Name of PI: Dee, T.
Partner Name: Sequioa Union High School District
Project Name: Understanding the Effects of Mainstreaming English Language Learners
Description of Project: Starting in Fall 2018, SUHSD plans to place some English Learner (EL) students in some mainstream classes, and provide an additional teacher in the classroom to support this effort. Specifically, 20-50 ELD3 students (those closest to re-designation) per site will be placed in two mainstream classes. SUHSD is interested in research that would examine whether mainstreamed EL students fare better compared to their peers who remain in separate classes. Further, SUHSD is interested in randomly assigning which ELD3 students are placed in mainstream classes, which will yield a strong research design.
Funding Source: Stanford-Sequioa Incentive Fund
Duration of Project: 2018-2020
Benefits for fellows: quantitative training; partnership skills
Any Publications or Outcomes: in progress
Name of PI: Eric Hanushek (with Ludger Woessmann)
Partner Name:
Project Name: International Comparative Education Policy Lab
Brief Description of Project: This research involves deepening and expanding previous work on international comparative education studies, particularly work on substantive differences in the institutions of educational systems. Work over the past decade by Eric Hanushek, Ludger Woessmann, and a group of close collaborators has shown that a range of significant issues can only be addressed by exploiting variations in programs and policies across countries. Moreover, as both international data and analytical methods have grown, it appears increasingly feasible to learn from rigorous analysis of international experiences.
Funding Source: Smith Richardson Foundation
Duration of Project: 2018-2020
Benefits for fellows: Panel data techniques, regression discontinuity training
Any publications or outcomes:
Hanushek, Eric A., Susanne Link, and Ludger Woessmann. 2013. "Does school autonomy make sense everywhere? Panel estimates from PISA." Journal of Development Economics 104: 212-232.
Hanushek, Eric A., Guido Schwerdt, Simon Wiederhold, and Ludger Woessmann. 2015. "Returns to skills around the world: Evidence from PIAAC." European Economic Review 73: 103-130.
Hanushek, Eric A., Guido Schwerdt, Simon Wiederhold, and Ludger Woessmann. 2017. "Coping with change: International differences in the returns to skills." Economic Letters 153(April): 15-19.
Hanushek, Eric A., Guido Schwerdt, Ludger Woessmann, and Lei Zhang. 2017. "General education, vocational education, and labor-market outcomes over the life-cycle." Journal of Human Resources 52, no. 1: 48-87.
Name of PI: Jelena Obradovic
Partner Name:
Project Name: Development and Pilot Testing of a Platform to Improve Teachers’ Understanding and Report of Socio-Emotional Learning Skills in Elementary School Students.
Brief Description of Project: This project will focus on the assessment of social and emotional learning (SEL), an umbrella term for the malleable skills that support self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making (www.casel.org). Our research shows that teacher reports can be biased for certain demographic groups relative to objective, direct assessments of these skills (Garcia, Sulik, & Obradović, 2018). This highlights the urgency to develop a more equitable assessment approach. We propose to address these challenges with a novel assessment platform that will enable teachers to: (1) rate students’ SEL skills using specific, developmentally appropriate, and culturally-sensitive behavioral markers, rather than the vague Likert scales currently in use; (2) consider variability of students’ skills across their classroom via a novel reporting format; (3) engage in systematic observation of different SEL skills that will improve teachers’ ability to differentiate SEL skills; and (4) get meaningful reports of SEL skills across the year. We will create an iOS app to help teachers seamlessly use this tool during the course of regular school days, which will reduce burden and mental overload associated with current assessment approaches. We will perform pilot testing with two community partners serving elementary school students.
Funding Source: Technology for Equity in Learning Opportunities (TELOS) Research & Design Award for $25,000.
