Inside IES Research

Notes from NCER & NCSER

Join us for IES Innovation Day at the 2023 ED Games Expo

For the first time, IES is hosting IES Innovation Day as part of the 9th annual ED Games Expo. This full day event of engaging panel sessions, taking place Thursday, September 21, 2023, from 9:00 AM to 3:15 PM, will highlight IES’s investments in advanced research and development. The day will feature—

  • Lightning talks from IES-funded project teams who have developed and conducted research on education technology (EdTech) innovations
  • Sessions on modernizing the research and development infrastructure and preparing to scale evidence-based products
  • Demos of IES-funded EdTech products
  • An afternoon session with IES Director Mark Schneider focused on the Institute’s vision for achieving transformative impact at scale
  • Remarks by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director, Arati Prabhakar

IES Innovation Day is one of the many events taking place at the 2023 ED Games Expo this September 19-22 at the Kennedy Center REACH and at locations across Washington, DC. The ED Games Expo is the public showcase of game changing EdTech innovations created through more than 50 programs at the IES, the U.S. Department of Education, and across government. This multi-day event engages a broad audience, including EdTech developers and researchers, organizations across the education ecosystem, students and educators, members of the public including families and children, and representatives and leaders from Federal agencies and offices.

Register to attend these free events:

Can’t make it to the Expo in-person? Join through a livestreamed Science is Cool virtual event on Thursday, September 21 from 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM Eastern Time. Speakers at the virtual event will include EdTech developers and STEM education experts who will discuss their classroom interventions and share how they used art and design in creating them.

ED/IES SBIR: Advancing Research to Practice at Scale in Education

This image depicts a young girl with headphones holding onto a mic that is attached.

The Department of Education and Institute of Education Sciences Small Business Innovation Research Program (known as ED/IES SBIR), funds projects to develop and evaluate new education technology products that ready to be widely deployed to address pressing educational needs.

In advance of IES Innovation Day at the ED Games Expo on September 21, 2023 at the Kennedy Center REACH in Washington, DC, this blog features a series of ED/IES SBIR awards that were funded for the purpose of creating education technology to ready previously funded evidence-based products for use at scale. Two of the projects highlighted below, one led by Jay Connor of Learning Ovations and the other by Clark McKown of xSEL Labs, will be featured as part of panels. This event is open to the public. Register for the Expo here.


Over its 20-year history, ED/IES SBIR has been well known for stimulating pioneering firms, such as Filament Games, Future EngineersPocketLab, and Schell Games, to create entrepreneurial and novel education technology products. ED/IES SBIR has also established a track record for investing in a different set of projects—ones that facilitate the uptake of innovations originally developed in university or laboratory settings. This is important because even when researcher-developed innovations (for example, models, programs, and tools) are shown to have evidence for impact, many are not delivered at scale, preventing learners from fully benefiting from these innovations.

Examples of ED/IES SBIR Research to Practice Projects

Over the past two decades, ED/IES SBIR projects have provided useful models for how researchers can navigate and overcome the research-to-practice gap. ED/IES SBIR has made several awards to projects that were originally researcher-initiated, many through IES research grants. These researchers either founded a small business or partnered with an existing small business to develop and commercialize new education technology products to advance research to practice at scale in education.

The short descriptions of these projects below include links to IES website pages with additional information on the unique project models. These projects converted findings from research into scalable, education technology delivered interventions, added new components to existing research-based prototypes to enable feasible implementation and to improve the user experience, and upgraded technology systems to handle large numbers of users across numerous sites.

