NCEE Blog

National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance

What Works in STEM Education: Resources for National STEM Day, 2018

Are you celebrating National STEM Day this November 8th by learning more about how to improve student achievement in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)? If so, the Institute of Education Sciences’ (IES’s) What Works Clearinghouse has great resources for educators who want information about the latest evidence-based practices in supporting learners of all ages.

  • Focused on math? If so, check out Improving Mathematical Problem Solving in Grades 4 Through 8. Based on 38 rigorous studies conducted over 20 years, this practice guide includes five recommendations that teachers, math coaches, and curriculum developers can use to improve students’ mathematical problem-solving skills. There’s strong evidence that assisting students in monitoring and reflecting on the problem-solving process and teaching students how to use visual representations (e.g., tables, graphs, and number lines) can improve achievement. Other practice guides focus on Teaching Math to Young Children and Teaching Strategies for Improving Algebra Knowledge in Middle and High School Students.

  • Don’t worry, we won’t leave science out! Encouraging Girls in Math and Science includes five evidence-based recommendations that both classroom teachers and other school personnel can use to encourage girls to choose career paths in math- and science-related fields. A handy 20-point checklist provides suggestions for how those recommendations can be incorporated into daily practice, such as “[teaching] students that working hard to learn new knowledge leads to improved performance” and “[connecting] mathematics and science activities to careers in ways that do not reinforce existing gender stereotypes of those careers.”

  • Looking for specific curricula or programs for encouraging success in STEM? If so, check out the What Works Clearinghouse’s Intervention Reports in Math and Science. Intervention reports are summaries of findings from high-quality research on a given educational program, practice, or policy. There are currently more than 200 intervention reports that include at least one math or science related outcome. (And nearly 600 in total!)

  • Maybe you just want to see the research we’ve reviewed? You can! The What Works Clearinghouse’s Reviews of Individual Studies Database includes nearly 11,000 citations across a wide range of topics, including STEM. Type in your preferred search term and you’re off—from algebra to zoology, we’ve got you covered!

We hope you’ll visit us on November 8th and learn more about evidence-based practices in STEM education. And with practice guides, intervention reports, and individual studies spanning topics from Early Childhood to Postsecondary education and everything in-between, we hope you’ll come back whenever you are looking for high-quality research to answer the question “what works in education!”

The WWC Evidence Standards: A Valuable and Accessible Resource for Teaching Validity Assessment of Causal Inferences to Identify What Works

by Herbert Turner, Ph.D., President and Principal Scientist, ANALYTICA, Inc.

 

The WWC Evidence Standards (hereafter, the Standards) provide a detailed description of the criteria used by the WWC to review studies. The standards were first developed in 2002 by leading methodological researchers using initial concepts from the Study Design and Implementation Assessment Device (DIAD), an instrument for assessing the correspondence between the methodological characteristics and implementation of social science research and using this research to draw inferences about causal relationships (Boruch, 1997; Valentine and Cooper, 2008).  During the past 16 years, the Standards have gone through four iterations of improvement, to keep pace with advances in methodological practice, and have been through rigorous peer review. The most recent of these is now codified in the WWC Standards Handbook 4.0 (hereafter, the Handbook).

 

Across the different versions of the Handbook, the methodological characteristics of an internally valid study, designed to causally infer the effect of an intervention on an outcome, have stood the test of time. These characteristics can be summarized as follows: A strong design starts with how the study groups are formed. It continues with use of reliable and valid measures of outcomes, has low attrition if a randomized controlled trial (RCT), shows baseline equivalence (in the analysis sample) if a quasi-experimental design (QED), and has no confounds.

 

These elements are the critical components of any strong research design – and are the cornerstones of all versions of the WWC’s standards. That fact, along with the transparent description of their logical underpinning, is what motivated me to use Standards 4.0 (for Group Designs) as the organizing framework for understanding study validity in a graduate-level Program Evaluation II course I taught at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education.

 

In spring 2017, nine Master and four Doctoral students participated in this semester-long course. The primary goal was to teach students how to organize their thinking and logically derive internal validity criteria using Standards 4.0—augmented with additional readings from the methodological literature. Students used the Standards (along with the supplemental readings) to design, implement, analyze, and report impact evaluations to determine what interventions work, harm, or have no discernible effect (Mosteller and Boruch, 2002). The Standards Handbook 4.0 along with online course modules were excellent resources to augment the lectures and provide Lynch School students with hands on learning.

