News, announcements, and research (including studies funded by IES).
For IES SBIR news, click here.
Research News @ Vanderbilt
Erin Barton at Vanderbilt University received an Early Intervention and Early Learning in Special Education grant to develop and test the Family Behavior Support App for children with disabilities and challenging behavior.
EdSurgeNews
Jefferson Education Accelerator (JEA) will partner with Formative, Fishtree, Agile Mind, and Echo360 and help these startups conduct efficacy research. JEA received an award through the Growth Accelerator Fund Competition to create a database that will connect developers with research partners.
Parent Herald
Michael Solis at the University of California, Riverside received a new grant through the Autism Spectrum Disorders program to develop a reading comprehension and behavior intervention.
Lab Manager
A new analysis reveals that boys still do better than girls on math, especially among the highest achievers. Emily Miller, a former IES postdoctoral fellow through the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, contributed to the research. These findings were also reported in PBS NewsHour, Fortune, and the Huffington Post.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
An IES-funded Efficacy and Replication study revealed that students who used ASSISTments, a math tutoring platform, scored higher on standardized tests than those who did not. ASSISTments was developed through prior IES grants [1] [2].
Eurekalert
Rachel Fish, a former IES predoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, finds teacher referrals for special and gifted education testing are subjective and may be influenced by a student's race.
Alligator
The Institute of Education Sciences is funding a $3.5 million project run by The University of Florida to conduct a trial of Social-Emotional Learning Foundations (SELF), a curriculum designed to help kindergarten and first-grade students learn about and express their emotions. The program will start this year and run through 2020 and is led by Ann Daunic, the principal investigator.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Happy Atoms, a new educational tool developed by Schell Games, combines both physical and digital elements. The set consists of simple ping-pong-like balls that represent different atoms. These colorful plastic models can be connected magnetically to build physical models of molecules, making it easy for students to learn about atoms, bonding, and both simple and complex chemical compounds.
Schell Games launched an Indiegogo campaign this summer to help fund the project and raised more than $56,000. The company also received a grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences.
KU Today
Karrie Shogren and Michael Wehmeyer, two professors of Special Education at the University of Kansas, were recently awarded a Low-Cost, Short-Duration Evaluation of Special Education Interventions grant. They will examine an intervention designed to promote transition outcomes for students with intellectual disability.
EdSurge
SBIR-funded games like Happy Atoms and SuperChem VR were recently picked up by Montour School District's Virtual Immersion Lab. Students will have the opportunity to use virtual reality and augmented reality tools to supplement their education.
Hartford Courant
Morgaen Donaldson and Shaun Dougherty of the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut were recently awarded two IES research grants. Morgaen Donaldson will examine the relationship between principal evaluation policies, leadership practices, and student outcomes. Shaun Dougherty will evaluate the impact of attending career-technical high schools on various student outcomes.
Eureka Alert
Michael Solis at the University of Virginia was recently awarded an IES grant to develop a reading intervention for upper elementary and middle school students with autism spectrum disorders.
Research News at Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt professor Bethany Rittle-Johnson is a co-author on a recent IES report, Synthesis of IES-Funded Research on Mathematics: 2002–2013. The report reviews IES-funded research examining mathematics learning and teaching and describes how this research has furthered academic outcomes for students.
Telegram
At Worcester Polytechnic Institute, researchers are developing a “Seeds of STEM” curriculum for prekindergarten children with a $1.5 million grant from the federal Institute of Education Sciences. The researchers have been working on the program with local employees of Head Start, a federal program that provides early childhood education and other services to low-income children and their families.
UA News
UA College of Education faculty members, involved with partnership projects involving on- and off-campus partners, are working to improve student learning and teacher training with grants amounting to more than $2.3 million. For example, Michelle Perfect, an associate professor in the UA Department of Disability and Psychoeducational Studies, is principal investigator of a Pathways to Doctoral Studies in Education-related Fields grant, which is supporting efforts to increase the number of underrepresented students in doctoral study.
Language Magazine
The Institute of Education Sciences has granted more than $100 million for education research across a wide array of subjects and topics. Over one-fourth of the 57 grants for Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 funded through IES' National Center for Education Research (NCER) were for projects that concentrated on language and literacy acquisition.
MeriTalk
The Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) at the Education Department's Institute of Education Sciences (ED/IES) invested in eight education computer applications that would help teachers assess student abilities in math, science, reading, and special education.
Penn State News
After developing Quality Talk in 2002, Penn State Professor of Education P. Karen Murphy has continued researching and expanding the teacher-facilitated discussion instructional approach to advance the academic skills of school-aged children. In a recent project funded by the Institute of Education Sciences that spanned three years, Murphy found that Quality Talk not only is a successful intervention for comprehension of text, it also increases students' ability to do argumentative writing.
1011 Now
The Nebraska Center for Research on Children, Youth, Families and Schools has earned a $3.5 million grant to explore how to better support Latino students by connecting their experiences at home and school. The four-year project features a research-based partnership model developed by CYFS director Susan Sheridan. It is the first Nebraska study to explore family-school partnerships for diverse student populations and will involve 90 K-5 classrooms in school districts across the state.
Penn State News
Penn State researchers along with local education agencies in Chicago, Houston, and Miami-Dade County are recipients of a new Researcher-Practitioner Partnership grant. They will study career pathways programs and providers and the individuals they aim to education.