  • Learning Ovations: Through a series of IES and NIH funded research, Dr. Carol Connor led an academic team to develop a personalized early learning assessment, the A2i, and demonstrated its efficacy for improving literacy outcomes through multiple trials. To ready the A2i for use in larger numbers of settings and to improve data processing and reporting, Learning Ovations won an ED/IES SBIR award to upgrade the underlying data architecture and create automated supports and functionalities. In 2022, Scholastic acquired Learning Ovations, with plans for the A2i to be integrated into its suite of products. See the Learning Ovations Success Story for more information.
  • Mindset Works: Through an IES research grant in 2002 and with funding from other sources, Dr. Carol Dweck led a research team to develop the concept of the growth mindset—the understanding that ability and intelligence can develop with effort and learning. Lisa Blackwell, a member of the research team, founded Mindset Works and won a 2010 ED/IES SBIR award to develop training modules and animated lessons to deploy this instructional model through a multi-media website. A research grant funded in 2015 tested and demonstrated the efficacy of the technology-delivered Growth Mindset Intervention to improve outcomes of struggling learners. See the Mindset Works Success Story for more information.
  • Nimble Assessment Systems: Through IES and other grants, Dr. Michael Russell led team of researchers to conducted foundational research and develop and validation of new forms of assessment. Informed by this research, Nimble Assessment Systems developed NimbleTools with an award from a ED/IES SBIR, a set of universally designed accommodation tools to improve accessibility of assessments for students with disabilities. Measured Progress acquired Nimble Assessment Systems, and the product was integrated into its suite of products for state and district assessments. See the Nimble Tools Success Story for more information.
  • Children’s Progress: Through NIH grants, Dr. Eugene Galanter led a research team to create a computer-based assessment that adapted to how a student responded to each question and delivered individualized narratives for each student. With awards from NIH SBIR and ED/IES SBIR, Children’s Progress developed a commercial version of the computer-adaptive dynamic assessment (CPAA) for early childhood in literacy and math. In 2012, Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) acquired Children’s Progress, with the assessment technology incorporated into the NWEA’s assessment platform and used at scale. See the Children’s Progress Success Story for more information.
  • Teachley: Through IES and NSF funded research, Dr. Herb Ginsburg led an academic team to develop prototype software programs for children from preschool to grade 3 to practice mathematics. In 2011, three members of the research team founded a small business, Teachley, which won ED/IES SBIR awards to extend the research model into easily playable, engaging, and widely used math game apps. See the Teachley Success Story for more information.
  • Analytic Measures: With funding from IES, Dr. Jaren Bernstein led a research team to develop prototypes of automated oral reading fluency assessments that were administered to students during the NAEP and other national assessments by IES’s National Center for Education Statistics. Analytic Measures won ED/IES SBIR awards (here and here) to develop the school-ready version of these assessments. In 2022, Google acquired the intellectual property of the assessments with plans to incorporate the tools into its suite of products for education. See this Analytic Measures Success Story more information.
  • Lightning Squad: Through awards from ED’s Office of Education Research and Improvement (now IES) and the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, Drs. Nancy Madden and Bob Slavin led a research team to develop a model to make tutoring more cost-effective. With awards from ED/IES SBIR, Sirius Thinking partnered with Success For All to develop a mixed online and face-to-face multimedia intervention for struggling readers in grades 1 to 3. The program is now in wide-scale use in schools and in tutoring programs. See the Lightning Squad Success Story for more information.
  • Apprendis: With research grants from IES and other sources, Dr. Janice Gobert led teams at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Rutgers University to develop and evaluated Inq-ITS (Inquiry Intelligent Tutoring System) virtual labs for students in grades 4 to 10. Apprendis was founded in order to commercialize InqITS and won an ED/IES SBIR award to develop a teacher alert system that generates real-time insights to inform instruction. InqITS is currently in wide-scale use.
  • Common Ground Publishing: Through IES and other grants, Drs. Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis led a team of researchers to conduct research on new forms of technology-delivered formative assessment for student writing. A technology-based company spun out of a university tech-transfer office, Common Ground Publishing, and won ED/IES SBIR awards (here and here) to develop CGScholar based on this research. CGScholar is an AI-based digital media learning management system designed to support student writing, learning, and formative assessment, which has been in wide-scale use for several years.  See the CGScholar Success Story for more information.
  • xSEL Labs: With funding from IES, Dr. Clark McKown led a team led to develop screening assessments for social and emotional learning and conducted research to demonstrate the efficacy of the tool. xSEL Labs was founded to commercialize the assessments, and with an ED/IES SBIR award, is developing a platform to support educators and administrators using research-based SEL assessments. In 2023, 7 Mindsets acquired xSEL Labs was acquired to commercialize the platform at scale.

A New Program Area at ED/IES SBIR to Continue Advancing Research to Practice
With a history of awards to advance research to practice, ED/IES SBIR created a new program area in 2022 called Direct to Phase II to invest in more projects to develop commercially viable education technology products to ready existing evidence-based research for use at scale. The program resulted in one award (see here) in 2022. Please see the ED/IES SBIR solicitation page for information on the next opportunity for funding through its FY2024 program.