 

At the end of the course, students were offered the choice to complete the WWC Certification Exam for Group Design or take the instructor’s developed final exam. All thirteen students chose to complete the WWC Certification Exam. Approximately half of the students became certified. Many emailed me personally to express their appreciation for the (1) opportunity to learn a systematic approach to organizing their thinking about assessing the validity of causal inference using data generated by RCTs and QEDs, and (2) developing design skills that can be used in other graduate courses and beyond. The WWC Evidence Standards and related online resources are a valuable, accessible, and free resource that have been rigorously vetted for close to two decades. The Standards have few equals as a resource to help students think systematically, logically, and clearly about designing (and evaluating) a valid research study to make causal inferences about what interventions work in education and related fields.

 

References

Boruch, R. F. (1997). Randomized experiments for planning and evaluation: A practical guide. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Valentine, J.C., & Cooper, H. (2008), A systematic and transparent approach for assessing the methodological quality of intervention effectiveness research: The Study Design and Implementation Assessment Device (Study DIAD). Psychological Methods, 13(2), 130-149.

Mosteller, F., & Boruch, R. F. (2002). Evidence matters: Randomized trials in education research. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.

Making the WWC Open to Everyone by Moving WWC Certification Online

In December 2016, the What Works Clearinghouse made a version of its online training publicly available through the WWC Website. This enabled everyone to be able to access the Version 3.0 Group Design Standards reviewer training to learn about the standards and methods that the WWC uses. While this was a great step to increase access to WWC resources, users still had to go through the 1 ½ day, in-person training to become a WWC certified reviewer.

To continue our efforts to promote access and transparency and make our resources available to everyone, the WWC has now moved all of its group design training to be online. Now everyone will have access to the same training and certification tests. This certification is available free of charge and is open to all users. It is our hope that this effort will increase the number of certified reviewers and help increase general awareness about the WWC.

Why did the WWC make these resources publicly available? As part of IES’s effort to increase access to high quality education research, we wanted to make it easier for researchers to use our standards. This meant opening up training opportunities and offering training online was a way to achieve this goal while using limited taxpayer resources most efficiently.

The online training consists of 9 modules. These videos feature an experienced WWC instructor and use the same materials that we used in our in-person courses, but adapted to Version 4.0 of the Group Design Standards. After completing the modules, users will have the opportunity to download a certificate of completion, take the online certification test, or go through the full certification exam.

Becoming a fully certified reviewer will require users to take a multiple choice online certification test and then use the new Online SRG application to conduct a full review using the same tools that the WWC team uses. The WWC team will then grade your exam to make sure you fully understand how to apply the Standards before certifying you to review for the Clearinghouse.

Not interested in becoming a certified reviewer? Online training still has several benefits. Educators can embed our videos in their course websites and use our training materials in their curricula. Researchers can use our Online SRG tool with their publications to determine a preliminary rating and understand what factors could cause their study to get the highest rating. They could also use the tool to use when conducting a systematic evidence review.

Have ideas for new resources we could make available? Email your ideas and suggestions to Contact.WWC@ed.gov!

by Erin Pollard, WWC Project Officer

 

Improving the WWC Standards and Procedures

By Chris Weiss and Jon Jacobson

For the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC), standards and procedures are at the foundation of the WWC’s work to provide scientific evidence for what works in education. They guide how studies are selected for review, what elements of an effectiveness study are examined, and how systematic reviews are conducted. The WWC’s standards and procedures are designed to be rigorous and reflective of best practices in research and statistics, while also being aspirational to help point the field of education effectiveness research toward an ever-higher quality of study design and analysis.

To keep pace with new advances in methodological research and provide necessary clarifications for both education researchers and decision makers, the WWC regularly updates its procedures and standards and shares them with the field. We recently released Version 4.0 of the Procedures and Standards Handbooks, which describes the five steps of the WWC’s systematic review process.

For this newest version, we have divided information into two separate documents (see graphic below).  The Procedures Handbook describes how the WWC decides which studies to review and how it reports on study findings. The Standards Handbook describes how the WWC rates the evidence from studies.