The Journal
Working in collaboration with researchers at SERP Institute, Stanford University, and San Francisco Unified School District, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley aim to advance research on online middle school science education through a new IES grant.
NYU in the News
NYU Steinhardt is the recipient of two new Social and Behavioral Context for Academic Learning grants. Cybele Raver will examine the long-term impacts of the Chicago School Readiness Project and the more immediate impact of a mindset intervention. Erin O'Connor will examine the sustained impacts of INSIGHTS, an intervention targeting children's temperament.
Florida State 24/7
Researchers at Florida State will use a newly-awarded IES grant to assess the long-term outcomes of reform in the Florida College System. The reform mandates that schools provide developmental education that is more tailored to the needs of students.
EdWeek: Inside School Research
For FY2016, IES awarded more than $100 million in research grants for 57 new projects.
Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel
Sara Goldrick-Rab, a professor at Temple University, is the recipient of a new IES grant examining the impact of providing information to college students on retaining financial aid and college persistence.
The UC Santa Barbara Current
Through a new Measurement grant, UCSB researchers led by Michael Furlong will refine and validate the Social Emotional Health Survey for use in schools.
EurekAlert!
Mitchell Nathan will lead a team of researchers in exploring how directed actions (e.g., gestures) and language relate to high-school students' geometry learning. This project is funded by a Cognition and Student Learning grant.
UNCW
The University of North Carolina Wilmington, North Carolina Central University, and Duke University were awarded a new Pathways Training grant to develop a training program in conducting education research for upper-level undergraduate students. This Pathways grant was also the focus in another article.
Curriculum Matters
The Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning (C-SAIL), a Research and Development Center funded by IES, released several new maps regarding college- and career-ready standards. The maps reveal that most states are only in the early processes of implementing new standards.
The Sacramento Bee
Sacramento State University (Sac State) is one of four recipients of the Pathways to the Education Sciences Research Training Program grant, IES's newest research training grant program. Through this funding, Sac State will develop a training program targeting underrepresented students in the education sciences. Undergraduate and graduate students selected into the program will research barriers faced by underrepresented students as they transition from secondary to postsecondary institutions. The new Pathways grant was also featured here.
WMU News
Through an IES-funded grant, Jessaca Spybrook, an associate professor at Western Michigan University, recently developed a registry for education researchers to catalogue information about studies (e.g., research design, outcome variables). The purpose of the registry is to increase the transparency of and accountability in education research.
Florida State 24/7
Erin Ingvalson, an assistant professor at Florida State University's School of Communication Science and Disorders, recently received a Reading, Writing, and Language Development grant from IES. Her project will test the effectiveness of several different intervention strategies in improving language and literacy skills for children with cochlear implants.
NYU News
Among adolescents, the classroom is where most friendships form. According to a recent study, children become less likely to form friendships across race and ethnicity as they increase in grade level, where teachers and classroom context were contributors to this finding. Meghan McCormick, one of the study authors, is a former IES predoctoral fellow through NYU's predoctoral training program.
UCR Today
Rollanda O'Connor, a professor at the University of California, Riversides's Graduate School of Education, was recently awarded a Reading, Writing, and Language Development grant from IES. Her project will focus on the acquisition and understanding of academic language in middle school children with learning disabilities. This project was also featured here.
The Tribune
Through a Researcher-Practitioner Partnership grant, Elysia Clemens of the University of Northern Colorado found that the number of times Colorado students in foster care changed school during high school was strongly predictive of whether they graduate. This study was also reported by the University of Northern Colorado's News Central.
EurakAlert!
Led by Allison Bruhn from the University of Iowa College of Education, this education technology project will develop Score It, a self-monitoring behavior intervention app.
Spectrum
David Mandell, recipient of an Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) grant, discusses the challenges of and his experiences in conducting a study on students with ASD in a low-income urban district.
CU News Center
A recent report from the National Center for Research in Policy and Practice, an IES-funded research and development center, found that school district leaders often use, value, and report positive feelings towards education research.
EdSurge
EdSurge and 13 other education technology developers are the newest award recipients through the Small Business Innovation Research program.
Phys.org
A recent study found that teachers who participated in Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education (CARE), a mindfulness professional development program, experienced reduced stress, improved well-being, and increased class management. Patricia Jennings of the University of Virginia is the PI of this IES-funded study. This study was also featured in EdWeek.
NBC News
William E. Pelham's research on implementing behavioral therapy prior to medication for children with ADHD continues to attract media attention. NBC News also released a list of things parents should know about ADHD. These findings come from a Social and Behavioral Outcomes to Support Learning grant.
EdWeek
Sean Reardon, Demetra Kalogrides, and Kenneth Shores (a former IES predoctoral fellow at Stanford University) found that the largest academic gaps were more likely to emerge in the wealthiest and most segregated communities. Funded in part by an IES grant, Sean Reardon and Andrew Ho's work on creating a mechanism to compare district achievement across states is also cited. This study was also featured in the New York Times.
University of Oregon College of Education
Robert Horner is the 2016 recipient of the Kauffman-Hallahan Distinguished Researcher Award presented by the Council for Exceptional Children. He has received numerous IES awards.