Stay tuned for updates on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn as ED/IES SBIR continues to support projects to advance research to practice at scale.

Edward Metz (Edward.Metz@ed.govis a research scientist and the program manager for the Small Business Innovation Research Program at the US Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.

 

Inspiring and Teaching Girls to Code with Time Tails

The Department of Education’s Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR), which IES administers, funds the research, development, and evaluation of new, commercially viable education technology products. Time Tails is an online game intended to prepare middle and high school students for success in postsecondary education and career pathways in computer science. The game, which introduces students to coding within the context of computer game design, was developed as part of the SBIR project Coding Bridge: Bridging Computer Science for Girls. In this interview blog, game developers Grace Collins and Carrie Linden of Liminal eSports (now called Snowbright Studio) discuss Time Tails and the importance of inspiring female-identifying students to code.   

 

 

What is Time Tails?

Carrie:

Time Tails is a series of digital games funded by the U.S. Department of Education and the Tides Foundation to help provide learners of all ages with an entry point into learning game design. Each episode transports you to a different point in history, where you help Ari and Zoe (two rad cartoon cats from the 1980s) fix glitches in history while also learning and practicing 3D game development and game design skills. The games are packed full of 80s’ puns, humor, references to salmon (it is a game about cats, after all), and story, while also encouraging players to learn about some amazing folx that sometimes get left out of history class textbooks.

Grace:

For me, Time Tails is a tool. It’s that missing bridge. Imagine you have a student who is interested in design who has been playing around in Scratch for years. When you show them Unity or Unreal game engines (popular game architectures), they may balk at the complexity of them. Time Tails breaks down those complex interfaces into digestible components that gives students the confidence and interest in making the jump across the gap. We’re continuing to release new Time Tails episodes every six months or so, adding new historical periods and new technical concepts. 

Thanks to our partnership with Unity, we’ve also been able to create an entire year’s curriculum for AP Computer Science Principles aligned to College Board’s standards and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) standards.

What inspired you to create Time Tails?

Grace:

I was teaching computer science at an all-girls school in Cleveland, and the lack of resources for my students was just painfully obvious. There are a lot of generic coding resources, but when I went looking for something that could creatively inspire them and also lay the foundation for a career in game development or real-time 3D development, I was always coming up short.

Some of the first iterations of Time Tails were done right there in my classroom as I asked my students what they cared about (underrepresented female and LGBTQ+ figures in history), what they liked (cats), and even how different colors make them more or less likely to engage with learning content. When learning software pops up and it’s all steel gray and black, my students would look at it and say, “That looks like it’s for my brother.” They knew, and we know too, who the audience is for some of these tools out there. Time Tails tries to do all of that differently.

Carrie:

When you look at data on who is currently working in the computer science and game development industries, you will find that men are overwhelmingly the ones with active roles in the field. When we looked at where these drop off points were for girls in computer science career pathways, we found some interesting things. Girls were often leaving coding and computer science before they made it to high school, and most schools offered little in computer science and coding instruction during that gap between entry level software (like Scratch) and full game development platforms (like Unity). There was clearly a need for something to bridge that gap between tools used by younger kids and professional developers. There was also a need for those tools to be welcoming to female identifying and gender diverse youth as they are the ones falling out of the career.

What elements of Time Tails are uniquely tailored to female-identifying students? 

Carrie:

We decided to build Time Tails around narrative. As you progress, you get pulled into the written story and learn more about our feline heroes Ari and Zoe along with the people that they are helping. 

Humor, color, and charm also all tested well with our target audience compared to the typically dry YouTube tutorials and guides that you see out there that covers similar material. We packed our game full of ’80s puns and silly jokes, seasonal allergies (relatable), and made sure that each level was filled with colorful art and adorable characters. More often than not, these characters are strong women from history whose stories don't frequently make it into the textbooks. Our leading cats are female identifying and nonbinary, making Time Tails the first ever learning game featuring a canonically nonbinary character.

