Designing a Research Exchange

The Wright Brothers finally designed something that could fly, so maybe we could too.

We want to create an exchange, or a collaboration, that would more closely knit research conducted in our School of Education with the teachers and organizations that could feed into it and benefit from it.

After two years of fact finding and data gathering we called our inaugural planning meeting. We invited representatives from faculty, staff, statewide organizations, and school districts. A professional facilitator guided our 4-hour discussion so that we could take notes and participate.

We have examined similar research exchanges operating at other universities and have sifted through to extract what might work in our own context, with our resources and challenges. We came up with the following, to be addressed at subsequent meetings:

Facilitate a place or space for practitioners and researchers to ask questions and get answers

Put system in place that serves not just large districts but all

Must have broad faculty interest and investment

Create a repository of information

A collaboration of groups & network of organizations

Build a prototype

Offer mutual incentives for practitioners and researchers, parity in access

A place for simple info sharing, match making, and collaborative research

Funds needed for meetings of collaborators, to hire a full time staff person

Use resources of allied organizations

Ask the University and the School to provides seed/startup funds

Sustain with help from grants

Next steps: Interview faculty researchers to create detailed descriptions of their current work and their future interests

Pursue funding/resources

Define metrics for success

Do 1 or 2 things well, maintain a focus

Discover the important, shared challenges facing practitioners , districts, and statewide entities

Create timeline including school districts and issues of need.

The immediate task is to create a summary and proposal document to present to the Dean.

Social media for researchers and academics

Here’s my presentation for the AERA 2012 communication workshop i cohosted with friend and colleague Ron Dietel of UCLA CRESST. I suggest things to consider when planning to use social media to share research findings with non-specialist audiences and the media.

Reaching learners with disabilities

I’ve posted videos of 3 presentations from yesterday’s conference for staff of Wisconsin’s Cooperative Educational Service Agencies. This year’s theme was Serving students with special needs and low-incidence disabilities.

Inclusion and social justice approaches to educating youth with disabilities from diverse backgrounds.
Audrey Trainor is associate professor of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education. Her interest areas include multicultural and bilingual special education, second language acquisition and disability, adolescent transition to adulthood, and qualitative research methods. She recently analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2), focusing on the transition of students with high incidence disabilities.

Using technology to improve literacy for struggling adolescent readers.
Kimber Wilkerson is professor of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education. Her research aims to improve long-term outcomes for children and adolescents with social, behavioral, and mental health needs. Recent projects have focused on academic instruction in juvenile corrections; academic interventions that affect children’s social outcomes; and accountability policies and practices in special education. An ongoing project is the Day Treatment, Residential, & Juvenile Correctional Schools Program. Carly Roberts is a doctoral student with experience in reading interventions for adolescents with low incidence disabilities.

Video teleconferencing to support families of children with autism spectrum disorders.
Wendy Machalicek is assistant professor of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education. Her interests include individualized interventions and system wide supports for students with severe disabilities, including autism, intellectual disabilities, and multiple disabilities; effectiveness of teacher and parent education; applied behavior analysis; and using technology in professional development and family support.

Communicating research more effectively

Students and faculty who plan to attend the AERA Annual Meeting this year may be interested in a communications professional development course.

A half-day workshop, Communicating research through effective presentations, social media, and writing, will focus on these sometimes neglected skills.

Instructors will be Ron Dietel, assistant director for research use and communications at UCLA’s National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST);  Barbara McKenna, Communications Director for the School Redesign Network at Stanford University and for the Leadership for Equity and Accountability in Districts and Schools (LEADS); and Paul Baker, senior communicator at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER).

The syllabus is here

The course blog is here

The course Ning is here

Registration information is here

Communicating education research

Over the years I’ve fielded calls from Frank Schultz, an education reporter for the Janesville (Wis.) Gazette. “Paul, I’m working on a story about (_____). What does education research say about it?”  Frank is good at providing feedback on articles I publish in a quarterly newsletter too. He recently reacted to a story about assessment practices in Wisconsin schools, and ended with this observation:

“. . . In any case, the article makes some sense to me because I have heard similar talk from some edu-doctors around here. Maybe someone should research how to communicate education concepts with the public.”

Frank makes a very good point. There is a lot of room for improvement.  Researchers often seem to live on a different planet from classroom teachers, not to mention the man in the street.

Speaking as a communicator, I can report on a few efforts to bridge the gap, both continuing and sporadic.

Members of the American Educational Research Assn. have two interest groups to address communication issues:  Communication of Research and Research Use.

AERA’s Communication and Outreach Committee presents panels at each year’s annual meeting on communicating education research to the public. I have helped organize this panel for the past 2 or 3 years. We gather newspaper reporters, bloggers, and researchers to speak about communication from their perspective.

In my own work I take cues from my friends in science, including the Natl. Assn. of Science Writers and the AAAS and the NSF.  Last year I attended their joint conference on science research communication and can recommend it.

The Education Writers Association, which serves reporters, editors, and higher ed communicators, holds workshops throughout the year and an annual conference. I’ve benefited from getting to know reporters and other higher ed people and look forward to the next conference in April.