Benzinga
The American Institutes for Research and the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research teamed up on an IES-funded project focused on online credit recovery courses, or courses to help failing students get back on track. They found that students who took a face-to-face course fared better than those who took an online course after initially failing Algebra I.
Psychology Today
Joe Magliano and Melissa Ray of Northern Illinois University describe three components that appear to be critical for reading in college. In their current project, which is funded through the Postsecondary and Adult Education portfolio, they plan to test the relative importance of each of the factors for student success.
EdSurge
Eduardo Briceno, founder and CEO of Mindset Works, discusses the company and growth mindset on this EdSurge podcast. Mindset Works has been funded by two SBIR grants and one Efficacy and Replication grant.
Fox 5 NY
Capti Narrator, developed by Charmtech Labs, is currently being used by English Learners in a town in New York. This product was funded in part by a 2015 SBIR grant.
American RadioWorks
Paul Morgan's research on science achievement gaps continues to garner attention from the media [1] [2]. These findings come from a NCSER exploration project.
The 74
This article summarized five studies that were presented at a recent conference organized by the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER), an IES-funded Research & Development Center. The R&D Center's work is organized around various research topics, including teacher layoffs, policies that affect students' academic outcomes, and test-based teacher evaluations.
The Atlantic
How will the evaluation reforms set forth by the passing of the Every Student Succeeds Act affect instructional quality and student outcomes? Two IES-funded studies are cited in the article: an Evaluation of State Education Programs and Policies grant by John Tyler and John Papay and a study through CALDER by Thomas Dee and James Wyckoff.
The 74
Dan Goldhaber of the University of Washington discloses findings from his researcher-practitioner partnership project with Spokane Public Schools. The focus of his research was on teacher hiring and factors that affect teacher hiring.
Press Release Rocket
Large science achievement gaps at the end of eighths grade between white and racial/ethnic minority children and between children from higher- and lower-income families are rooted in general knowledge gaps present by the time children enter kindergarten. These findings come from Paul Morgan's research funded by a NCSER exploration project.
Nashville Post
Gary Henry of Vanderbilt University and Martez Hill of the North Carolina State Board of Education were recently awarded an Evaluation of State Education Programs and Policies grant and intend to evaluate NC's turnaround effort, the North Caroline Transformation (NCT).
Big Think
A new report published by the National Council on Teacher Quality found that evidence-based teaching strategies are seldom found in textbooks used for teacher-training. This article cites an IES practice guide on cognition and instruction, which includes a number of IES-funded studies from our Cognition and Student Learning portfolios [NCER] [NCSER]
Pittsburgh Business Times
Cynthia Puranik, who was a former associate professor of communication science and disorders at the University of Pittsburgh, is the recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers for her work done while at the university. She is now an associate professor at Georgia State University. She is a former IES postdoctoral fellow at the Florida Center for Reading Research and has been the recipient of several IES awards. Georgia State University News also released an article about her award.
FIU News
William E. Pelham, Jr.'s recent findings demonstrated that behavioral therapy, when used first, was more effective for treating children with ADHD than medication. This research was funded by a Social and Behavioral Outcomes to Support Learning grant.
EdWeek
Bethany Rittle-Johnson, a co-PI on a FY2005 IES-funded project, continues her conversation with Ed Week about the importance of patterning in children's early learning and math abilities. She cites IES-funded research on bedtime math and math-anxious parents conducted by Susan Levine, as well as research on first graders struggling with patterning from Julie Kidd and Robert Pasnak.
EdWeek
Bethany Rittle-Johnson, a co-PI on a FY2005 IES-funded project, engages in a conversation with Ed Week about what math education should look like for preschool students. She cites findings from two Cognition and Student Learning projects conducted by Nicole McNeil, which is currently being evaluated by WestEd through an Efficacy and Replication award.
UDaily
Steven Amendum, an associate professor of education at the University of Delaware, is the recipient of the Literacy Research Association's 2015 Early Career Achievement Award. Amendum is currently a co-principal investigator for an IES development project focused on improving literacy outcomes for English learners.
Ed Week
An eight-week-long unit that bridges together principles of biology and chemistry has demonstrated large, positive effects on students' science learning. Through an IES-funded Mathematics and Science Education grant, Jo Ellen Roseman of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) spearheaded the development of this curriculum.
NY Times
A discrepancy between diagnoses in black and white children is well established. Paul Morgan's research, which found that black children were 69% and Latino children were 45% less likely to be diagnosed for ADHD based on their symptoms, is cited.
The Plain Dealer
This overview of research on the effects of preschool on children's academic achievement highlights Mark Lipsey's evaluation of the TN Voluntary Pre-K Program and Laura Justice's new Early Learning Network grant.
Real Clear Education
The enactment of Every Student Succeeds Act requires states to include at least one indicator of school or student success beyond those captured by standardized tests of academic skills in their accountability frameworks. The article cites findings from NCER's evaluation of Social and Character Development programs.
WUNC: North Carolina Public Radio
North Carolina is home to more Early College High Schools than any other State. Julie Edmunds, a professor at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro and the PI of , discusses some findings from her research.
EdWeek
A recent study found that student achievement improved when low-performing teachers were replaced under Washington D.C.'s teacher-evaluation system, IMPACT. This study was funded by CALDER and a Researcher-Practitioner Partnership in Education Research grant. Findings from the study have also been featured in the Washington Post and U.S. News and World Report.