The new Standards Handbook includes several improvements, including updated and overhauled standards for cluster-level assignment of students; a new approach for reviewing studies that have some missing baseline or outcome data; and revised standards for regression discontinuity designs. The new Procedures Handbook includes a revised discussion of how the WWC defines a study.  All of the changes are summarized on the WWC website (PDF).

Making the Revisions

These updates were developed in a careful, collaborative manner that included experts in the field, external peer review, and input from the public.

Staff from the Institute of Education Sciences oversaw the process with the WWC’s Statistical, Technical, and Analysis Team (STAT), a panel of highly experienced researchers who revise and develop the WWC standards. In addition, the WWC sought and received input from experts on specific research topics, including regression discontinuity designs, cluster-level assignment, missing data, and complier average causal effects. Based on this information, drafts of the standards and procedures handbooks were developed.

External peer reviewers then provided input that led to additional revisions and, in the summer, the WWC posted drafts and gathered feedback from the public. The WWC’s response to some of the comments is available on its website (PDF).   

Version 4.0 of the Handbooks was released on October 26. This update focused on a few key areas of the standards, and updated and clarified some procedures. However, the WWC strives for continuous improvement and as the field of education research continues to evolve and improve, we expect that there will be new techniques and new tools incorporated into future versions the Handbooks.

Your thoughts, ideas, and suggestions are welcome and can be submitted through the WWC help desk.

Updating Our Recommendations to Prevent Dropping Out

By Dana Tofig, Communications Director, IES

Almost a decade ago, the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) released Dropout Prevention, one of its first practice guides, which offered six recommendations for keeping students in school, based on the findings from high-quality research and best practices in the field. Since its release in August 2008, the practice guide has been downloaded thousands of times by practitioners across the country. In fact, the guide was downloaded more than 1,500 times in 2016, alone.

However, over the past decade, the research and knowledge base has grown in the area of dropout prevention, which is why the WWC decided to update this guide to reflect the latest evidence and information about keeping students in school and on track toward graduation.

This updated guide, Preventing Dropout in Secondary Schools, builds on the 2008 guide in two significant ways.

First, it reflects improvements in practices related to monitoring at-risk students, including advances in using early warning indicators to identify students at risk for dropping out. Secondly, it covers an additional nine years of research that were not a part of the previous guide. In fact, 15 of the 25 studies used to support the recommendations in this updated guide were published after the first guide was published. In addition, studies from the previous guide were reviewed again against current, more rigorous WWC evidence standards.

Preventing Dropout in Secondary Schools offers four evidence-based recommendations that can be used by schools and districts:

  • Monitor the progress of all students, and proactively intervene when students show early signs of attendance, behavior, or academic problems;
  • Provide intensive, individualized support to students who have fallen off track and face significant challenges to success;
  • Engage students by offering curricula and programs that connect schoolwork with college and career success and that improve students’ capacity to manage challenges in and out of school; and
  • For schools with many at-risk students, create small, personalized communities to facilitate monitoring and support.

Each of these recommendations includes specific strategies for implementation and examples of how this work is being done around the country (see one such example in the image to the right).

Like all of our practice guides, the recommendations were developed with a panel of educators, academics, and experts who brought a wealth of knowledge and experience to the process. Two of the panelists on this updated guide were also involved in the development of the first dropout prevention guide—Russell Rumberger, from University of California, Santa Barbara, and Mark Dynarksi, of Pemberton Research LLC. The other panelists for the new guide were Howard (Sandy) Addis, of the National Dropout Prevention Center and Network; Elaine Allensworth, from the University of Chicago; Robert Balfanz, from The Johns Hopkins University; and Debra Duardo, superintendent of the Los Angeles County Office of Education.

Please download this free guide today and let us know what you think. We would especially love to hear from people who are using the recommended strategies in schools. You can reach us through the WWC Help Desk or email us at Contact.IES@ed.gov

Putting Your Ideas into Action: Instructional Tips for Educators

By Christopher Weiss, Program Manager, What Works Clearinghouse

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) is always looking for ways to improve. We want it to be as easy as possible for our users to connect with the evidence they need, so they can make informed educational decisions.

