This research evaluates intellectually-stimulating, personally-engaging, conceptually-rich instruction that could boost the conceptual understanding, thinking skills, language, and motivation of African American and Latina/o nonmainstream children. Fifth graders work in small collaborative groups and engage in open, free-flowing, peer-managed discussions that call for critical and reflective thinking. The central instructional unit entails issues in environmental science and public policy and integrates language arts, science, and social science. This quasi-experiment includes thirty-six fifth grade classrooms (700-800 children). Microgenetic analysis aims to locate the critical events that enabled children to acquire and transfer subject-matter concepts and reasoning strategies and led to heightened engagement.

Fourteen-hundred fourth and fifth grade students, along with thirty-two teachers, are participating in this research. Students come from a variety of economic, ethnic, and English proficiency backgrounds. The research goal is to determine the generalizability and sustainability of an educational program, Collaborative Reasoning (CR), for elementary classrooms. The teachers will attend an institute on CR and a series of follow up workshops at the University of Illinois. They facilitate the students' CR discussions in their classrooms. In addition, teachers work with other teachers on curriculum development and implementation through a Web forum and at follow up workshops.

This project aims to evaluate the Illinois Learning Standards (ILS) implementation and determine which resources have assisted school districts in increasing standards implementation to its highest levels. The evaluation is designed to produce information about standards implementation and impact at the state level, and how to show how the ILS have influenced classroom practice, professional development, and other aspects of schooling. The design also builds upon a previous study to assist in conveying longitudinal trends. The evaluation approach incorporates both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, using a statewide survey and both a mini and intensive case studies.

The Advanced Reading Development Demonstration Project is a collaboration between Chicago Public Schools, Chicago Universities, and Chicago Community Trust. Phase II aims to build on the capacity of higher performing partner schools, integrate and coordinate resources, develop literacy assessment and instructional tools and strategies for dissemination to university partners, expand the number of teachers with credentials in reading, and sustain continuous literacy instructional growth. The evaluation assesses the extent to which the project meets specified Phase II goals and responds to emerging issues. The design uses both qualitative and quantitative methods, multiple measures, and provides both formative and summative data.

The objective of Charting a Course to Literacy Early Reading First (CCL-ERF) is to create centers of early literacy excellence for preschoolers to learn cognitive and literacy skills that prepare them for continued success. The external evaluation assesses the program along five criteria; (1) Project design; (2) Quality of project personnel; (3) Adequacy of resources; (4) Quality of management plan; and, (5) Quality of project evaluation. The goals of the external evaluation include monitoring progress toward student achievement and professional development objectives, documenting project impact on teaching, learning, and family involvement, and building evaluation capacity and data-based decision making skills.

The external evaluation of the National Collaborative Center on Standards and Assessment Development (NCCSAD) focuses on program quality regarding (1) the integrity of the work plan; (2) product review; (3) participant satisfaction; and (4) impact of the Center. The external evaluation employs multiple methods and multiple data sources to provide summative information on the extent to which NCCSAD is making progress toward its stated goals and is having impact at local, state and federal levels. Methods include review of internal data and independent data collection including review of state standards, surveys and interviews with key stakeholders.

This project seeks to evaluate the Transitional Bilingual Learning Community (TBLC) program at the Truman College of Education. This evaluation will assess the TBLC program over a period of three years. In the initial year, the project will establish baseline criteria by using documented goals established by TBLC faculty team and through interviews of students. In subsequent years, progress will be documented using surveys and interviews of students. In the final year, the project will conduct content analysis of the work and projects produced by students to measure the improvement of writing and critical thinking skills.

This study uses a social ecological framework to explore the unique and shared risk and protective factors of bullying and sexual violence perpetuation/victimization among middle school students. Factors are assessed across several nested contextual systems, including family, peers, and school environments. Approximately 1,200 middle school students in two Illinois school districts competed 2 days of self- and peer-report surveys across two periods during the spring of 2008. These students will be assessed for the next two years to document the course of bullying and sexual violence perpetuation/victimization across the middle school years. This study will inform policy related to bullying and sexual violence prevention planning.

This project continues the development of an educative, values-engaged approach to evaluating science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education programs. The approach emphasizes the critical contributions of evaluation to STEM knowledge generation and learning and to the political requirements for equal access, opportunity, and representation in STEM educational policies, programs, and practices, especially for learners from underrepresented groups. Conceptual development of this approach is currently supported by an EREC grant. The present proposal is funded to field test, critically refine, and disseminate this STEM education evaluation approach.

This project evaluates key components of the current Illinois assessment and accountability system using a mixed-methods evaluation design. Two aspects of the Enhanced Illinois Standards Assessment Test, the Illinois No Child Left Behind accountability assessment for Grades 3-8 in Reading and Mathematics, are studied: (a) the intended and unintended assessment consequences and (b) Enhanced ISAT test equating and linking. The results will provide the foundation for a long term Illinois assessment and accountability program that will be designed to improve learning for all students in Illinois.

This Center investigates how humans acquire and use language, and develop literacy, when audition is not an available learning mode, including how deaf individuals learn to read, and the extension of visually based learning strategies to general educational practice. The Center’s Developmental and Sociocultural Processes of Visual Learning initiative examines learning environments for visual learners in natural settings, with three collaborations. Visual Language Acquisition charts individual developmental courses for acquiring visual language as a first language; Literacy Development explicates how profoundly deaf individuals may achieve excellence in reading; while Inter-Language and Inter-Modal Language Mapping documents visual linguistic and knowledge domains.

This project continues an examination of adult age differences in resource allocation during reading and the impact of these differences on subsequent comprehension and memory performance. This research is based on a theoretical framework in which self-regulation in reading is conceptualized as arising from a set of negative feedback loops functioning in the context of goals and knowledge of the individual reader. This research specifically explores how self-regulation in reading is affected by: (1) Challenges created by illegible orthography, complex syntax, and informational density; (2) The availability of background knowledge; and, (3) Social and affective goals.