Inside IES Research

Notes from NCER & NCSER

Towards a Better Understanding of Middle-Schoolers’ Argumentation Skills

What is the difference between fact and opinion? How do you find relevant evidence and use it to support a position? Every day, teachers help students practice these skills by fostering critical discussions, a form of argumentation that encourages students to use reasoning to resolve differences of opinion.

In their IES-funded study, Exploring and Assessing the Development of Students' Argumentation Skills, Yi Song and her colleagues are uncovering activities (both teacher led and technology supported) that can improve middle-school students’ ability to generate better oral and written arguments.

This project began in 2019 and is working in classrooms and with teachers and students. The researchers have created a series of videos that describe their work. In this series, Dr. Song and her co-PIs, Dr. Ralph Ferretti and Dr. John Sabatini, discuss why the project is important to education, how they will conduct the research plan, and how educators can apply what they are learning in classrooms.

 

 


For questions and more information, contact Meredith Larson (Meredith.Larson@ed.gov), Program Officer, NCER

NCSER Principal Investigators Receive 2021 CEC Awards

This week, the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) is holding its annual Convention and Expo virtually. Several scholars are being presented with awards during the event to recognize their research contributions to the field. IES-funded investigators Linda Mason, Nicholas Gage, and Patricia Snyder are among those recognized.

Photo of Dr. Linda Mason

Dr. Linda Mason, Endowed Director of the Kellar Institute for Human disAbilities at George Mason University, received the CEC Special Education Research Award. This award is given to an individual or team whose research has made significant contributions to the education of children and youth with exceptionalities. Dr. Mason’s research focuses on content reading comprehension and writing interventions to support students with learning disabilities in inclusive classrooms. She has been the Principal Investigator (PI) on two National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) grants. For one, she developed a writing intervention for middle schoolers with behavior disorders. Currently, Dr. Mason is the PI for a project that is exploring the relationships among teacher use of evidence-based practices, teacher experience with and attitudes about adapting instruction for students with disabilities, and student writing outcomes.

Photo of Dr. Nicholas Gage

Dr. Nicholas Gage, Associate Professor at the School of Special Education, School Psychology, and Early Childhood Studies at the University of Florida, received the CEC Division for Research Martin J. Kauffman Distinguished Early Career Research Award. This award is given to an individual in recognition of outstanding scientific contributions in special education research within the first 10 years after receiving doctoral degree. Dr. Gage’s research focuses on identification of policies and practices to support the academic, social, and behavioral needs of students with or at risk for emotional or behavioral disorders. A former IES post-doctoral fellow, he has also served as the PI on a NCSER grant that developed a technology-based intervention to support students with visual impairments in locating key information in math word problems that include graphics. Currently, Dr. Gage serves as a mentor for an early career grant.

Photo of Dr. Patricia Snyder

Dr. Patricia Snyder, a Distinguished Professor and Director of the Anita Zucker Center for Excellence in Early Childhood Studies at the University of Florida, received the CEC Division for Research Kauffman-Hallahan-Pullen Distinguished Researcher Award. This award is given to an individual in recognition of research resulting in more effective services or education for exceptional individuals. Dr. Snyder’s research focuses on developing, validating, and evaluating interventions for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers with or at risk for disabilities or experiencing social and behavioral challenges. Dr. Snyder has been the Principal Investigator number of NCSER-funded research grants. She and her colleagues designed a professional development program, Tools for Teachers, to support teachers in using embedded instruction with preschool children with disabilities. Following up on the initial grant, she and her colleagues recently completed an efficacy trial of Tools for Teachers to examine the impact of the professional development intervention on teacher practices and child outcomes and she is serving as a co-PI for a grant developing Tools for Families, a program for teachers to engage families in embedded instruction for learning across school and home. Dr. Snyder has also been a co-PI for a study examining the efficacy of the Pyramid Model, a class-wide model aimed at promoting social-emotional development and positive behavior for preschool children; a project that developed Embedded Practices and Intervention with Caregivers, an early intervention program aimed at coaching caregivers of infants and toddlers to embed learning opportunities in every day routines; and a current project developing a professional development intervention focused on teaching vocabulary to children at risk for communication difficulties. Finally, she has been actively involved in training the next generation of researchers, serving as PI on a postdoctoral training grant focused on preparing postdoctoral fellows to conduct research on improving outcomes for young children with or at risk for disabilities and serving as a mentor for an Early Career program grant.

Congratulations to the award recipients!

This blog was authored by Alice Bravo (University of Washington), IES intern through the Virtual Student Federal Service, and Amy Sussman, Program Officer at NCSER.