KU Center for Research on Learning
KU-CRL News Archive
Technology Rich Classrooms award winners
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
ALTEC’s Technology Rich Classrooms project recognized Teacher, Facilitator, Administrator, Lesson Plan, and Video of the year during Celebration 2012 in Wichita.
Recommendations for Improving Adult Literacy Education
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
A new book that includes contributions from a University of Kansas researcher calls for federal and state policymakers to take four steps to improve adult literacy education in the United States.
The book, Improving Adult Literacy Instruction: Options for Practice and Research, is the result of a three-year study by the Committee on Learning Sciences: Foundations and Applications to Adolescent and Adult Literacy, appointed by the National Research Council of the National Academies.
Daryl Mellard, KU research professor and director of the Center for Research on Learning’s Division of Adult Studies, served on the committee along with 14 other experts from wide-ranging fields of study.
“Every adult in this country needs to be literate to compete for jobs, to understand the health care system, and to support a family, among other things. Yet 90 million adults don’t have adequate literacy skills,” Mellard said. “Our report looks at the overall state of adult literacy programs and offers guidance for improvement.”
Improving Adult Literacy Instruction covers topics such as literacy instruction for English language learners; learning, reading, and writing disabilities; motivation; persistence; and technology to promote adult literacy.
“We had lots of conversations in the committee about the need for people to access information through digital media, how the format is so different from our familiar experiences, and how digital media could become the channel for adult education,” said Mellard. “I think that this change will be very significant, and we don’t know how well it will work for this population.”
Technology has the potential to address some of the problems that are prevalent in adult education, including the high number of learners who drop out of literacy programs before learning the skills they need. Creative uses of technology may alleviate scheduling problems for some adult learners, for example.
Improving Adult Literacy Instruction makes the following four recommendations for improving adult literacy education:
1. Expand support for the use of instructional materials and methods that are backed by current research and evaluate the effectiveness of new instructional programs when they are implemented.
2. Make sure adult literacy instructors have ample opportunities to learn about effective instructional methods and materials.
3. Seek ways to help adults complete their literacy studies.
4. Invest in ways to improve and evaluate adult literacy programs and in research to learn more about the needs of adult learners.
Kari Woods, program assistant with the Center’s Division of Adult Studies, served as a consultant to the committee and wrote one of the papers that contributed to discussions and the final report.
Improving Adult Literacy Instruction: Options for Practice and Research, edited by Alan M. Lesgold and Melissa Welch-Ross, was published by the National Academies Press.
2012 Romain P. Mackie Leadership Award
Monday, April 30, 2012
Edward Meyen, professor of education and co-director of the e-Learning Design Lab, is the recipient of the 2012 Romain P. Mackie Leadership Award. The Pioneer Division of the Council for Exceptional Children presents the award to an outstanding professional who has demonstrated leadership in CEC and other organizations for an extensive period of time.
Staff Achievement Award
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Congratulations to Shanna Williams, grant specialist for the Center for Research on Learning, on receiving the richly deserved Staff Achievement Award during a KU School of Education ceremony last week.
Shanna is the leader of KUCRL’s award services group and serves as the principal contact for grants. She oversees and facilitates all aspects of grant administration functions from pre-submission to final award closeout. She also serves as assistant to KUCRL’s associate director on special projects and provides input on KUCRL grant award policies and procedures.
In announcing the award, Dean Rick Ginsberg made the following remarks: “While performing her regular duties, Shanna is more than qualified to earn a staff achievement award. However, this past year, CRL lost a beloved staff member, Mary Brieck, to cancer. Shanna was the staff member who stepped up and made certain that nothing fell through the cracks. She assumed responsibility for getting proposals submitted, making sure budgets were accurate, ensuring grants and contracts were being managed appropriately, and worked with all the researchers and staff on any projects or problems they had. She quickly became the person who held the staff together during a very difficult time.”
The colleagues who nominated Shanna for the award had high praise:
- “She is in a class all by herself! While her technical knowledge and skills are extensive, it is her ability to work so effectively with others that sets her apart from others.”
- “Shanna brings not only immense knowledge and expertise to the grant writing and administration activities of the Center, she also brings a positive, can-do attitude and a spirit of teamwork that I truly value and appreciate.”
Congratulations to KUCRL’s “Leading Lights”
Friday, April 20, 2012
The University of Kansas Provost’s Office and Office of Research and Graduate Studies this year awarded Leading Light Awards in recognition of researchers who obtained grants of $1 million or more. Eight KUCRL researchers were among the more than 125 recipients of this new award: Jan Bulgren, Don Deshler, Jean Hall, Mike Hock, Jim Knight, Daryl Mellard, Mary Morningstar, and Suzanne Robinson.
