I am currently (as of October 1, 2010) funded by two grants:
Ecology Disrupted: Using real scientific data about daily life to link environmental issues to ecological processes in secondary school science classrooms
This grant, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), involves the development and testing of unique curricular units to help kids understand ecological principles. My role in the project is to lead the pilot and field testing of the curriculum units.
GRANT PERIOD: 9/1/09 – 8/31/12
FUNDING: Total: $1,079,699 – VCU (me): $82,138
PROJECT SUMMARY: The City College of New York and the American Museum of Natural History propose to refine and develop four case study modules in order to research the question, “Can curricular units that incorporate the analysis of real data from published research on the consequences of everyday life activities to link environmental issues to ecological principles improve student learning of ecological principles, personal and human environmental impacts and the nature of scientific activity?” The case study modules will use real data from authentic scientific research to link daily life to environmental issues and ecological principles. The modules will be built around engaging media about the scientists and their research and designed using a strategy that joins together teacher implementers, educators, researchers, and product developers in order to insure a product accessible to all learners. Controlled efficacy studies of modules will be performed in randomized control trials of the classrooms of 60 ninth grade Living Environment New York City public school teachers. Existing New York State Regents assessment items will be examined and new assessment items will be developed, field tested, and analyzed for validity and reliability. Students in the experimental and control classrooms will be pre- and post-tested using the developed assessments. In addition, teachers and students will complete pre-post surveys, and stratified samples of teachers will be observed and interviewed. To examine the effects of the intervention on student achievement and on instructional practices, descriptive and inferential statistics, including analysis of variance procedures will be employed in addressing the core research question dealing with student achievement. Analysis of variance techniques will also be used to examine main effects and to measure interactions between the intervention and other variables as they relate to student achievement scores.
INTELLECTUAL MERIT: This project seeks to further our understanding of how to frame science concepts and scientific research in a formal classroom setting by determining whether using everyday activities to explicitly link environmental issues to ecological principles is an effective approach for helping students to connect personal and human impacts to ecology. It also seeks to determine whether analysis of real data and video profiles of scientists and their research will help students to learn about the nature of scientific activity.
BROADER IMPACT: The focus of these modules on daily life has the potential to personally connect urban students to environmental issues and ecological principles. Also, analysis of published research has the potential to help young learners to begin to think scientifically. Through testing and dissemination, these modules will by used by New York City public schools students that belong to underrepresented groups. Also local New York City public school teachers and teachers nationally will use these modules through in-person and online courses to explore their own connection to environmental issues and ecology and to reflect upon the role of scientific inquiry in building understanding of the natural world. These resources will also be incorporated as links in Holt, Rinehart and Winston textbooks. Finally, we intend to use technology to develop an innovative approach for online delivery of these curricular resources. We plan to design an online module maker using a “kit of parts” of module components in order for teachers to create a module suitable for implementation into their particular classroom.
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Project ALL: Authentic Learning for Leaders
I am the evaluator on VCU’s Project ALL grant. In this role, I have been working with the project team to complete annual reports and to design a formal evaluation of the leadership development program being designed through the grant.
GRANT PERIOD: 9/1/09 – 8/31/14
FUNDING: Total: $5,258,547 – VCU (me): $170,131
PROJECT SUMMARY: “Project ALL” (Authentic Learning for Leaders) addresses the need for a continuous pool of instructional leaders by:
- Recruiting exemplary teachers who are already instructional leaders from an extensive network of teacherleaders developed by the School of Education’s Center for Teacher Leadership to be involved in an innovative, field-based training program that leads to Virginia administrative endorsement.
- Designing and piloting an instructional leader preparation program based on case studies, school-year simulations, and an internship that will prepare assistant principals to be instructional leaders in Richmond’s middle and high schools.
- Developing a strong induction program that includes a yearlong instructional assistant principal apprenticeship under the guidance of a team of successful mentor leaders, followed by two years of additional mentoring.
- Incorporating new training methods and materials into university leadership preparation programs and leadership professional development nationally.
- Similar to business and military training simulators, the project will develop a school-year simulator that will use fullmotion-based video based on a computermodel of the contingencies, priorities, crises, and decision consequences that make school leadership so demanding.