Yinmei Wan

Applied Research Task Lead
(630) 649-6554

About

Applied Research Task Lead
Yinmei Wan, PhD, a senior researcher at AIR, serves as the applied research task lead for REL Southwest. In this role, she oversees all research and evaluation activities for the program. Wan has extensive experience working with state and local education agencies on research, evaluation, and technical assistance projects. She has more than 10 years of experience leading REL applied research projects and has authored multiple REL reports. She also serves as the partnership director for REL Midwest’s Teaching Fractions Toolkit project, which is developing and evaluating a toolkit to support teachers in using evidence-based practices featured in the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Developing Effective Fractions Instruction for Kindergarten Through 8th Grade practice guide. In addition, Wan is a WWC-certified reviewer and leads the WWC Statistics, Website, and Training Help Desk team. She holds a doctorate from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

Associated IES Content

About REL Southwest

About REL Southwest

About REL Midwest

REL Midwest
report Descriptive Study

Early Progress and Outcomes of a Grow Your Own Grant Program for High School Students and Paraprofessionals in Texas

The Texas Education Agency launched the Grow Your Own (GYO) grant program in 2018 to encourage districts to develop or expand existing high-quality education and training courses for high school students and to support district-employed paraprofessionals (including instructional aides and long-term substitute teachers) to pursue certifications that would allow them to enter full-time teaching roles. This study aimed to help state education leaders in Texas understand the progress of districts...
Oct 24, 2022
Publication number:
REL 2023-141
report Impact Study

Indiana and Minnesota Students Who Focused on Career and Technical Education in High School: Who Are They, and What Are Their College and Employment Outcomes?

In Indiana and Minnesota the state education agency, state higher education agency, and the state workforce agency have collaborated to develop career and technical education courses intended to improve high school students' college and career readiness. These agencies partnered with the Regional Educational Laboratory Midwest to examine whether high school graduates in each state who completed a large number of career and technical education courses in a single career-oriented program of stu...
Jun 01, 2021
Publication number:
REL 2021-090
report Descriptive Study

Outcomes for Early Career Teachers Prepared through a Pilot Residency Program in Louisiana

Louisiana's Believe and Prepare pilot program, supported by grants from the Louisiana Department of Education, aimed to prepare teacher candidates or in-service teachers through a residency with a mentor and a competency-based curriculum. To improve teacher preparation and teacher residencies, state and teacher education leaders in Louisiana sought to better understand the early career outcomes for participants in the pilot program. This study analyzed data for the three cohorts that particip...
May 10, 2021
Publication number:
REL 2021-079
report Descriptive Study

Understanding the Teacher Pipeline for Indiana's K-12 Public Schools

Leaders at the Indiana Commission for Higher Education and the Indiana Department of Education are concerned about teacher shortages and want a better understanding of the teacher pipeline for the state's K-12 public schools. This study tracked 11,080 students who first enrolled in an Indiana public college or university in 2010/11, 2011/12, or 2012/13 and pursued a bachelor's degree in education at any point in college. Among those entrants 41 percent completed a bachelor's degree in educati...
Mar 01, 2021
Publication number:
REL 2021-065
report Descriptive Study

Past and Projected Trends in Teacher Demand and Supply in Michigan

State and school district leaders in Michigan are concerned about the challenges some districts are facing in filling certain classroom teacher vacancies and about the harmful impact of teacher shortages on students, schools, and communities. They have asked for better and more comprehensive information on the existence and extent of teacher shortages in the state. Using data from the 2013/14-2017/18 school years, this study examined trends in teacher demand, supply, and shortages in Michigan...
Aug 01, 2019
resource Other Resource

Strategies for estimating teacher supply and demand using student and teacher data

Every year the U.S. Department of Education reports for each state in the country the grade levels, subject areas, and geographic areas that have experienced teacher shortages (U.S. Department of Education, Office of Postsecondary Education, 2015). A teacher shortage occurs when the number of teachers available in a specific grade, subject matter or discipline classification, or geographic area--teacher supply--is less than the number of teachers required in that grade, subject matter or disc...
Dec 01, 2016
report Descriptive Study

A Comparison of Two Approaches of Identifying Beating-the-Odds High Schools in Puerto Rico

The Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast and Islands conducted this study using data on public high schools in Puerto Rico from national and territory databases to compare methods for identifying beating-the-odds schools. Schools were identified by two methods, a status method that ranked high-poverty schools based on their current observed performance and an exceeding-achievement-expectations method that ranked high-poverty schools based on the extent to which their actual performance e...
Dec 01, 2016
report Descriptive Study

An examination of the movement of educators within and across three Midwest Region states

Education leaders have expressed concern about educators' moving to different schools--within the same state or in another state--because these moves create costs for the home district and have potential impacts on the equitable distribution of effective educators among schools. However, many states do not routinely monitor mobility among educators. Such was the case in Minnesota in fall 2012, when Minnesota members of the Midwest Educator Effectiveness Research Alliance requested that Region...
Nov 01, 2016
resource Other Resource

How to Use the School Survey of Practices Associated with High Performance

This report describes and explains how to use the School Survey of Practices Associated with High Performance, which measures the degree to which schools are engaging in practices associated with high performance. State education departments and school districts can use the survey results to identify and describe school practices associated with high performance, compare practices across school subgroups, target schools for specific interventions, and design interventions. The survey, designe...
Sep 01, 2016
report Descriptive Study

The Utility of Teacher and Student Surveys in Principal Evaluations: An Empirical Investigation

This study examined whether adding student and teacher survey measures to existing principal evaluation measures increases the overall power of the principal evaluation model to explain variation in student achievement across schools. The study was conducted using data from 2011-12 on 39 elementary and secondary schools within a midsize urban school district in the Midwest. The research team used the results of the district's Tripod student and teacher surveys to construct six school-level me...
Nov 01, 2014
report Descriptive Study

Using the Freshman On-Track Indicator to Predict Graduation in Two Urban Districts in the Midwest Region

Recent estimates suggest that of U.S. public high school freshmen in the fall of 2005 24.5 percent did not graduate on time in 2008/09 (Stillwell, Sable, and Plotts 2011). As states and school districts attempt to boost graduation rates, they face the challenge of identifying which students are at risk of not graduating on time. Early warning indicators based on measurable student outcomes and behaviors could help identify students at risk while there is still time to redirect their trajector...
Apr 01, 2012
report Descriptive Study

Characteristics of Midwest Region School Districts Identified for Improvement

Like other states across the country, the seven states in the Midwest Region (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin) have been striving to meet the performance targets established under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, the latest reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. The states vary in how they identify underperforming districts and schools using the NCLB criteria. This report responds to requests from policymakers and l...
Mar 01, 2012
report Descriptive Study

Differences in Spending in School Districts Across Geographic Locales in Minnesota

This study examines the relationship between school district expenditures and district characteristics, including regional features (enrollment size, student population density, labor costs, and geographic remoteness) and level of student need (percentages of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, of special education students, and of English language learner students). Prior research has found that each of these factors has been associated with differences in expenditures across ...
Feb 01, 2012