Homeroom
While women are still largely underrepresented in computer science, women took the lead in development and research roles for half of the 30 games, many of which were funded through ED/IES SBIR, at the ED Games Expo in December 2015.
U.S. News and World Report
Ten percent of the earnings for an average public school teacher go towards paying for the pension liabilities of prior cohorts of teachers. This study was carried out by researchers at CALDER, an IES-funded National Research and Development Center.
WUNC National Public Radio
Helen Ladd of Duke University examines the racial segregation in North Carolina's charter schools. Her research is funded through CALDER, an IES research and development center.
Sys-Con Media
Jefferson Education Accelerator selected Agile Mind, recipient of a FY2009 SBIR award, as its latest company partner. This collaboration is intended to further demonstrate the impact of incorporating social-emotional skills development into core curricula to improve success rates among adolescents.
The Daily Nebraskan
Susan Sheridan and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln were recently awarded two Early Learning Network grants. The group is charged with two roles: to lead the Early Learning Network and to study early learning contexts in rural and urban Nebraska. This story was also featured in Newswise.
UA News
Christina Diaz and Jeremy E. Fiel found that the negative effect of young motherhood on educational attainment and earnings differs among women of various socioeconomic backgrounds. Fiel is a former IES Predoctoral Fellow at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.
Science Daily
Fifth-grade students who participated in group learning developed better decision-making skills than children who studied the same curriculum via teacher-led discussions. This study was funded by a Cognition and Student Learning grant awarded in 2008.
EdWeek
Sarah Sparks directs attention to the new Early Learning Network (ELN) grants that were recently awarded for the improvement of early childhood education. These grants have a number of different focus areas: school-, local-, and state-level policies and programs, classroom factors associated with school readiness, and a longitudinal study of achievement. This article also cites findings from the evaluation of the Tennessee Voluntary Pre-K program. Two other EdWeek articles [1] [2] also covered the ELN and early childhood education.
UCI News
Carol Connor of the University of Califorina, Irvine was recently awarded an Early Learning Network grant, a new research program of IES. She will lead the assessment team in the development of the Optimizing Learning Opportunities for Students' Early Learning Observation System over the next five years.
Brookings: The Brown Center Chalkboard
Over the last couple of decades, there has been a knowledge boom in a number of areas that are relevant to teaching. Yet much of this information is seldom found in textbooks for aspiring teachers. This article cites an IES practice guide on cognition and instruction, which includes a number of IES-funded studies from our Cognition and Student Learning portfolios [NCER] [NCSER].
The Seventy Four
A recent study conducted by CALDER found that teachers were more effective when they worked in schools with similar demographics as the school where they completed their student teaching. The study also indicated that teachers who trained in schools with lower turnover were less likely to leave the profession.
SBIR Pulse
Lisa Blackwell and Ed Briceño, the founders of Mindset Works, discuss the current status of their project and how their 2010 SBIR award furthered the development of the Mindset Works SchoolKit.
EdWeek
Sarah Sparks discusses the urge for researchers to integrate research evidence in conversation around education. She cites IES' current involvement in understanding how research is used through a Knowledge Utilization center at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
Homeroom
On December 9, 2015, representatives from the Department of Education (ED) and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy collaboratively organized a day of events to build capacity for and showcase learning games. Thirty of the forty-five game developers who participated were recipients of awards from the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program housed within ED/IES.
Stanford News
IES Postdoctoral Fellow Emily Penner is one of the co-authors on a study that examined the effects of ethnic study courses on student academic outcomes. Attendance, GPA and number of credits earned significantly increased following the course. Penner is a fellow at Stanford University.
Forbes
Charlie Stigler, co-founder of Zaption and recipient of an ED/IES SBIR Phase II 2015 award, was named on the Forbes 30 under 30 list.
Smithsonian
Grace Wardhana, creator of Kiko Labs and recipient of an ED/IES SBIR Phase II 2015 award, was highlighted as an innovator to be on the lookout out for in 2016. SBIR Pulse also conducted a Q&A with her recently.
EdSurge
The majority of SBIR-funded companies on display received their awards through the Department of Education's ED/IES SBIR program.
Information Today, Inc.
Strange Loop Games won a grant from IES (Institute of Education Sciences) and the U.S. Department of Education in spring 2015 for its work on Eco, a simulated ecosystem and economy game.
Penn State News
Paul Morgan from Penn State led an analysis supported through an exploration study that found that vocabulary delays by two years of age were predictive of a child receiving speech language therapy at four and five years of age.
Science Daily
Researchers at New York University Steinhardt conducted an evaluation of INSIGHTS, a social-emotional intervention designed to help teachers and parents adapt to children's temperaments. Findings included greater teacher sensitivity to student needs, better classroom climates, and increased teacher respect for student interests. Students were also more engaged in classroom activities.
Washington Post
Led by Andy Porter of the University of Pennsylvania, the Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction and Learning (C-SAIL) is studying the full breadth of college- and career-readiness standards adopted by states across the nation. C-SAIL is an IES-funded R&D center that launched in July 2015.
Rutgers Today
Through a FY2015 grant, Elisa Shernoff is developing a web-based virtual classroom designed to help teachers gain confidence in managing challenging students.
NY Times
New research shows that the gender gap in academic outcomes widens as family income decreases. This article cites some research conducted by David Figlio, a professor at Northwestern University and a member of the IES-funded National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research.
