Michael Rodriguez, Campbell Leadership Chair in Education and Human Development, co-director of the Educational Equity Resource Center, and professor in the Department of Educational Psychology’s quantitative methods in education program, was recently named chair of the Technical Advisory Group for the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS). Also a member of the group’s Certification Council, Rodriguez has worked with NBPTS in a number of technical advisory roles since 2005.
Established in 1987, the mission of the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards is to advance the quality of teaching and learning by: (1) maintaining high and rigorous standards for what accomplished teachers should know and be able to do; (2) providing a national voluntary system certifying teachers who meet these standards; and (3) advocating related education reforms to integrate National Board Certification in American education and to capitalize on the expertise of National Board Certified Teachers.
Scott McConnell, professor in the Department of Educational Psychology’s special education program and program coordinator for counseling and student personnel psychology is partnering with Liza Finestack, professor in the Department of Speech, Hearing, and Language Sciences on a research project called “Reducing Early Language Disparities: A Key to Lifelong Academic, Socioeconomic, and Health Success.”
One of a select number of Grand Challenges Research projects funded by the University of Minnesota’s Provost’s Office, the grant will be used to expand existing research around the “word gap”—specifically the disparity that exists in the vocabulary of children born into low-income families and their more affluent peers by the age of three.
The intent is to develop at least three promising interdisciplinary research projects— each addressing unmet needs in early language development research— and to support new research teams exploring these frontiers.
This work will include the ongoing implementation and evaluation of LENA StartTM, a parent education program being offered by area Early Childhood Family Education programs and colleagues at Think Small. The Grand Challenge effort will build on and extend this work to other aspects of early language development and intervention.
According to the article, “Lack of Evidence Plagues Neuroeducation Programs,” neuroeducation programs are used in classrooms across the country to help ready children’s brains for learning. However, experts like Dr. Varma say there’s little evidence to prove that commercial programs work.
“Wrap an existing curriculum in neuroscience language and it gains instant credibility, despite a constant stream of warnings from scientists,” Varma told NOVA NEXT. “We’ve only just scratched the surface. We’re only just at the beginning of understanding the potentials and limits of how neuroscience informs education.”
Panayiota Kendeou, associate professor of educational psychology in the psychological foundations of education program, is part of a team of researchers who were recently awarded a three-year, $498,485 grant, funded through the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) program. The project, “Optimizing Testing Feedback for Improved Student Learning,” examines the role of testing feedback to promote and support learning in general chemistry and is led by Dr. Jamie Schneider, professor of chemistry and biotechnology at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.
Based on existing research in cognitive science, this National Science Foundation (NSF) grant will collect evidence on the effects of current practices of testing feedback on student learning. Various forms of feedback with a diverse set of student populations in the context of general chemistry will be examined. Findings from this work are expected to apply to general chemistry programs across the nation as well as more broadly to other STEM areas (physics, engineering, etc.) that also use complex content items in multiple-choice testing. Developing and using evidence-based strategies to enhance and support student learning is a critical step in producing a well-prepared and diverse STEM workforce.
Recently, three faculty members from the Department of Educational Psychology were honored with endowed chairs and professorships. These appointments— awarded over a period of three years— recognize the professors’ professional achievements and the impact of their work.
Clayton Cook
Panayiota (Pani) Kendeou, PhD
Michael Rodriguez
Dr. Clayton Cook (school psychology) is the first-ever John W. and Nancy E. Peyton Faculty Fellow in Child and Adolescent Wellbeing. Dr. Panayiota Kendeou (psychological foundations of education) holds the Guy Bond Chair in Reading, and Dr. Michael Rodriguez (quantitative methods in education) will continue in his role as Campbell Leadership Chair in Education and Human Development. Please join us in congratulating them on their excellent contributions!
Faculty members in the Department of Educational Psychology hold a total of seven active endowed chairs and professorships.
The high price of textbooks has been a concern for college students for many years. But the University’s David Ernst is at the forefront of a movement to lessen that burden on students. Read more.
Geoffrey Maruyama, chair of the Department of Educational Psychology and professor in the Psychological Foundations of Education program, and educational psychology Ph.D. candidate Lara Westerhof were recently quoted in the Star Tribune article, “Twin Cities schools add social-emotional learning to the 3 R’s.”
In the article, Maruyama and Westerhof provide background on the history of social-emotional learning concepts. Westerhof, who is doing her dissertation on social-emotional learning, told the Star Tribune she has seen no evidence that social-emotional learning skills are decreasing achievement gaps by helping students of color more than white students.
Like many 14-year-olds, Nic VanMeerten liked to play video games. Unlike most kids his age, he took things a step further. He graduated from the University of Minnesota with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, and is currently investigating how people learn in video games and how this information can be used for the greater good—to make learning fun. Read More.
The project is led by Panayiota Kendeou, associate professor in the psychological foundations of education program, Kristen McMaster, professor in the special education program, Theodore J. Christ, professor in the school psychology program, and Mary Jane White, researcher in the school psychology program.
The team plans to develop a completely automated, cloud-based software intervention that will train students to make inferences in non-reading contexts, while providing support and feedback tailored to each student’s profile.
