Inside IES Research

Notes from NCER & NCSER

Announcing the 8th Annual ED Games Expo: June 1 to 5, 2021

A Free All-Virtual Showcase of Game-Changing Innovations in EdTech developed through ED and Programs Across Government

The ED Games Expo is an annual showcase of game-changing innovations in education technology (EdTech) developed through programs at the Department of Education (ED) and across the federal government. Since 2013, the Expo has been an in-person event at venues across Washington, D.C. Because of the COVID-19 national emergency, the 2021 ED Games Expo is moving online, from June 1 – 5, for an entirely virtual experience. Hosting virtually provides the unique opportunity to engage a national audience and to present content mindful of the pandemic and useful for educational programming in the summer and going forward.  

 

ED Games Expo: Featured Resources

A new set of YouTube playlists and an accompanying PDF guide will be released on June 1 to present video trailers for more than 150 participating government-supported learning games and technologies. These learning games and technologies are appropriate for children and students in early childhood to post-secondary education and special education, and cover a range of topics across STEM, reading, social studies, civics, healthy development, and others. Nearly all the resources are research-based – meaning studies demonstrate the usability, feasibility, and promise of leading to the intended outcomes. Many of the education technologies at ED Games Expo will be available to students and educators who are learning in-person or remotely at no cost during June 2021. Attendees will also have the opportunity to engage in virtual Q&A with developers during and after the Expo to learn more.

 

ED Games Expo: A Range of Online Events

The 2021 ED Games Expo Agenda presents the lineup for 35 online events to be broadcast during the weeklong Expo. The events are designed for a wide audience across the education technology ecosystem, including educators, students, parents and caregivers, developers, researchers, and other stakeholders.

Events include:

  • Master Classes for Educators: Eight Expo developers present use-case examples and guidance for implementing innovative education technology interventions to support in-person or remote learning across many different topics.
  • How the Learning Game was Made: Five teams of learning game developers inspire and prompt students to think about the many skills and careers involved in creating a learning game.
  • Showcase Events: More than 20 government agencies and offices that invest in education technology are broadcasting events to showcase their projects and initiatives. Just a few highlights from the week include events on: innovations in early learning and special education, learning games to combat disinformation, models to support remote tutoring, a live kick-off for a new NASA national student challenge, an esports competition with students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and forums where government leaders, experts, and practitioners reflect on the role of education technology during the era of COVID-19.
  • A Unique Kick Off Show: This year’s Expo will kick off on June 1, 2021 at 8pm ET with a unique virtual event featuring a few of our favorite children’s TV characters and puppet friends created through ED funded projects.

 

All Expo events are free and accessible to the public to watch online. Content from all events will be archived and available to watch on demand via YouTube after the event. Follow the ED Games Expo on social media @USEdGov and by using the #EDGamesExpo hashtag.

 

We hope you will join us in June!


This Inside IES Blog is crossed-posted on Homeroom, the official blog of the U.S. Department of Education.

Edward Metz is the Program Manager for the Small Business Innovation Research Program at the Institute of Education Sciences in the US Department of Education. Contact Edward.Metz@ed.gov for more information or with questions.

Effective Postsecondary Interventions: Early Colleges Combine High School and College to Benefit Students

Across a set of research grant programs, IES generates knowledge of how to increase students’ access to, progress through, and completion of postsecondary credentials and degrees. Funded projects develop and test a range of interventions from state-level policies to classroom practices, with an emphasis on strategies that promote college attainment for students historically underrepresented in postsecondary education. This new blog series called Effective Postsecondary Interventions highlights interventions with evidence of effectiveness generated through IES-funded research.

 

The Early College High School Model

The Early College High School (ECHS) model addresses barriers to college attainment commonly experienced by students historically underrepresented in higher education. Students from low-income families and minoritized racial and ethnic groups often attend high schools that lack rigorous pre-college courses, strong support for college enrollment, and established connections to colleges and universities. For those students, cost is an additional barrier to enrollment and persistence in college. The ECHS model addresses these barriers by combining secondary and postsecondary instruction within the same school, prioritizing college-preparatory high school courses, offering opportunities to enroll in college courses while in high school, and providing comprehensive supports for academic and social-emotional development—all at little or no cost to the students. Although concurrent enrollment in high school and college courses (dual enrollment) is a core component of the model, the ECHS model is more expansive than dual enrollment because it includes a broader set of intervention components and has a clear equity objective.