UKNOW
Brian Bottge and colleagues will undertake a four-year IES-funded project to develop more sophisticated measurement tools for assessing the conceptual understanding and procedural skills of students with disabilities in math. This study builds on two projects previously funded by IES.
College of the Holy Cross
Florencia Anggoro of the College of the Holy Cross and Benjamin Jee of Worcester State University have been awarded a two-year exploration grant to examine the cognitive factors that support student learning in elementary astronomy. Further discussion of this study is also featured here.
Newswise, Inc.
Children's Learning Institute researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston received three new grants from IES in 2015. These projects have a wide focus, spanning topics like math and science, , and English language learners.
UDaily
Young-Suk Kim, associate professor of reading and language arts at Florida State University, presented at the University of Delaware School of Education's colloquium series, "Writing Research: Where We Are and Where We Are Heading". Her presentation involves research from an ongoing longitudinal study funded by IES.
The Brookings Institute
Dale Farran and Mark Lipsey discuss the findings and implications of their evaluation of the Tennessee Voluntary Pre-K program. This study was funded by an Evaluation of State and Local Education Programs and Policies grant awarded in 2009.
Chalkbeat Tennessee
How can Tennessee school systems best use teacher evaluation data to drive instructional improvement? A collaborative effort between Vanderbilt's Peabody College of Education, Brown University, the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the Tennessee Department of Education will tackle this endeavor through a newly funded Evaluation of State Education Programs and Policies grant.
Daily Democrat
UC Davis professors, Michael Kurlaender, Paco Martorell, and Scott Carrell, will partner with the California Department of Education in a new Evaluation of State Education Programs and Policies award. This project will examine various college- and career-readiness outcomes using the "Smarter Balanced" assessments under the Common Core.
AERA Highlights
The Friends of IES organized two briefings that highlighted IES-funded projects focused on math instruction during the preschool years. The briefings featured three presenters: Prentice Starkey of WestEd, Douglas Clements of the University of Denver, Hirokazu Yoshikawa of New York University.
NPR
Through an Evaluation of State and Local Education Programs and Policies grant, Dale Farran and Mark Lipsey of Vanderbilt University partnered with the Tennessee Department of Education to evaluate the effectiveness of the TN Voluntary Pre-K Program in at-risk pre-k students. While there were initial gains in academic outcomes, children who were not in the pre-K program did better than those who were by the end of second grade. The study's findings are also discussed on other news sites: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5].
US News
Tests have the potential to play a key role in student learning, especially among women, minorities, low-income, and first-generation students. This article highlights IES-funded research that has demonstrated the positive effects of testing on student learning.
NY Times
The achievement gap between students of different races has narrowed significantly over the past decades; however, the achievement gap between more affluent and less privileged children is wider than ever. This article discusses some of the research conducted by Rachel Valentino, who was an IES fellow in Stanford University's Predoctoral Training Program.
Science Daily
Funded by the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER), Tim Sass examines the effects of teacher preparation programs on student achievement and test scores. His study reports findings from comparing teachers who graduate from traditional university-based teacher preparation programs with teachers who enter teaching through alternative pathways where a bachelor's degree in education is not required.
KU News Service
Kathleen Lane, KU professor of special education, and Arizona State professor Mary Oakes team up with Lawrence Public schools to help create positive learning environments and increase academic achievement. This research collaboration is funded by NCER's Researcher-Practitioner Partnership program.
KU News Service
Pamela Hunt and Elizabeth Kozleski of the University of Kansas will test the efficacy of a literacy curriculum for students with intellectual disabilities in general education classrooms using a Reading, Writing, and Language Development grant from the National Center for Special Education Research.
UVA Today
The National Center for Education Research awarded new grants to the University of Virginia Curry School of Education and College of Arts and Sciences through this past year's research grant competitions. These projects focus on various aspects of increasing effective teaching and learning for K–12 students, such as service learning or promoting cultural proficiency.
EurekAlert!
Aaron Thompson and colleagues have received an IES-funded grant to test the Self-Monitoring Training and Regulation Strategy (STARS) intervention, aimed to improve students' classroom behaviors, social-emotional learning, and academic achievement. STARS is a self-management and mindfulness skills program for fifth-grade students who engage in disruptive or otherwise challenging classroom behaviors.
The New York Times
Math anxiety can be contagious from parents to children! Through an IES exploration project, Sian Beilock, Susan Levine, and their colleagues found that parents' math anxiety is related to their elementary-aged children's math achievement. The more math-anxious parents tried to help with math homework, the worse their children did in math.
Web MD
Children's speaking vocabulary at age two has important implications for their performance and behavior in kindergarten, according to findings from Paul Morgan's IES-funded project. The team also discussed child and family characteristics that are related to vocabulary size at age 2, which may help identify which groups of children are at risk for need early language intervention. EurekAlert and Penn State News also reported on the study. Paul Morgan further discusses the study and findings in a Q&A he conducted with EdWeek in September.
Around the O
The National Center for Education Research and National Center for Special Education Research awarded new grants to the University of Oregon College of Education through this past year's research grant competitions. These projects focus on a wide range of students and topics: early childhood, girls with disabilities, Latino students, young offenders, and high school freshmen.