The symbol for the Leading Light Award is the sunflower, the state flower of Kansas. Each first-time recipient of the award receives a specially designed and engraved brass sunflower, and a sunflower will be planted in his or her honor somewhere on campus.
This year’s Leading Light recipients were recognized during an awards luncheon on Tuesday.
Digital Learning Day
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
ALTEC’s Technology Rich Classroom project, managed by Amber Rowland, participated in the national Digital Learning Day on Feb. 1. This eSchool News article looks at some of the day’s events, including an open house at a Hutchinson, Kan., elementary school. A TRC grant supports the school’s efforts to integrate technology and instruction.
CRL researcher selected for fellowship program
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Jana Craig Hare, project coordinator with the Center for Research on Learning, has been named a 2011-2012 CADRE Fellow by the Community for Advancing Discovery Research in Education. She is one of 10 individuals representing diverse interests and experiences within science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education research selected for this program.
As part of the CADRE Fellowship program, Jana will have the opportunity to explore topics essential to building her capacity as a researcher and developer and to engage in the Discovery Research K-12 community. The fellowship program, with support from the National Science Foundation, provides professional development experience for early career researchers and developers working on DR K-12 projects.
Jana is project coordinator for a KUCRL project called the Evidence Games: Collaborative Games Engaging Middle School Students in the Evaluation of Scientific Evidence.
Instructional coaching: Better instruction through partnerships with teachers
Friday, January 06, 2012
Any good teacher can attest that an educator needs to keep learning, just like the students in his or her classroom. The Center for Research on Learning at the University of Kansas has developed an instructional coaching project that is helping teachers worldwide learn on the job and improve how they educate students.
The Kansas Coaching Project partners with schools every year to share proven instructional methods and develop coaches within the schools who work with teachers in the classroom to enact those practices. The coaches are mentors and partners the teachers work with throughout the year, as opposed to the traditional professional development practice of a class or in-service that shares information that is expected to be taken back to the classroom.
“Schools make a very large investment in professional development. Often the nature of the development they follow does not yield long-standing effects through no fault of the teachers,” said Don Deshler, director of the Center for Research on Learning at KU. “Schools are getting a much better return on their investment through instructional coaching. More importantly, the quality of instruction is improving dramatically.”
Under the direction of Jim Knight, the Kansas Coaching Project works with educators and instructional coaches throughout the year. Several annual workshops are held to train new coaches, and tools are available online at no cost to the schools. Videos of instructional coaches at work, discussion forums, reading material and teaching methods are all available for the thousands of members from 40 states and countries such as Canada, India, England, China and Russia.
While the instructional methods coaches use are developed by some of the world’s foremost educational researchers, they are not complicated or inaccessible.
“The idea of instructional coaching is pretty simple,” Knight said. “What are the little things that make the biggest differences? What is effective teaching, and how can we implement it?”
The coaching project uses a three-tiered approach, making effective teaching practices available and easy to use, working with coaches in training them to be effective and collaborating with school districts to help them bring the entire school on board and contributing to the project.
Usually full-time district employees, coaches work in the classroom with teachers as equal partners in ensuring students are receiving the highest-quality instruction.
“Who the coach is, is really critical. They must be seen as credible in the eyes of the staff,” Knight said. “A coach is a shoulder-to-shoulder partner with the teacher.”
Jadi Miller, principal of Elliott Elementary School in Lincoln, Neb., said her school’s three instructional coaches are indeed peers and partners of the teachers who help introduce new ideas and partner with them in the classroom.
“Some people originally viewed the coaches as additional administrators,” Miller said. “I wanted to make sure teachers wouldn’t have any reason not to go to a coach. They don’t have any performance review or supervisory duties. I feel like we make progress on our new ideas and implementation so much faster because of the coaches. They give them that ongoing feedback and support and help plan and contribute so much.”
All interactions between the coaches and teachers are videotaped and shared with the community of partners in the coaching project. Instructional videos are also shared to help coaching and instruction continue to evolve.
Schools that have implemented instructional coaching have seen marked improvement in student performance. Knight and project staff gauge the impact of the coaching and have found nearly across-the-board improvement in participating schools. While the rate of success varies by school, test scores have improved dramatically in many locations.
“It would be nice to say ‘with coaching your scores will improve 20 percent.’ What I can say is coaching leads to improvement in instruction,” Knight said.