All early colleges reflect these four design principles:

  • Enrollment of students historically underrepresented in higher education
  • Partnerships including a local education agency, a higher education institution, and the surrounding community
  • An integrated program of secondary and postsecondary education with the goal of all students earning 1 to 2 years of college credit prior to high school graduation
  • A comprehensive support system for students to develop academic skills as well as social and behavioral skills.

 

Attending Early Colleges Increases Postsecondary Attainment

Four IES-funded projects have evaluated impacts of the ECHS model. Prior studies within these projects found that significantly larger percentages of early college students completed a college preparatory course of study during high school and enrolled in postsecondary education within six years of entering high school. The two most recent projects assess postsecondary attainment:

In addition, early college students earned associate degrees at rates that exceeded their counterparts in traditional high schools by 22% and 18%, respectively, while earning bachelor’s degrees at equal or higher rates. These impacts are substantial, and especially noteworthy because both evaluations studied early colleges across a range of settings. Moreover, the impacts are similar for different student subgroups, regardless of gender, race/ethnicity, or family income.

 

Why have early colleges been so effective?

Early colleges set high expectations, provide high-quality interactions between staff and students, and encourage college access and success for all students. Several studies confirm that early colleges substantially improve high school experiences and outcomes. Students in North Carolina early colleges reported higher expectations, more rigorous and relevant instruction, stronger academic and social supports, and better relationships with teachers than their counterparts in other high schools. Early college students in AIR’s five-state sample reported significantly higher levels of college-going culture and instructor support than their counterparts in traditional high schools. The combination of high expectations and supportive relationships promotes better outcomes for early college students beginning in ninth grade (compared with students in other high schools). For instance, early college students are more likely to persist in college-preparatory math courses, attain a significant number of college credits during high school, and graduate from high school. Importantly, these positive results hold for students from all racial and ethnic groups, including students who enter high school at low levels of math proficiency.


For more information about the studies, the SERVE Center at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro has posted a brief of impact findings from their evaluation of North Carolina early colleges. The American Institutes of Research has posted a brief of impact findings from their five-state evaluation of early colleges.  

Written by James Benson (James.Benson@ed.gov), a Program Officer for Postsecondary Education within NCER’s Policy and Systems Division.

Making the Most of a Quarantine Year: Meet the IES Virtual Interns!

April is National Internship Awareness Month, and we want to take this opportunity to highlight the Virtual Student Federal Service (VSFS) internship program that IES has been involved in this year and thank our wonderful interns for their contributions to the National Center for Education Research (NCER) and National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER).

The two IES Centers hired four interns to work on communication and two interns to work on data science. We asked each of them to tell us a little about themselves, their future plans, and what interested them or surprised them about the internship with IES. Here’s what they said.

 

Alice Bravo is pursuing a PhD in special education in the College of Education at the University of Washington.

Photo of Alice Bravo

My research interests keep evolving but are rooted in early intervention for young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using applied behavior analysis and developmental science. Specifically, I am interested in the teaching of imitation and communication skills. In 5 years, I hope to be working as an applied researcher and practitioner, conducting research related to early intervention and ASD while providing training and coaching to caregivers and early intervention/early childhood special education professionals. During my internship with IES, I was really interested in and excited by the breadth of research supported by IES. Reading project abstracts related to virtual reality to support student learning was fascinating! 

Fun fact: I love road trips – I have driven up and down the West Coast and across the country twice! 

 

Bonnie Chan is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in statistics and machine learning at Carnegie Mellon.

Photo of Bonnie ChanI am interested in data science and modeling of data. I am interested in applying these approaches to research in the field of medicine or psychology because it has the most potential to help people and one of the most applicable uses of these approaches. As part of my virtual internship, I have learned how to use PANDAs Python package when cleaning data to prepare to create a visualization of grants funded by NCSER on a U.S. map. In addition, I learned a lot about how grants are funded by the department and the types of projects that are funded. In the future, I would like to pursue a master’s degree in machine learning or other statistical approaches for data science and modeling of data. I think working in the federal government would be a great experience and more rewarding in terms of outcomes than in the public sector or at an institution.