Grace:

It can be hard sometimes reading interpretations of our work. Adults will come in saying that the game looks too young or too childish. They want it to be more mature. They want darker colors and a more serious take. We can’t speak for everyone, but when we tested this game, that’s just not what teen girls wanted. They already had a lot of anxiety about getting into computer science in the first place. They’re VERY aware that it’s a masculine dominated field. They need that entry point that says it’s okay to be silly. They need to see others like themselves throughout history making waves. It’s been really heart-warming to see teens playing it, and even more so when their parent sits down with them to explain all of the 80s’ references. Those have been great moments as we’ve been out there testing this game.

What advice can you give other game developers who focus on female-identifying students?

Carrie:

Representation matters. If you can showcase the work that female-identifying folx are doing in the games industry, then you really should. Too often we see the tech and games industry primarily focusing on the women working (super important!) community management roles, but we also need to see highlights of the work done by female identifying developers, writers, quality assurance staff, producers, and more. Highlight all the roles and not just the ones that the industry has already decided are a “good fit” for women in tech and games. 

Grace:

My main advice to any developer is to involve your audience early and often. Have teens give you feedback on art, characters, concepts, everything. And don’t be afraid to see that those teens don’t agree. Be bold and brave in serving the students that you are trying to reach. Stay true to your vision and your audience.

What are the next steps for Time Tails and Snowbright Studio?

Carrie:

Time Tails is currently available on Steam. One purchase gets you access to all current episodes along with additional episodes releasing every six months or so. We are working with our partner, FableVision, to publish a version that allows for classroom licensing on their FableVision Games platform as well.

Grace:

Snowbright is also very active in the tabletop game industry, publishing cozy mystery role-playing games (RPGs) as well as card and board games. Our most recent Cozy Companion magazine actually took Ari and Zoe on a brand-new adventure to 1966 West Virginia as they learned about pollinators and cryptids in a mini-tabletop RPG.


Grace Collins (they/them) is the Founder/CEO of Snowbright Studio, a Cleveland-based LGBTBE certified game studio dedicated to publishing heartwarming games and experiences. Grace previously led games and education policy at the US Department of Education and later coordinated federal game policy across the executive branch. Prior to serving at the Department, they managed and developed educational game projects at the Smithsonian Institution. Grace has taught computer science and game design at multiple levels and was profiled by the Associated Press for founding the first esports team in the nation at an all-girls’ high school.

Carrie Linden (she/they) is the Communications Manager at Snowbright Studio, handling social media, websites, and the creation of official copy for the organization. Carrie has a Master’s in Education and seven years of experience teaching in LGBTQ+ friendly public-school programs and has her Certificate of Esports Management from UC Irvine. Carrie is an active member in the gaming and content creation community.

This blog is part of a 3-part Inside IES Research blog series on sexual orientation and gender identity in education research in observance of Pride month. The other posts discuss the feedback from the IES LGBTQI+ Listening and Learning session and encourage researchers to submit FY 2024 applications focused on the educational experiences and outcomes of LGBTQI+ identifying students.

This blog was produced by Katina Stapleton (Katina.Stapleton@ed.gov), NCER program officer and co-chair of the IES Diversity Council.

ED/IES SBIR: Highlights from 2022 & Announcing the New 2023 Program

The Department of Education’s Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR), which IES administers, funds the research, development, and evaluation of new, commercially viable education technology products. Known as ED/IES SBIR, the program’s goal is to grow a portfolio of products that are research-based and ready to be widely deployed to address pressing educational needs.

Over the past decade, the program has become known for investing in new entrepreneurial innovations, such as products by Future Engineers and Schell Games, as well as for supporting the transfer of evidence-based research into products that can be used in practice at scale, such as projects by Learning Ovations and Analytic Measures.

ED/IES SBIR: A Look Back at 2022

ED/IES SBIR products were used by millions of students, educators, and administrators to support remote and in-person learning.  Many companies, including MidSchoolMath, Education Modified, Sirius Thinking with partner Success For All, and PocketLab, earned new district contracts and licensing agreements to adopt their technologies at scale. Many companies also won industry awards for innovations on the basis of their ED/IES SBIR products.

With its 2022 awards, ED/IES SBIR continued to invest in emerging areas of education technology, funding projects that use artificial intelligence to personalize learning and generate real-time insights for educators to inform instruction, facilitate real-world learning, and support integrating arts in education and learning. Also in 2022, ED/IES SBIR launched a new “Direct to Phase II” program to support the scale up of existing evidence-based researcher developed innovations through the development of new education technology products. One award was made through this program.

