeavor, we would like to better understand the educational landscape in the United States and Canada for environmental education, conservation education, STEAM education, and geography education. We would also like to better understand why educators engage (meaningfully interact and build relationships) or would likely engage with us based on the mission of National Geographic Society and the offerings of the Education Community Engagement division.

What are educators looking for in terms of engagement and connection and what would keep them engaged. Having access to this information will better equip us to identify where our existing offerings and opportunities meet needs, any gaps in our offerings, and where the best opportunities are for us to develop an educator experience with an engagement model that meets the needs of a greater number of educators for deep, immersive learning and exchange.

The goals of this research project include but are not limited to:

• Understand the teaching and learning context and landscape for K-12 educators who serve K-12 learners in the United States and Canada
• In the last 5 years, what are the structures, policies, technologies, and social factors that have shaped and impacted K-12 education?
• How, if at all, are courses or subject areas like environmental education, conservation, Science, Technology, the Arts, Engineering and Mathematics (STEAM) education, geography, and the social sciences integrated into the K-12 curriculum and informal education contexts?
• What types of teaching and learning methods and pedagogies are K-12 educators most likely and/or interested in using with their students and that guide their teaching practice?
• What do K-12 educators need for their own professional growth and to enhance the teaching and learning experience from their learning contexts?
• Understand how our offerings resonate with K-12 educators in the United States and Canada across all contexts—classrooms and informal learning spaces. This applies to educators who have engaged with us before as well as those who have never engaged with us.
• Why do K-12 educators currently engage with our educational offerings? For those educators new to us, why are they engaged with us rather than organizations with a similar mission?
• What aspects of our mission and work do educators find compelling and why?
• What aspects of our mission and work do educators find challenging and why?
• What are K-12 educators looking for in terms of engagement…