Miami Herald
Donald Leu, a recipient of an IES-funded grant, discusses some of his research on how school-aged children are tech savvy, yet lack crucial skills when it comes to technology and the internet, such as identifying the credibility of a website or sending a proper email.
Penn State News
Bonnie Meyer and Kay Wijekumar have spent more than 10 years developing and testing Intelligent Tutoring of the Structure Strategy, a digital tutor designed to increase students' reading comprehension. Several IES-funded grants [1] [2] have supported the development and validation of the digital tutor.
Boston Globe
Over the last decade, researchers in cognitive psychology have found that better math education comes from simple changes in the way numerical concepts are presented. With support from this IES-funded project, Nicole McNeil found that making small adjustments in the way students are introduced to the equal sign can make a difference later on.
Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute News
Desiree Murray from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will undertake a new IES-funded project to determine the effectiveness of the Incredible Years Dina Dinosaur Program. This program is an intervention designed to promote self-regulation and academic achievement in young children with social-emotional and behavioral difficulties.
Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute News
Led by Diane Early from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, this Early Learning Programs and Policies project will conduct a large-scale study of the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS-3), a widely used observational tool that assesses the quality of preschool classrooms.
Research News@Vanderbilt
IES has awarded a new Cognition and Student Learning Grant to Lynn and Douglas Fuchs at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College of Education and Human Development to study working memory training for students at risk for math difficulties.
UD Daily
University of Delaware researcher Henry May and Elizabeth Farley-Ripple were awarded a grant by the Institute of Education Sciences to establish the Center for Research Use in Education (CRUE). This new center will focus on studying how education research is integrated into schools' practices.
Scientific American
How can we help improve students' learning and ability to connect different concepts together? A couple of IES-funded studies [1] [2] have demonstrated the importance of retrieval practice, or the process of retrieving information from our memory, in facilitating deeper learning of material.
Inside Indiana Newsroom
Jeffrey Karpicke at Purdue University will use a new IES-funded grant to look at the study habits of fourth and fifth-graders. This funding will support the study examining whether strategies used in college would work well for younger students.
Health Canal
Mothers of children with autism reported fewer depressive symptoms when their children were 4 years old if the child's father engaged in literacy and responsive caregiving activities when the child was 9 months old, according to a new study conducted at the University of Illinois.
news@Northeastern
Northeastern University researchers, Robert Volpe and Amy Briesch, have received a four-year grant from Institute of Education Sciences to develop a web-based system for elementary school teachers to track the progress of children in their classrooms with emotional or behavior disorders.
Albany Democrat Herald
Shannon Lipscomb and Megan McClelland [1] [2], researchers in Oregon State University's College of Public Health and Human Sciences have been awarded several federal grants to study how to better prepare at-risk children for school.
The Bulletin
Shannon Lipscomb, an assistant professor in the university's Human Development and Family Science program, was awarded a grant from the Institute of Education sciences to help preschoolers who have been exposed to trauma. She will lead the grant project in developing and testing a training program to help preschool teachers identify and respond to behavior in their students resulting from trauma.
The Oregonian
Patricia Vadasy, a senior research scientist at the non-profit Oregon Research Institute, will spend three years testing different ways of teaching the ABCs to diverse groups of preschoolers to find out what works best.
KTVZ.com
The U.S. Department of Education has awarded Oregon State University-Cascades researcher Shannon Lipscomb an Early Learning Programs and Policies grant to develop a program to help teachers improve the school readiness of preschoolers who have been exposed to trauma.
EdWeek
The Institute for Education Sciences has announced over $18 million dedicated to new research partnerships with states, districts, and other organizations. These projects investigate a wide variety of issues, such as support for English-language learners and implementation of common standards.
EdWeek
The National Center for Education Research announced 81 new awards< in areas including: student learning, early education, education technology, English language learners, and improving leadership and policies.
Sac State News
Dr. Patricia Vadasy received an IES-funded award to determine the most effective methods for teaching the alphabet to English learner and English first language preschoolers from low socioeconomic families.
EdWeek
Through a series of experiments supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, Kenneth J. Kurtz, an associate professor of psychology at Binghamton University, shares some of his findings on how categorization helps students transfer newly learned concepts to novel situations. This research was funded through a Cognition and Student Learning grant.
UTNews
Sarah Powell, an assistant professor in the Department of Special Education, received a four-year grant this spring from the Institute of Education Sciences. Powell's study will assess the effectiveness of word-problem equation-solving tutoring in improving performance in students who have difficulties in mathematics.
The Michigan Daily
The University of Michigan has received a Predoctoral Interdisciplinary Training Programs grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences. Led by Susan Dynarski, this program will establish a new Education Sciences doctoral program to train students how to conduct causal research and convey research findings.
Delaware Public Media
START-play, an intervention for infants with poor motor skills, will target sitting and reaching abilities in infants with poor motor skills. In the trial-run of this program, therapists will enter 140 homes in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington. The research on START-play has been funded by a four-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
EurekAlert!
This new Reading, Writing, and Language Development grant focuses on students who are struggling with early reading. Teachers will be taught specific skills to work with children who have difficulty reading.
EdWeek
How can we help struggling students transfer their understanding of math concepts to practical application in other STEM subjects? Researchers at the Association of Psychological Science conference in May discussed new findings on ways to help students link math learning to science, technology, and engineering. Several of these findings were from IES-funded projects [1] [2].