Ken Geisick, superintendent of Riverbank Unified School District in Riverbank, Calif., said his district has seen marked improvement in student achievement, both in test scores and in general. One of about 25 school districts using instructional coaching in California, the districts scores have gone up, and teachers have improved their craft as well.
“We had the largest growth in terms of test scores of any district in our county,” Geisick said of achievement after implementing coaching. “Year-by-year improvement in achievement is not easy. Instructional coaching has been the absolute best return on our investment in professional development.”
Teaching, like any other endeavor, improves when its practitioners strive to improve throughout their careers.
“You wouldn’t dream of an Olympic athlete without a coach,” Knight said. “The best always have a coach. The reason they’re great is they know they always have to get better.”
More information
KUCRL to study online education for students with disabilities
Monday, October 31, 2011
Diana Greer, Sean Smith, Ed Meyen, and James Basham
Across the country, virtual schools and online education are gaining popularity at a rapid rate, yet little research exists on whether such methods are effective for students with disabilities. Researchers at the University of Kansas’ Center for Research on Learning have landed a five-year, $7.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to find out whether online learning is working for students with disabilities and to develop new methods of using technology to improve learning.
The KU researchers are interested in finding out what’s happening in online education throughout the country, what methods are working, and whether students, teachers, and parents are getting the most from it, as well as from virtual schools, which have become an attractive alternative for parents whose children struggle to learn in traditional brick-and-mortar schools. KU researchers will conduct research on new e-learning instructional designs based on prior research on learning processes. Particular attention will be given to the learning attributes of students with disabilities.
“We want to determine what’s happening in online instruction in K-12 schools and whether students’ needs are being met,” said Diana Greer, assistant research professor and co-principal investigator for the project.
The Center for Research on Learning will form the Center on Online Learning and Students with Disabilities with two partner organizations: the National Association of State Directors of Special Education, known as NASDSE, which promotes education and services for children and youth with disabilities; and CAST, formerly known as the Center for Applied Special Technology, which has a long history of exploring ways to use technology to improve education for students with disabilities. NASDSE will identify trends and research needs related to online learning, and CAST will identify and develop new online education interventions.
The KU center will conduct research on the effectiveness of interventions and promising practices in pilot study sites across the country, drawing on more than 30 years of experience in conducting high-quality research. In addition to the partner organizations, 25 states have agreed to work with the new center.
“Many students with disabilities have unique needs,” Greer said. “We’re going to learn so much from these students that will drive what we do at the center, drive our development, and drive what we research.”
The partner organizations will conduct in-depth surveys of students, teachers, and parents in schools in each of the 25 states taking part. Researchers will examine general education and special education curriculum in schools and measure it with student achievement to determine the effectiveness of online learning for all students.
“We’ll be targeting states that are leaders in the area of online education,” said Sean Smith, associate professor of special education and co-principal investigator. “Places that have done a lot of work in this area and are leaders in the field will have a lot to offer us.”
Researchers will examine the effect of e-learning on the achievement of students with disabilities.
“With a number of states and K-12 school districts beginning to consider online options, this research is critical to understanding how to meet the instructional needs of all learners, especially those with disabilities, in online environments,” said James Basham, assistant professor of special education and co-principal investigator.
After the initial round of research, the Center for Research on Learning will develop a web site for educators sharing effective methods for online education and universal designs for learning. The site will be both a repository and delivery vehicle for effective online educational practices.
The project is especially timely, Greer said. Estimates have been made that by 2019 as much as 50 percent of K-12 curriculum will be delivered online. Some states require students to take one or more online courses to be eligible for graduation, enhancing the importance of ensuring that online curriculum meets the needs of students with a range of disabilities.
The Center on Online Learning and Students with Disabilities will begin work in January. Principal investigators are Don Deshler, director of the Center for Research on Learning; David Rose, founder and chief education officer at CAST; and Bill East, executive director of NASDSE. Co-principal investigators from KU are Basham, Greer, Smith, and Ed Meyen, professor of special education and co-director of the Center for Research on Learning’s e-Learning Design Lab.
New Yorker article looks at coaching
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
A New Yorker piece on coaching features KUCRL’s Jim Knight and the Kansas Coaching Project. Author Atul Gawande looks at the value of coaching for professionals, such as surgeons, musicians, and teachers. In the article, he describes time spent with Knight observing teachers and coaches at Leslie H. Walton Middle School, in Albemarle County, Virginia. Read the full article here.
Go to main news page
top