University of Minnesota’s 2016 McNair scholars showcased their projects to faculty, alumni, and fellow students on August 4th in Coffman Memorial Union. Ana Lozano— an undergraduate student in the family social sciences program mentored by Dr. Rose Vukovic— presented her project on math anxiety. Her research takes a new approach— not only asking how math anxiety affects students— but how it affects parents’ involvement in their child’s education. She found that parents with high math anxiety reported feeling less comfortable communicating with their child’s school and with engaging in home-based activities such as helping with homework. She also found that having high educational expectations for their children’s success was more important for children’s mathematical outcomes than was having high math anxiety
The Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program works in an effort to prepare underrepresented, low-income, and first-generation students for graduate studies. The goal of this program is to increase graduate degree awards from underrepresented segments of society.
The Sara Evans Faculty Woman Scholar/Leader Award recognizes women faculty at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities who have achieved significant national and international accomplishments and honors and who contribute as leaders on campus. Two awards are offered each year, one in science and engineering and one in humanities, arts and social sciences. Winners receive a one-time award of $5000 to support their research sponsored by the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost and the Women’s Center.
Students from six research universities participating in the University of Minnesota’s First in the World grant— which funds an effort to engage underrepresented and low-income students— presented at the annual Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) Summit in Minneapolis, Minnesota June 24 through 26. This year’s theme was “Giving psychology away: Sharing research through teaching, interdisciplinary collaboration, and public engagement.”
Prior to the event, students prepared presentations on challenges they’ve faced and overcome to navigate college life. At the summit, students discussed relevant research findings and pedagogical ideas and shared social action best practices from their participation in First in the World projects. The conference ended with students presenting their perspectives on community and university engagement to participating faculty members and educators from across the country. Findings from their presentation will be used to develop new programming or modify existing programming to more effectively support underrepresented and low-income students.
The University of Minnesota’s First in the World grant funds the development and implementation of enhanced community-based learning experiences that increase academic engagement and sense of belonging for underrepresented and low-income students at six research universities— the University of Minnesota, City University of New York, the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of California Santa Cruz, the University of Memphis, and the University of Georgia.
Graduate students Kelsey Will and Reese Butterfuss presented their research at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Society for Text & Discourse held in Kassel, Germany from July 18 to 20. Both students work in the Reading & Language Lab, led by Dr. Panayiota Kendeou, which focuses on the relationship between language and memory, with an emphasis on understanding and learning during reading. Kelsey’s paper, “Generating Explanations in the Service of Knowledge Revision,” and Reese’s paper, “The Role of Inhibition in Knowledge Revision,” as well as his poster, “A Time-Course Analysis of Affective Processes During Knowledge Revision,” were well received at the meeting. Kelsey and Reese made the trip after winning highly competitive Student Travel Awards from the Society for Text & Discourse.
Michael Rodriguez, Campbell Leadership Chair in Education and Human Development and professor in the Department of Educational Psychology’s Quantitative Methods in Education program was recently interviewed by Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) and quoted in the Pioneer Press on the 2016 Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs). Students’ performance on these statewide tests— which measure progress toward Minnesota’s academic standards in reading and math— remained largely unchanged over last year. More specifically, Black, Hispanic, and Native American students’ test scores continued to be roughly one-third that of their white counterparts.
Dr. Rodriguez told the Pioneer Press, although the state has made smart policy decisions to try to close achievement gaps, the MCA results don’t reflect that. “We haven’t seen it in the outcomes, and that’s really frustrating,” he said. “This is not just the Minnesota story. We see this nationally.”
“It’s really unfortunate that we expect so much from this single event test score,” Rodriguez said in his interview with MPR. “It’s telling us there’s not much movement. But I’m not convinced that single measure is going to be sensitive enough to pick of the kinds of movements that are occurring.”
When asked (by the Pioneer Press) what schools can do to improve outcomes for low-performing student groups, Dr. Rodriguez suggested communities be brought into the schools, making the instruction more culturally relevant to the students and demonstrating that education leads to greater opportunities.
The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) has awarded the Individual Growth and Development Indicators (IGDILab) three $1.4 million, four-year grants to expand research in assessment of early language and literacy development of children ages three to five. Three researchers from the Department of Educational Psychology— Alisha Wackerle-Hollman (school psychology), Scott McConnell (special education), and Michael Rodriguez (quantitative methods in education)— will lead the IGDILab grants. Colleagues (and College of Education and Human Development alumni) from the Universities of Oregon, Washington, and Nebraska and Lehigh University will help conduct the research.
In a joint statement on the three grants Dr. McConnell and Dr. Wackerle-Hollman wrote, “We are excited to expand our work on IGDIs, and to continue the long line of research and application of General Outcome Measures— a line of work that Stan Deno and colleagues initiated almost 40 years ago. While the methods are slightly different, the overall aim remains the same: Produce psychometrically rigorous measures that are easy to use, so that teachers and others can have a better sense of their students’ current development and possible need for additional supports.”