Last year, we undertook a comprehensive, multi-faceted self-study. Through surveys, interviews, and focus groups, we asked a variety of different WWC users to tell us what we were doing well and, more importantly, what we could do better. (Click here if you’re interested in all the results.)

Some of the specific suggestions we received focused on the WWC Educator’s Practice Guides, which combine the best available research evidence and practitioner expertise on a topic to provide educators with strategies to use in their school or classroom. Based upon a review of the research literature and the guidance of a panel of nationally recognized experts, practice guides synthesize evidence and the wisdom of practitioners.

One particular suggestion that came from the self-study was to create a separate, stand-alone document with concise and specific information that a teacher or school would need to carry out some of a practice guide’s recommendations. It was a great suggestion – and we put it into action.

On July 25, we released our first Instructional Tips publication (PDF), which was created to help educators carry out the recommendations in the Improving Mathematical Problem Solving in Grades 4 through 8 practice guide. We provide tips for three of the Practice Guide’s five recommendations:

  • Assisting Students in Monitoring and Reflecting on the Problem-Solving Process;
  • Teaching Students to Use Visual Representations to Solve Problems; and
  • Helping Students Make Sense of Algebraic Notation.

As an example, for the recommendation on visual representations, we offer two instructional tips. First, we suggest that teachers demonstrate how to select the appropriate visual representation for the problem they are solving and we provide specific steps and examples for implementing this tip. Second, we suggest teachers use think-alouds and discussions to teach students how to represent problems visually and, again, provide specific steps and work examples. Here's one of the examples from the publication:

An accompanying document (PDF) to the Instructional Tips describes the evidence base that supports these recommended practices.

We are planning additional Instructional Tips publications down the road, but we want to hear from you first. If you have questions or ideas for how we can improve this resource, we’d love to hear them. Please send them through an email to the WWC Help Desk.

The Instructional Tips are just one of several ways we are working to improve the WWC. Over the past two years, we have redesigned our website and created a new Find What Works tool to make it easier for users to find the evidence they need. We have also increased our use of Facebook and Twitter to help us better connect with new audiences; published new briefs and held several webinars to explain WWC processes and resources; and have launched a new Reviews of Individual Studies database to give the field quicker access to the research we have reviewed. And all of this has been done while we continue to identify interventions, practices and programs that show evidence of improving student outcomes across a wide array of educational topics.

Stay up to date on new WWC products, events, and resources by signing up for the IES News Flash (under NCEE) and following us on Facebook and Twitter

Using the WWC as a Teaching Tool

EDITOR'S NOTE:The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC), a program of the Institute of Education Sciences, is a trusted source of scientific evidence on education programs, products, practices, and policies. The WWC also has many tools and resources for education researchers and students.  In this guest blog post, Jessaca Spybrook (pictured, below right), Associate Professor of Evaluation, Measurement and Research at Western Michigan University, discusses how she uses WWC procedures and standards as a teaching tool.


By Jessaca Spybrook, Western Michigan University

TraiJessaca Spybrookning the next generation of researchers so they are prepared to enter the world of education research is a critical part of my role as a faculty member in the Evaluation, Measurement, and Research program. I want to ensure that my students have important technical skills in a host of subject areas including, but not limited to, research design, statistics, and measurement. At the same time, I want to be sure they know how to apply the skills to design and analyze real-world studies. I often struggle to find resources for my classes that help me meet both goals.

One resource that has emerged as an important tool in meeting both goals is the What Works Clearinghouse website. I frequently integrate materials from the WWC into the graduate research design and statistics courses I teach.

For example, in a recent class I taught, Design of Experiments and Quasi-Experiments, I used the WWC Procedures and Standards Handbook Version 3.0 throughout (an image from the publication is pictured below). The Handbook met four important criteria as I was selecting resources for my class:

  1. Inclusion of important technical detail on design and analysis;
  2. Up-to-date and current thinking and “best practice” in design and analysis;
  3. Clear writing that is accessible for graduate students; and
  4. It was free (always a bonus when searching for class materials).Image from the What Works Clearinghouse Standards & Practices Guide 3.0

By no means did the Handbook replace classic and well-regarded textbooks in the class. Rather, it helped connect classic texts on design to both recent advances related to design, as well as real-life considerations and standards that designs are judged against.