Information Today, Inc.
The U.S. Department of Education and Institute of Education Sciences awarded their 2015 Small Business Innovation Research grants to 21 educational startups this spring. Nearly one-fourth of the grantees' products focus on environment simulations through augmented and virtual realities.
Campus Technology
A four-year research effort at the University of California, Irvine will test the impact of changing the formatting of text to help middle school students improve their reading and writing abilities.
University of Denver Magazine
The University of Denver was recently awarded an Early Learning Programs and Policies grant, through which the University of Denver, in partnership with two Denver school districts, will conduct rigorous research on learning trajectories in early mathematics education.
University Herald
The University of California, Davis will launch a three-year study of online learning with a $1.6 million grant from the Institute of Education Sciences. The study will explore how online learning options affect students' course progression, academic achievement and teacher effectiveness.
Campus Technology
Researchers from University of Michigan, Stanford University, and University of California, Davis have received a grant to conduct a three-year study of virtual schooling. The results of the study are intended to help policymakers and educators understand how virtual schooling affects student achievement, which students are most likely to benefit from this method of education, and how virtual schooling can be improved.
EdWeek
An IES-funded project by the National Research and Development Center on Cognition and Mathematics Instruction is field-testing how to apply cognitive-science findings on how students learn. Research teams are testing better text and illustration integration, use of sample problems, and homework and practice pacing. They are also looking at how well teachers are trained to implement the curriculum.
Phys.org
A new teaching model using small groups significantly improves how well English-language learners increase vocabulary and reading comprehension, according to an IES-funded study by researchers at the University of Georgia.
Michigan State Extension
Through an IES-funded project, Laura Justice addressed segregation of students by ability. Her project found that preschool children with disabilities in inclusive classrooms benefited from associating with typically-developing children with strong language skills.
The Conversation
Learn about the Animal Watch Vi Suite (AWViS) project, a math tutoring program for middle school students who have mild, moderate, or severe visual impairments. This project was developed by Carole Beal and her team through her IES-funded grant, AnimalWatch-VI Suite: A Comprehensive Program to Increase Access to Mathematics for Students with Visual Impairments.
Leominster Champion
Leominster Public Schools (MA) share their excitement in taking part in an innovative effort to increase students' college and career readiness. Funded by an IES Training in Education Use and Practice award, this initiative is geared to partner together researchers and practitioners to collect, analyze, and translate data in ways that are helpful to policymakers.
Phys.org
Funded by an IES award, Patrick Proctor, Catherine Michener, and Rebecca Silverman presented their findings on what kinds of teacher talk promoted the growth of literacy skills in students at the 2015 American Educational Research Association's annual meeting.
The Conversation
V. Scott Solberg, recipient of IES award, Massachusetts Institute for College and Career Readiness: Creating Working Alliances among Researchers, Policy Makers, and Education Officials, shares about how the PARCC, a new national standardized test, can help improve literacy and math skills and students' college and career readiness.
Youtube
Through the support of her IES award, Measuring Progress in Struggling Adolescents, Barbara Foorman discusses her new computerized reading assessment, the Reading Assessment for Prescriptive Instructional Data (RAPID), designed to transform language and literacy assessments for Pre-s students.
Phys.org
Mable Kinzie, an IES grantee, has been developing and testing a professional development program for pre-kindergarten teachers focused primarily on math and science. This article discusses recent findings from the MyTeachingPartner-Math/Science curricula implemented in 42 pre-K classrooms.
ASU News Micki Chi, a recipient of a 2011 IES award, Developing Guidelines for Optimizing Levels of Students' Overt Engagement Activities, is the winner of the 2015 E.L. Thorndike Award for Lifetime Contribution in Research from the American Psychological Association.
Cisternyard Media
In his talk, titled "Linking the Classroom and the Development of Children's Memory," Dr. Ornstein outlined how children "learn to remember." His research is not just about memory, but how a particular "diet of conversation" can help children develop memory strategies.
PRWeb As part of the IES funded award, SECURe: Developing an Integrated Social, Emotional, and Cognitive Understanding and Regulation Intervention, Dr. Robin Jacob and her team completed a meta-analysis of 25 years' worth of research. This study, recently published today in Review of Educational Research, finds no conclusive evidence that developing students' executive function skills lead to better academic performance. The team concludes that more rigorous research is needed to better understand the relationship between executive function and achievement.
USC News Daphna Oyserman was recently funded by IES to develop and test a new teacher training model for an evidence-based program, Schools-to-Jobs. This article summarizes the extensive prior work that has led to the current award.
Education Week Researchers found broad improvements between 1986 and 2010 in the average combined mathematics and language scores on the SAT college-entrance exam for newly certified and newly hired teachers, as well as increases in the selectivity of the colleges to which they were admitted before they were certified. These findings were presented at a recent conference held by the IES funded National Center for the Analysis of Longitudinal Education Research, also known as CALDER.
Pensacola Today This article describes the role of early learning in learning to read, and includes a discussion of ongoing research being carried out by one of the Institute's Reading for Understanding teams at Florida State University. Their project is Examining Effective Intervention Targets, Longitudinal Intensity, and Scaling Factors for Pre-K to 5th Grade Student Comprehension. Research being done by this team supports the notion that building a better reader begins before age 5.
