By Marguerite Huber
September 27, 2017
Interested in education technology or continuous improvement research? There are a number of high-quality resources related to each topic available online. The Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Midwest team curated the following resources, including several from REL Midwest.
Education technology
- In these Ask A REL responses, REL Midwest researchers curated numerous resources on successfully integrating technology into curriculum and instruction and the effectiveness of virtual/online programs in special education settings.
- The National Education Technology Plan is the flagship education technology document for the United States and sets a national vision for learning enabled by technology.
- The former REL Midwest Virtual Education Research Alliance, from the 2012–17 contract, released three reports, with each report building on the previous report’s findings: Online Course Use in Iowa and Wisconsin Public High Schools: The Results of Two Statewide Surveys (2015), Professional Experiences of Online Teachers in Wisconsin: Results From a Survey About Training and Challenges (2015), and An Analysis of Student Engagement Patterns and Online Course Outcomes in Wisconsin (2016).
- A Compendium of Education Technology Research Funded by NCER and NCSER: 2002–2014 (2017) covers work funded by the National Center for Education Research (NCER) and the National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) to develop or study technologies for classroom, school, and education research purposes.
Continuous improvement
- REL Midwest produced a report, Establishing and Sustaining Networked Improvement Communities: Lessons from Michigan and Minnesota, to share the lessons learned by REL Midwest researchers working with educators in Michigan and Minnesota to create two networked improvement communities.
- The REL Midwest public television program, “Strength in Numbers: Closing Achievement Gaps through Collaboration” (2016), produced in partnership with Detroit Public Television, focuses on the continuous improvement research process as a method to address achievement gaps.
- A white paper from the Carnegie Foundation, Continuous Improvement in Education (2013), outlines how continuous improvement methods are being applied to make education more efficient, effective, and equitable.
- REL Northeast & Islands produced a webinar, A Practical Approach to Continuous Improvement in Education (2016), which focused on the continuous improvement process and tools for navigating this process. Check out these five excerpts of the full webinar: The Model for Improvement, The Plan Do Study Act (PDSA) Cycle, The Fishbone Diagram, Practical Measures and the Driver Diagram, and Practitioner Testimonial.