Duration of Project: 2019-2020
Benefits for fellows: Measure design and validation; Social and behavioral competencies
Any publications or outcomes: NA
Name of PI: Osborne, Borko, Domingue
Partner Name: Santa Clara Unified School District
Project Name: A Partnership to Adapt, Implement and Study a Practice-based Professional Learning Model and Build District Capacity to Meet the Challenges of NGSS.
Brief Description of Project: The Lawrence Hall of Science (the Hall) and Stanford University teams have previously developed and tested the efficacy of a program of Professional Learning (PL) which is focused on improving teachers' ability to support students' ability to engage in scientific argumentation. Key components of the PL model include a week-long summer institute and follow-up sessions during the academic year that incorporate additional pedagogical input, video reflection, and planning time. In this project, the Hall and Stanford are working in partnership with the Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD) to adapt the PL model based on the District's objectives and constraints, to build the capacity of teacher leaders and a program coordinator to implement the adapted PL program. This will enable the District to continue to adapt and implement the program independently at the conclusion of the project. Concurrently, the project is studying the adaptability of the PL model and the effectiveness of its implementation and is developing guidelines and tools for other districts to use in adapting and implementing the PL model in their local contexts. Thus, this project is contributing knowledge about how to build capacity in districts to lead professional learning in science that addresses the new teaching and learning standards and is responsive to the needs of their local context.
Funding Source: NSF
Duration of Project: 2017-2021
Roles & Competencies for fellows: Analysis of teacher observations
Any publications or outcomes: NA
Name of PI: Martin Carnoy
Partner Name: National Institute of Statistics, Brazil (INEP)
Project Name: Social Class and Student Achievement in Brazil, 2007-2017
Brief Description of Project: The project uses Big Data (tens of millions of individual achievement scores on Brazil's biannual national test at 5th and 9th grade over a ten year period to estimate relationships between student social class average at the school level and changes in student achievement over time and across states and municipalities
Funding Source: Lemann Foundation
Duration of Project: Ongoing for 3 years
Roles & Competencies for fellows: Using big data
Any publications or outcomes: 2 working papers
Name of PI: David B. Grusky
Partner Name: Jure Leskovec, Beth Redbird
Project Name: Monitoring Segregation in Real Time
Brief Description of Project: A new approach to monitoring segregation with cell phone data
Funding Source: UPS
Duration of Project: 1 year
Roles & Competencies for fellows: methods for analyzing big data
Any publications or outcomes: NA
Name of PI: Jelena Obradovic
Partner Name:
Project Name: Interplay of Stress Physiology and Socioemotional Learning in Young Children
Brief Description of Project: This study has two parts. First, I will use an existing dataset to examine young children’s physiological reactivity to and recovery from common emotionally stressful experiences that can impede their learning. Second, I will conduct two experiments to examine whether brief interventions can change young children’s physiological and behavioral responses to emotional and cognitive challenges routinely encountered in an educational setting. Building on promising experimental research, I will design and test the effectiveness of three separate strategies: (a) a breathing exercise; (b) reappraisal of physiological arousal; and (c) induction of a learning orientation mindset. After identifying which strategies work in a traditional individual setting with a ratio of one child to one adult experimenter, I will test the effectiveness of those strategies in a classroom setting.
Funding Source: Jacobs Foundation Advanced Research Fellowship Grant for 400,000 CHF
Duration of Project: 2019-2020
Roles & Competencies for fellows: Biological bases of learning; Experimental research; Social and behavioral competencies; Direct assessment
Any publications or outcomes: NA
Name of PI: Francis Pearman
Partner Name: Tennessee Department of Education
Project Name: Sustaining Environments for Pre-K Effects
Brief Description of Project: This project uses data from the Tennessee Voluntary Prekindergarten Program to explore the conditions under which pre-k effects on later achievement persist over time. The project fits with the IES research program on Evaluation of State and Local Educational Programs and Policies.
Funding: none
Roles & Competencies for fellows: propensity score methods, instrumental variables methods, and growth models.
Publications to date: (Pearman et al, 2019)