Progress Monitoring Individual Growth and Development Indicators (PM-IGDIs) will develop a set of tools to assess young children’s language and literacy skills at frequent intervals and depict performance trajectories over time to aid in identifying children in need of intervention. Specifically, PM-IGDIs will examine four-and five-year-olds’ phonological awareness, oral language, alphabet knowledge and comprehension. Read the abstract.
Progress Monitoring – Spanish – Individual Growth and Development Indicators (PM – S – IGDIs) will use procedures and analyses similar to PM-IGDIs to develop a set of tools to frequently measure Spanish early language and literacy performance of young Spanish-English Dual Language Learners. PM-S-IGDIs will examine four and five-year-olds’ Spanish phonological awareness, oral language and alphabet knowledge. Read the abstract.
“Nearly one in four children in the United States is Latino and more than one in five comes from a home where a language other than English is spoken,” says Dr. Wackerle-Hollman. “But within that group, research tells us up to 85% are not proficient readers by fourth grade. It is clear that we must improve how we support our SE-DLL students, and we’re excited to contribute to that work with new, empirically sound and conceptually strong measurement tools.”
An extension of the existing Individual Growth and Development Indicators (IGDIs) measurement system, IGDIs – PK3 will assess the language and literacy development of three-year-olds. These measures will lead to improvements in school readiness for preschool children by providing an age appropriate assessment from age three to kindergarten entry. Read the abstract.
“As early childhood services continue to expand in Minnesota and throughout the nation, we’ll need better ways to assess and support age-appropriate progress for younger and younger children,” says Dr. McConnell. “This project extends our reach, exploring new ways to extend General Outcome Measurement to even younger children.”
IGDILab
The IGDILab researches, develops, validates, and applies IGDIs to support data-based decision making by teachers, early childhood professionals, parents, and others to help improve early childhood outcomes. To date, the lab’s work includes the assessment of English and Spanish language and early literacy development for children three, four, and five years of age. In the future, research, data, and learned methods from the IGDILab plan to be applied to other languages, domains of development, and new settings, including communities.
Over 600 education leaders, researchers, policy maters, and non-profit employees attended our two-day “meeting of the minds.” Attendees left feeling inspired and connected and with the tools they need to improve educational equity in their organizations and communities. See the full recap.
The article defines the “word gap” as the “30 million word-exposure gulf that exists between children born into low-income families and their more affluent peers by the age of three.” It goes on to explain how one new early childhood education class at Northstar Mona Moede Early Childhood Center in North Minneapolis is attempting to lessen this gap, using a recording device and course materials that are part of a program called LENA StartTM. Parents participating in the program record a day’s worth of their child’s speech patterns, and a coach analyzes the results and offers advice.
Dr. McConnell, who is working to help implement and evaluate the LENA Start program in the Twin Cities, told MinnPost, “It’s really common for families to say, ‘I had no idea I was a teacher.’ Our experience with LENA so far is that parents are overwhelmed, in a positive way, by seeing their own data.”
Dr. Christ’s talk will focus on the importance of using research, assessment, and evaluation to guide decision-making and educational practice. During the speech, Dr. Christ will discuss ideas on how evaluation data may be used for system improvement to accelerate student outcomes. Finally, he will share the results of a recent statewide needs assessment in the areas of research, evaluation, and assessment with an opportunity to provide input on ways to respond to statewide needs.
The MDE Back to School Conference hosts education leaders and takes place August 9 -10 at the Minneapolis Marriot Northwest. This year’s theme is Minnesota’s commitment to the drivers of effective education leadership.
Theodore J. Christ’s leadership supports CAREI’s mission of improving the quality of education for all learners, and thereby society as a whole, through four service offerings: 1) evaluation, 2) research, 3) assessment, and 4) innovation and outreach. As applied researchers and evaluators, CAREI strives to have an immediate impact on communities, listening to and working with clients and partners to understand their experiences. CAREI seeks to impact 80% of Minnesota students within five years.
Dr. Miller’s grant, Project ESCAPES (Evidence-based System for Children with Anxiety Problems in Educational Settings), aims to translate research breakthroughs in effective interventions for children’s mental health for use in school settings, frequently the most common providers of mental health support for youth. Dr. Miller will serve as principal investigator on the grant and has partnered with a local school district for implementation.
ITR’s Collaborative Seed Grant program awards scholars with grants of $20,000 or less for one year to support small research projects that address pressing issues in children’s mental health in partnership with communities in Minnesota. The goal of the program is to kick start innovative ideas that have a likely to become larger, sustained research projects with external funding to improve mental health outcomes among Minnesota’s children.
Karen Shapiro, technology instructor at Hiawatha Leadership Academy-Morris Park in South Minneapolis and blogger for MinnCan, recently attended Educational Equity in Action and wrote a short summary of Pedro Noguero and Jeff Duncan-Andrade’s keynote speeches.
The Minnesota Campaign for Achievement Now (MinnCan) works to ensure that every child in Minnesota has access to a great public school. Through communications, research and advocacy, they partner with teachers, school leaders, parents, community members and policymakers to advance practices and policies that will help all Minnesota kids succeed.