Checkout the IES/ED SBIR News Archive for more information about our 2022 highlights.

ED/IES SBIR Releases Three 2023 Program Solicitations

On January 12, 2023, ED/IES SBIR released three solicitations, requesting proposals for Phase IA, Phase IB, or Direct to Phase II projects. The submission deadline for all three solicitations is March 13, 2023. The URL links to each solicitation on SAM.gov can be found on this page.

This year’s Phase I program introduces a new, two-track approach to stimulating innovation and research.

  • A “Phase IA” solicitation requests proposals for projects to develop a prototype of an entirely new education technology product, where no previous technological development has occurred. The goal of the Phase IA track is to stimulate novel approaches to solve pressing problems in education.
  • A “Phase IB” solicitation requests proposals for projects to develop a prototype of a new component to be added to an existing education technology prototype or product. The goal of the Phase IB track is to strengthen existing research-based prototypes or products in addressing pressing problems in education. Offerors interested in submitting a proposal for Phase IB must demonstrate that the existing prototype or product is research-based and that an additional investment in a new component to be integrated with what already exists is warranted. All Phase IA and IB proposals are for projects lasting 8 months for $250,000. All successful 2023 Phase I awardees will be eligible to submit a Phase II proposal in 2024 for $1M for full-scale development and evaluation.

A “Direct to Phase II” solicitation requests proposals for 2-year projects for $1,000,000 for the full-scale R&D and evaluation of new education technology products to ready existing evidence-based innovations (products, programs, or practices) for use at scale in education settings, and to plan for commercialization.  The existing education innovation is required to have originally been created by researchers at either universities (or other academic institutions) or non-profit education research organizations. Proposals must be submitted by a for-profit small business per the eligibility requirements of the SBIR program.


Stay tuned for updates on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn as IES continues to support innovative technology and research.

Edward Metz (Edward.Metz@ed.gov) is a research scientist and the program manager for the Small Business Innovation Research Program at the US Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.

New Grant to Develop a Learning Game About the Supreme Court Features ED/IES SBIR Education Technology Platform

In April 2022, iCivics was awarded a $400,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to develop Supreme Justice, a live-action multiplayer experience that simulates the deliberation process used by Supreme Court justices.  The game is being developed in partnership with small business Gigantic Mechanic and deployed using their VOXPOP platform, which was developed through the ED/IES SBIR program with awards in 2018 and 2019.

VOXPOP is a technology-enabled, class-wide, role-playing game for high school students. Using any web browser, teachers access a library of simulations on a range of topics drawn from the AP U.S. history curriculum and Common Core History Standards. VOXPOP’s platform provides resources to guide implementation, including videos, individualized student profiles, and real-time voting, and facilitates each student playing a unique historical role. Throughout the experience, the software guides participants with facts and primary sources, with students engaging in face-to-face discussions, and debating issues central to the simulation. All VOXPOP content can be found at www.voxpop.io

On July 15, VOXPOP was selected as the winner for the “Best Civics Game” through the Games For Change 2022 Awards. This annual award competition recognizes the year's best games for social impact and learning. All awards are competitive with submissions are evaluated by expert jurors.

In the new Supreme Justice game, students in grades 6 to 12 participate in a live-action multiplayer simulation focused on freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and due process rights. Classrooms are divided into different groups to play petitioners, respondents, and justices as they argue and consider cases of constitutional law. Supreme Justice will model deliberation and critical thinking in a civic setting, grounded in historical cases and relying heavily on the U.S. Constitution as evidence. The experience will engage students in face-to-face discussions and debates, while collaborating to craft arguments central to civic and government life. Once the game is developed, it will be freely available on the iCivics website.

 

 

Along with the iCivics NEH grant, Gigantic Mechanic is partnering with other organizations and museums, such as Revolutionary Spaces (see video below), to develop custom role-plays and simulations for their platforms and spaces.

 

 


Stay tuned to @IESResearch for news and updates on research, initiatives, and project updates in the area of tutoring to accelerate learning.

For more information, please contact Edward Metz (Edward.Metz@ed.gov), research scientist and the program manager for the Small Business Innovation Research Program at the US Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.