Education World, Medical XPress A recent study published in the Journal of Learning Disabilities suggests that early screening and intervention may prevent persistent math difficulties for at-risk children. This study was carried out by an award led by Dr. Paul Morgan at Penn State University with support from the National Center for Special Education Research at IES.
Science Daily, EurekAlert!, Science Codex Findings reported in the journal Child Development indicate that teachers who report having more symptoms of depression had classrooms that were of lesser quality, and that students in these classrooms had fewer performance gains. This research was supported in part by two IES studies to Dr. Carol Connor.
Green and Write: Education Policy Research Insights In this blog post, Dr. Gary Troia and Rachel Marias discuss findings from their recent IES funded analysis on state writing standards and their alignment with the new Common Core State Standards in Writing and Language (CCSS-WL). They find that state preparedness for the new writing standards varies widely, indicating some states will have a much smoother transition to the new writing standards than others.
Vox Mark McDaniel shares tips from his research on studying, much of which was carried out in collaboration with Henry Roediger and Kathleen McDermott and supported by IES.
EdWeek In this EdWeek Webinar, PI Mark Driscoll shares findings from his IES funded grant, and discusses how to improve math instruction for English Learners.
Newswire, Science Daily A new study reported in the journal Early Childhood Research Quarterly finds that kindergartners and first graders with high maintenance temperaments showed less disruptive behavior and more active engagement and on-task behavior in the classroom, thanks to a program that helps teachers, parents, and students recognize and adapt to individual differences. Learn more about the research project here: Testing the Efficacy of INSIGHTS in Enhancing the Academic Learning Context.
Around the O. Learn about a new reading comprehension test for elementary school students being developed at the University of Oregon with the support of NCER.
Gant Daily Learn more here about a new IES award, Supporting Early Adolescent Learning and Social Success (SEALS II). In this project, the research team is developing and evaluating a professional development program for seventh- and eighth-grade teachers to help support students experiencing academic, behavioral and social difficulties.
New York Times This article describes the findings of a study carried out by IES predoctoral fellow Benjamin York. York, a fellow at Stanford University, found that preschoolers whose parents received text messages with brief tips on reading to their children or helping them sound out letters and words performed better on literacy tests than children whose parents did not receive such messages.
NYU News This feature highlights a new IES award made to NYU that will result in an improved research infrastructure, enabling the NYC DOE to quantitatively monitor and assess the potential benefits or costs of their current expansion of pre-kindergarten access.
Chalkboard, Brookings Institute Former IES postdoctoral fellow Drew Bailey discusses what we are learning about mathematics instruction in preschool. Bailey was a fellow at Carnegie Mellon University.
The Daily Pennsylvanian Learn more about this new researcher-practitioner partnership between the University of Pennsylvania and the School District of Philadelphia.
Science Daily A release describes the findings of an IES efficacy trial of Tools of the Mind. The study found that an educational approach focused on the development of children's executive functions—the ability to avoid distractions, focus attention, hold relevant information in working memory, and regulate impulsive behavior—improved academic learning in and beyond kindergarten.
EdWeek, Inside School Research Sarah Sparks, from EdWeek, describes the findings from this IES efficacy trial of Tools of the Mind.
Iowa Now Learn more about this new SBIR project, in which University of Iowa researchers are helping develop an online assessment designed to help target interventions for struggling middle school readers.
EdWeek In this EdWeek Commentary, Benedict Carey argues that "the most valuable course a student could take is not currently a part of any standard curriculum. It's Learning 101—specifically, how the brain picks up knowledge and skills most efficiently. . . . The U.S. Department of Education has made it known that its research arm will fund only rigorous trials to test specific learning techniques, drawing straight from this cognitive tradition." This article highlights findings from the IES Cognition and Student Learning Program.
EdWeek Sean Cavanaugh discusses the IES Small Business Innovation Research program.
Stanford News The recently published research of IES predoctoral fellow, Ximena A. Portilla, is discussed in here. She and her colleagues find that academic success for a first-grader depends in part on both high self-regulation in kindergarten and a low-conflict relationship between student and teacher. They argue that parents can help students improve self-regulation and teachers can learn to provide a better classroom environment for all students.
The Boston College Chronicle Hear IES PI Patrick Proctor describe his new IES award to develop and refine a program to support Spanish-speaking students as they acquire linguistic awareness and other skills that can help them learn English.
EdWeek A new paper by IES PI Donald Leu describing the findings from this IES award is discussed in this article.
ASU News This new IES SBIR award is developing an automated tool to help teachers provide individualized reading instruction to students from kindergarten through third grade.
The Daily Free Press The Massachusetts Institute for College and Career Readiness (MICCR), a new IES Training award, will promote working alliances between researchers and policymakers in the use and interpretation of data and evidence to guide decision-making and improve student outcomes
Tufts Daily IES funded PI Bruce Sacerdote discusses what he and his team are learning about the use of mentoring to increase college going rates.
Science Daily Sandee McClowry's findings from her IES funded research on a program that helps teachers modify their interactions with students based on an individual's temperament. The intervention helps shy children become more engaged in their class work, and in turn, improves their math and critical thinking skills, researchers report.
EdWeek Sarah Sparks discusses findings from IES PI Holly Craig's intervention study. The intervention is being implemented across Michigan this fall.
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