Fun Fact: I really like to dance. I have been dancing since I was 3, so that is 17 years. Right now, I mostly do contemporary dance, but I have done ballet, tap, jazz and other types of dance including competitive dancing in high school. 

 

Chandra Keerthi is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in data science at the Wilfrid Laurier University.

Photo of Chandra KeerthiI’m interested in applying statistical models of previous credit ratings to future ones in order to help model human behavior in the area of financial data analysis. I am also really interested in sports analytics, specifically basketball, and in understanding how analytics can help make or sometimes, unintentionally, break teams. In 5 years, I hope to use my skills to help create or innovate a product that will have a positive impact on the world.

Fun fact: I enjoy playing and watching basketball and am a huge fan of sci-fi movies and books (I’m currently reading the first book in the Dune series). In addition, I recently made a program that uses a photo taken from your phone and turns it into 'art' using another art piece (like van Gogh’s The Starry Night) as a reference.

 

Thomas Leonard is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Business at Georgetown University.

Photo of Thomas Leonard

 

My research interest is in the area of finance. As a virtual intern, I had the opportunity to work on editing and examining abstracts across many different fields of education research, and this has sharpened my technical and analytical skills. In addition, it was interesting to see some of my experiences as a student actually being studied in schools across the country as part of the research that IES funds.

Fun fact: I’m an avid poker player. 

 

 

 

Yuri Lin is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Photo of Yuri Lin

I am most interested in cancer genomics, immunology, and psychology. The most surprising detail that I had never thought about before this internship was how government entities like the Department of Education change and are influenced by different presidential administrations. In one of our monthly gatherings, we talked about how each administration has differing visions and values for education, and it struck me that while I saw myself as just a tired college student plinking away at blogs and abstracts in my bedroom, I was actually helping in small ways to fulfill a larger vision for education that sustains across administrations. That was a surprising and rewarding realization to have.

Fun fact: I love music, especially pop music and Russian classical music. There’s so much great music out there, but my favorite would have to be Shostakovich Symphony 5, Movement 4. Nothing feels quite like playing that piece in a huge orchestra with the cymbals crashing, and I hope everyone who hasn’t heard it before can go give it a listen.

 

Shirley Liu is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in English with a double minor in philosophy and data science at Lafayette College.

Photo of Shirley LiuMy research interests are in the areas of communication and data and information science. During this internship, I learned a lot about the human and community aspect of research. I have always viewed research and academia as very solitary fields. They are, but after talking to researchers about the friendships they’ve made in the field, I’ve learned that research is a lot more fruitful (and fun) when you’re doing it with someone whose company you enjoy. I really loved learning about Plain Language Principles! I have already started applying that to my own writing. For example, I am probably the only person in my friend group who knows what nominalization is and why it should be avoided.

Fun fact: My favorite hobby is writing! I have won an undergraduate-level prize for my poetry.

 


In addition to working on abstracts, entering data, creating data visualizations, and helping to update compendia of IES-funded research, our interns have also been busy writing blogs. Here are some recent blogs written by our interns: Autism Awareness & Acceptance Month; What Does This Mean for Me? A Conversation about College and ADHD; and Gender Stereotypes in STEM: Emergence and Prevention.

Autism Awareness & Acceptance Month

April is Autism Awareness and Acceptance Month, a month dedicated to promoting true inclusion of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and supporting them in reaching their full potential. In honor of this, we reached out to researchers aiming to improve outcomes for learners with ASD through Early Career Development and Mentoring grants from the National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER). We asked these principal investigators how they got involved in ASD research and about their current NCSER-funded work. Below is what they had to say.

Stephanie Shire, University of Oregon

Photo of Stephanie Shire

I first interacted with young children with ASD as a teenage volunteer in a hospital playroom. As I learned more about children with special needs through summer camps and as an in-home aide, I grew more intrigued by the range of strengths and needs of these children. I found joy in finding ways to connect with children who had few or no words, but I lacked the tools to support their growth. This set me on a path to learn about the range of intervention practices and intervention science under the mentorship of Dr. Connie Kasari at the University of California, Los Angeles. My overall goal is to develop and test intervention programs to support the deployment of high-quality practices across the United States and abroad.

