Classroom tools and technology are changing rapidly, and traditional research cannot keep up without significant support to identify and implement best practices into the classroom.
That was the consensus of state education leaders, equity advocates and education technology experts attending a packed symposium on the future of education research and development at the Capitol on Thursday.
“We know instinctively that the methods that are effective in teaching an eighth-grader in Houston to read are not necessarily the same as the methods needed to teach a first-grader in rural New Mexico to read. And the methods that worked when we were in high school may not be effective for kids entering high school today,” said Sarah Shapiro, a senior fellow and director of social innovation at the Federation of American Scientists, who leads the Coalition for Learning Innovation.“But without a strong research and development system, we won't know what works, for whom, and under what conditions.”
The coalition is calling on Congress to update research and development priorities. It budgets $1.95 billion for education research, $1.95 billion for research and development at the National Science Foundation's Office of STEM Education, and $900 million for research and development at the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences. This would require a change in Congressional policy. From FY2022 to FY2023, the Department of Education's research and development budget would increase from $390 million to $349 million. at the same time.
“effective [education] “Interventions, programs and services have always been accessible and available to affluent communities, but they haven't always been available to those who haven't had the same opportunities or the same resources,” said Augustus Mays, vice president of partnerships and engagement at the Education Trust, a nonprofit focused on educational equity. “To me, evidence-based policymaking has always been what makes the difference.”
Mays pointed to the move to focus federal pandemic relief funds on tutoring programs. Its design, which includes using an aligned curriculum with individual or very small group sessions at least three times a week, has shown evidence of effectiveness. This model differs from the individualized instruction offered in NCLB supplemental education services, which has repeatedly been found to be ineffective. In terms of student outcomes, this is partly because programs varied widely from district to district.
Richard Clutter, CEO of the International Association for Technology in Education, said educational technology is changing classroom practice so rapidly that educators can't rely on traditional research grant cycles.
“Five years [randomized controlled trial] Apps and [artificial intelligence] “It's changing so rapidly that a whole new set of capabilities is coming out every two weeks,” Clutter said. “We have to think of new approaches to doing that research.”
Educational research needs to move faster and be more useful to teachers, experts say
Support is growing in Congress Establishing a fifth center within IES focused on “rapid response, high-impact research”It was named the “National Center for Higher Development Education.”
In 2011, the Obama administration tried to create an R&D center that would be an educational counterpart to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon's cutting-edge research program credited with developing the internet, stealth technology, and the global positioning system. The effort failed, but it helped spawn the Investments in Innovation, or i3, grants, which are praised for helping to expand promising programs. The evaluation period has been criticized for being years long and with limited success, with only 12 of 67 being We have completed an i3 evaluation which shows some benefits to improving student achievement.
“We need research agendas that encourage more thoughtful conversations, not just about what gets funded,” Clutter said. He said the future of education research “will be co-created with educators, and the end goal will not be to publish in peer-reviewed journals. [an] “Demonstration of influence and impact.”
Research policymakers called on Congress and state governments to do more to help teachers keep up with the best evidence on learning. “We have a lot to learn from the research community about how to make learning better and more effective. Going into schools and just talking about 'left brain, right brain' or 'learning styles' isn't going to have the impact we need,” Clutter said, referring to two popular but long-disproven ideas. About student learning.
Maryland Superintendent Cary Wright, who previously led Mississippi public schools and spearheaded the state's “Science of Reading” initiative, agreed.Wright said it's easy to find research-backed reading habits, but much harder to get all educators to understand them.
“I told my team, ‘We’re not going to assume that everyone knows how to do it. [science-based reading practices]”We gave it the 'we' rating because we had done enough balanced literacy instruction,” Wright said. “We were going to stick to what we knew worked in the research, so we ended up retraining every teacher in the state.”