At the end of my class, students may have been tired of hearing the question, “what is the highest potential rating for this study?” But I feel confident that using the WWC Handbook helped me not only prepare graduates with the technical know-how they need to design a rigorous experiment or quasi-experiment, but also raised awareness of current best practice and how to design a study that meets important standards set for the field.

 

Recommendations for Teaching Secondary Students to Write Effectively

EDITOR'S NOTE: Dr. Steve Graham was the head of a panel of experts that assisted the What Works Clearinghouse in developing recommendations for its practice guide on effective writing for secondary students. We invited Dr. Graham to author this blog about the guide and a January 18 webinar on its recommendations. 


By Steve Graham, Warner Professor in the Division of Leadership and Innovation, Arizona State University

Effective writing is a vital component of students’ literacy achievement and a life-long skill that plays a key role in postsecondary success. For more than 30 years, I’ve focused my research on how teachers can help students become strong writers, how writing develops, and how writing can be used to support reading and learning. Much progress has been made in the field of writing instruction, and summarizing and sharing these findings will help teachers implement evidence-based practices. Using effective instructional practices will help ensure our students become adept at using writing to support and extend learning, argue effectively and fairly, connect and communicate with others, tell captivating stories, and explore who they are as well as reflect on their experiences. 

Recently, the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) released a new practice guide to address the challenges of teaching writing to secondary students. Teaching Secondary Students to Write Effectively offers three evidence-based recommendations for helping students in grades 6–12 develop effective writing skills. The first recommendation focuses on teaching students to use writing strategies to plan, think critically, and effectively convey their ideas. The second recommendation suggests integrating reading and writing to emphasize key features of text. Finally, the third recommendation describes how to use a formative assessment cycle to inform writing instruction.

The guide includes practical instructional tips and strategies for each recommendation that teachers can use to help students improve their writing. You’ll find over 30 examples to use in the classroom, including sample writing strategies and prompts and activities that incorporate writing and reading.

I’d like to invite teachers, administrators, and others to join me for a webinar on the recommendations in this practice guide, Wednesday, January 18, at 3 p.m. (ET). During the webinar, we will discuss the guide’s three recommendations and give teachers in all disciplines usable guidance on how to implement them in the classroom. We will also discuss potential challenges educators may face when implementing the recommended practices and provide advice on how to overcome those challenges.

Developing the Practice Guide

The WWC develops practice guides with the support of an expert panel. The panelists combine their expertise with the findings of rigorous research to produce specific recommendations. I was honored to chair this panel, which also included Jill Fitzgerald, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and MetaMetrics; Linda D. Friedrich, from the National Writing Project; Katie Greene, from Forsyth County (Ga.) Schools; James S. Kim, from Harvard University; and Carol Booth Olson, from the University of California, Irvine. 

For this practice guide, WWC staff conducted a systematic review of the research—a thorough literature search identified more than 3,700 relevant studies. After screening each study, 55 studies were found to use eligible research designs and examine the effec­tiveness of the practices found in this guide’s recommendations. The recommendations are based on the 15 studies that meet the WWC’s rigorous standards. For each of the recommendations, the WWC and the panel rate the strength of the evidence that supports it.  Appendix D in the guide presents a thorough summary of the evidence supporting each recommendation. 

Sharing our Recipe: Online Training in WWC Standards

By Christopher Weiss, Senior Education Research Scientist, WWC

Many individuals and organizations have special ways of doing things, specific procedures that make them unique —Coca-Cola has its formula; sports teams have their playbooks; and grandparents have their secret recipes for biscuits, barbecue, and other family favorites.

It’s the same for the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC). Our “special sauce” is in how we review effectiveness research to help determine what is working in education. But unlike Coke, coaches, and grandma, the WWC doesn’t keep it a secret.

On December 15, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) launched a set of video training modules – the WWC Group Design Standards Online Training – to share our procedures. These modules are designed to help you learn more about the elements that go into a WWC rating and the features of a research study that WWC examines during evaluation.  The online training will help education decision-makers and researchers better understand key elements of the WWC review process. These modules describe and explain key topics and concepts of the WWC’s Group Design standards and how the WWC uses these standards to identify and evaluate high quality, rigorous research.