In the spirit of this goal, the purpose of my Early Career project, LIFT (Leveraging autism Intervention for Families through Telehealth), is to develop a technology-enabled version of an evidence-based, caregiver-mediated social communication intervention (JASPER; Joint Attention, Symbolic Play, Engagement, and Regulation) to be delivered by community-based early educators serving families of young children with ASD in rural areas. We are currently in Year 1 of our 4-year project. This development year is focused on the creation of the online JASPER intervention and training materials for early intervention and early childhood special education providers. Despite the demands of the pandemic, participating providers have engaged in training using video and role play and the majority are now able to put their skills to use with young children with ASD. We are currently conducting user testing of the online materials and preparing for next year’s randomized controlled trial.

Veronica Fleury, Florida State University

Photo of Veronica Fleury

My first experience working with individuals with ASD was in a college course on behavior modification. The professor directed an ASD clinic that provided therapy using many of the strategies we discussed in class. I completed an internship in the clinic and was intrigued by the application of research techniques to promote prosocial behaviors for children with ASD. After college, I secured a full-time research assistantship at the University of Washington in a large ASD study focused on genetics and neurobiology. This was a pivotal experience because I realized this was not the kind of research that I wanted to pursue. The results of these efforts, while extremely valuable, did little to directly improve the lives of the participants. I realized that I wanted to be involved in applied research that allows for quicker uptake by practitioners and benefits for individuals with ASD. In order to be a good applied researcher, I needed practical experience working with children with ASD and their families. Although my entry into preschool special education teaching was initially a means to an end, it drew me in and further fueled my desire to serve children with disabilities. After this experience, I continued my graduate education and am now in an academic position that allows me to use science to address socially significant problems faced by individuals with ASD and their families.

The goal of Project START (Students and Teachers Actively Reading Together), which is part of my Early Career project, is to develop an adaptive shared reading intervention for preschool children with ASD using a sequential, multiple assignment, randomized trial (SMART) design. The results will help determine whether a full-scale efficacy study is worth pursuing for the intervention in its current form or whether additional refinement and testing is necessary.

Melanie Pellecchia, University of Pennsylvania

Photo of Melanie Pellecchia

I became interested in research focused on improving implementation of evidence-based treatments for young children with ASD in under-resourced communities after many years of working with young children with ASD as a behavior analyst overseeing publicly funded early intervention programs. While working within a large, urban public-service system, I observed the widespread disparities in access to high-quality intervention and challenges with implementing evidence-based interventions to scale for young children with ASD. I sought to pursue an academic research career focused on improving these implementation challenges.

As part of my Early Career project, I am iteratively developing a toolkit of implementation strategies designed to improve parent coaching for young children with ASD in Part C early intervention systems. I am currently in my third year of this project and am incorporating information learned from a variety of sources to develop the toolkit, including direct observations of early intervention sessions, qualitative interviews identifying barriers and facilitators to using parent coaching within early intervention, literature on best practices in parent coaching and parent-mediated interventions for young children with ASD, and feedback from expert and community advisory panels. The toolkit will include a series of infographics, videos, and a community of practice housed within an online platform. This year I plan to conduct a pilot study of the toolkit to assess its feasibility and promise for improving the use of parent coaching for young children with ASD in Part C service systems.

Marisa Fisher, Michigan State University

Photo of Marisa Fisher

Most people assume I got into the field because I grew up with an older brother with Williams Syndrome. But I didn't really think of myself as a sibling of a person with a disability and how that experience had shaped my life until I was in graduate school. The real reason I entered the field was because of three little boys with ASD with whom I worked as a behavior therapist when I was in college. What was originally a job became a passion for supporting people with ASD and other disabilities and finding better ways to teach skills and improve outcomes. I knew I wanted to go to graduate school, and it was my experience with these boys and my work at an ASD research lab that pushed me to pursue a doctorate in special education so that I could continue to work with people with disabilities.

Through my work with individuals with ASD, I began to realize the social struggles they and my brother experienced and became interested in studying experiences of social victimization and finding out why people with disabilities are more socially vulnerable than individuals without disabilities. The goal of my Early Career project is to do just that. A key part of this project involves assessing students’ self-reported bullying experiences. Although my original plan was to adapt and expand on existing measures, this didn’t result in a feasible assessment. Therefore, I turned my attention toward developing and testing an assessment that was appropriate for students with ASD and plan to use it to better understand the risk factors and consequences of bullying for these students. In general, my research is evolving from identifying and describing the risk factors to developing interventions to address those risk factors and reduce experiences of social victimization. My approach is to teach individuals with ASD to recognize and respond to situations and to evaluate ways to change attitudes toward individuals with ASD and improve social inclusion.

This blog was written by Alice Bravo, virtual intern for IES and doctoral candidate in special education at the University of Washington, and Katie Taylor, program officer for NCSER’s Early Career Development and Mentoring program.

Celebrating the Week of the Young Child®

The Week of the Young Child® is an annual celebration by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. It highlights the needs of young children and their families and recognizes the early childhood educators and programs who serve them. The National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) funds research focused on improving intervention services for young children with or at risk for disabilities by building provider and family capacity. Below is a sample of current projects focused on a range of supports for educators, providers, and families with the aim of improving outcomes for young children.

Supporting Early Interventionists to Build Family Capacity for Toddlers with Autism

At Indiana University and Georgia State University, Drs. Hannah Schertz and Kathleen Baggett are developing and testing a framework, Supporting Early Interventionists of Toddlers with Autism to Build Family Capacity, designed to work within the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Part C early intervention system. This framework serves as a mediated intervention process in which the early intervention providers work directly with caregivers (such as parents), who then work directly with their own children. More specifically, it is intended to help providers support caregivers in delivering social communication interventions to toddlers with or at risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), focusing on the identified area of need for each child. The framework works within existing service delivery systems to enhance family capacity and integrate interventions into natural environments for toddlers with ASD. The investigators are currently conducting a pilot study to determine the promise of efficacy of the framework on provider practices with caregivers, caregiver practices with their toddlers, and toddler social-communication skills.

Tools for Families

At the University of Florida, Drs. Crystal Bishop, Brian Reichow, Patricia Snyder, and James Algina are creating a professional development intervention and toolkit to support preschool teacher and family use of embedded instruction for early learning (EIEL), the intentional teaching of individual child learning goals within the context of routine activities. In previous IES-funded projects, the team developed and tested Tools for Teachers to support preschool teacher use of EIEL in the classroom setting. The research team is now developing Tools for Families to increase family engagement in EIEL across school and home settings. The goal of Tools for Families is to enhance family self-efficacy in the use of EIEL practices with their children and to improve children’s adaptive and school readiness skills. The research team is currently in the initial stages of the project and plans to pilot test the intervention after the iterative development phase is complete.

Integrated Behavior Support and Teacher Coaching System for Early Childhood Settings

At the University of Washington, Drs. Scott Spaulding and Kathleen Meeker are adapting a web-based application, Integrating Behavior Support and Team Technology (ibestt), originally designed for use in K-8, for early childhood contexts (ibestt-ec). These interventions aim to promote the individualized behavior support process from the point of initial teacher concern through intervention implementation and progress monitoring. Ibestt-ec is specifically designed to improve early childhood educators’ implementation of function-based supports for young children with or at risk for emotional or behavioral disorders. It includes professional development in the use of the application, function-based supports, and practice-based coaching; a behavior coaching tool to document teacher-coach activities; and a virtual family notebook to facilitate home-school communication. Currently ibestt-ec is undergoing field testing to examine usability and feasibility, and setting the stage for conducting a pilot study to evaluate the promise of the intervention on coach and teacher practices and child outcomes.

IES is committed to research on interventions aimed at supporting the providers and families of young children with or at risk for disabilities. We celebrate the work of the researchers, providers, and families of these children.

This blog was written by Alice Bravo, virtual intern for IES and doctoral candidate in special education at the University of Washington, and Amy Sussman, program officer for NCSER’s Early Intervention and Early Learning program.