The series is designed to address the needs of both consumers and future producers of the WWC’s reviews of educational effectiveness research. Whether you’re a researcher who’s hoping your study will meet the WWC’s standards or someone trying to make an evidence-based decision related to education, this training series will help! And no background in research is needed –we’ve also developed an extensive set of materials to support you as you learn.

Each of the five modules follows a similar structure, including an overview of module objectives, detailed information about the topic, examples, and knowledge checks to reinforce what you’ve learned. (We've embedded the first video in the series at the end of this post, but if you are going to take the training, start it through the WWC website.)  

Each module focuses on a specific aspect of the standards.

  • Group designs – or overall research designs – and the types of research that can be reviewed using the WWC Group Design Standards;
  • Attrition, or loss of participants in a research study, and why this is important;
  • Baseline Equivalence, which assesses how similar two groups are at the beginning of a research study;
  • Confounding Factors, which are study components that make it difficult or impossible to distinguish the effect of an educational intervention from the effect of that component; and
  • Outcome Measures, or what is measured to assess the effectiveness of an intervention.

If you view all five of the training modules, you will earn a certificate of completion. Details about how to view the session and earn this certificate are available on the What Works Clearinghouse website.

The online training takes about seven hours to complete, but the modules are designed so that you can complete them at your own pace. We’ve included a feature that allows you to take a break from the training at any point – then pick it up again where you left off when you’re ready to continue.

These modules cover the same material that WWC reviewers learn through their in-person certification training – and completion of the online training course is one step toward becoming a certified reviewer in WWC Group Design Standards. Certification also requires completing WWC Procedures training and successful completion of a certification exam. We expect to be able to offer online versions of the WWC Procedures training and the certification exam later in 2017.

We hope this online training brings more transparency and understanding to the WWC review process. Then we can work on that secret biscuit recipe. 

 

Bringing Evidence-based Practices to the Field

By Dr. Barbara Foorman, Director Emeritus, Florida Center for Reading Research, Florida State University

The Institute of Education Sciences recently released a What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) educator’s practice guide that has four recommendations to support the development of foundational reading skills that are critically important to every student’s success. The recommendations in Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade are based on a comprehensive review of 15 years of research on reading, and guidance from a national panel of reading experts, of which I was the chair.

Recently, the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Southeast at Florida State University has developed a set of professional learning community (PLC) materials and videos to help teachers and other practitioners implement the guide’s recommendations in classrooms.

Over the past few months, REL Southeast has shared the practice guide and PLC materials with practitioners and policymakers in two states – North Carolina and Mississippi, which both have K-3 reading initiatives and reading coaches who assist with implementation. I’m excited by the feedback we are getting.

During these presentations, we shared the format of the ten 75-min PLC sessions and accompanying videos that demonstrate the recommendations and action steps in actual classrooms. We filmed the videos in partnership with Dr. Lynda Hayes, Director of the PK Yonge Developmental Research School at the University of Florida, and her primary grade teachers.

In North Carolina, we trained K–3 regional literacy consultants, elementary teachers and reading coaches, and higher education faculty on the PLC Facilitator’s Guide in Charlotte and Raleigh. The K-3 regional literacy consultants are organized by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.

In Mississippi, we trained the 90 Mississippi Department of Education reading coaches and district-supported special education specialists in Jackson. In turn, the state coaches will train the K–3 teachers who are a part of the reading initiative in the practice guide recommendations and action steps. Additionally, the coaches will work with the primary grade teachers in each of their assigned schools to implement the PLC. Having the state coaches oversee the implementation of the PLC will help ensure commitment and instill depth to the PLC sessions.

Also present at the training in Mississippi were faculty members from the University of Mississippi and Belhaven University. I accepted an invitation from the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning Literacy Council to speak to higher education faculty about the guide and PLC materials. The invitation is timely because Mississippi recently completed a study of teacher preparation for early literacy instruction.

I hope you will download the practice guide and PLC materials. If you have any thoughts, comments, or questions, please email Contact.IES@ed.gov. You can learn more about the work of the Regional Educational Laboratories program and REL Southeast on the IES website.  

Dr. Foorman is the Director of REL Southeast, located at Florida State University