In our own state, WCER hosts leaders of Wisconsin’s Cooperative Educational Service Agencies (CESAs) annually for a one-day conference. Researchers share their recent work with CESA staff and productive conversation ensues; sometimes new partnerships form.

So what I describe is a mix of research and practice. Frank’s original point remains, though:  The field of education communication is ripe for more research on what’s effective.

Follow the (education) money

Education writers and journalists will be checking out EdMoney.org, a resource that shows spending on K-12 education from the federal economic-stimulus law in states and school districts nationwide.

The site currently features data on $62.1 billion in grants from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, including 39,594 grants to 12,408 school districts and other education agencies across the country.

EdMoney.org is the only national website to link district-by-district spending with demographic data from the federal Common Core of Data.

Education Writers Association Assistant Director Lori Crouch says the site shows how districts’ grant information stacks up to others of similar size. “You can compare how fast urban, suburban, and rural districts are spending their money,” she said. “And you can see if your district is spending stimulus money at a faster clip than the rest of the state, or whether it’s holding on to a particular grant.”

EdMoney.org is  a project of the EWA with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was developed  with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Matt Waite.

New models for education journalism

Reimagining Education Journalism
By Darrel West, Russ Whitehurst, and E.J. Dionne, Jr.
Governance Studies at Brookings, 2010.  PDF, 24 p.
Read the report

Teachers do it.
Journalists do it.
Researchers do it.

They all bemoan the lack of coverage of education in mass media.

In this case, three Brookings Institution writers go beyond complaining to imagine ways of improving and expanding the coverage of education.

Their white paper, released this month, summarizes new trends in education coverage and how major news organizations are re-inventing their futures.

In a 2009 study, these authors documented that (a) education makes up only 1.4 percent of the total front page and prime news hour coverage, and that (b) much of that 1.4 percent focuses not on classrooms and school reform, but on the politics of education.

This report, issued May 11, outlines new delivery systems, including niche publications, news aggregators, social media, and new content providers. Since readers of this blog are familiar with those topics, I won’t elaborate. But the report goes on to describe three business models for education journalism: subsidized content, for-profit models, and indirect public subsidies.

The Carnegie Corporation subsidizes K-12 education coverage on National Public Radio because it’s a Carnegie focus area and because NPR reaches Carnegie’s target audience of practitioners and policymakers.

Successful for-profit models of education journalism include The Chronicle of Higher Education and  InsideHigherEd.

The authors point out that U.S. has a long history of direct or indirect public support for various publications. For example, newspapers and magazines long have benefitted from subsidized postage rates. They refer to the recent book, The Death and Life of American Journalism, by Robert McChesney and John Nichols, who suggest a tax credit for the “first $200” spent on daily newspapers. This approach focuses assistance on consumers, not individual news outlets. This model would allow subscribers, not  the government, to direct the flow of the indirect subsidies.

Beyond business models per se, education news organizations are developing new partnerships that benefit readers and the organizations themselves. Education Week stories will soon appear on the Associated Press newswire. The weekly also partners with the McClatchey Wire and with education aggregators such as ASCD Smart Brief.

The Center for Public Integrity partners with two dozen news organizations to offer its “Investigative News Network” for watchdog journalism.

The authors caution us to not forget print media.  “Millions of citizens, notably including parents, still rely on older media forms for most their information on education,” they say. “Despite newsrooms cutbacks, the ‘old’ media still provide most of the daily coverage of school systems across the country.” And that, they argue, presents an opportunity to improve on something that already exists. They suggests creating alliances among education reporters around the country. Newspapers themselves can do more to share coverage. The Education Writers Association can become a focal point for such partnerships.

“The dilemma facing all media is figuring out how to get readers or advertisers to pay for online content,” they observe. “Determining how to migrate from an ecosystem with a large amount of free online material to paid content is the chief contemporary puzzle.”

Communicating research through mass media

Here’s a gold mine of ideas how researchers can communicate more effectively with the public, via print, broadcast, and online media.

At the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in Denver we heard from two researchers and two media people. The topic of the panel session was “Crafting your work for a general audience: Researchers and the mass media.”

scott jaschik

Scott Jaschik, InsideHigherEd.com  “You guys are losing the battle for ideas and you are largely ignored.”
Watch video

holly yettick

Holly Yettick, formerly with Rocky Mountain News.  “How education journalists and bloggers decide which topics to cover.”
(Holly is author of the report “The Research that Reaches the Public: Who Produces the Educational Research Mentioned in the News Media?”)  Watch video

marc lamont hill

Marc Lamont Hill, Teachers College, Columbia. “Operating in these public spheres is legitimate work and necessary work.”
Watch video

jonathan zimmerman

Jonathan Zimmerman, NYU Steinhardt. “Being an Op-Ed writer has made me a much better historian and a much better academic”
Watch video

Adding value to a conference session via tweeting

Colorado convention center, Denver

I contend that tweeting from conference sessions adds value to any presentation or panel by bringing others into the conversation and by creating an online record for future reference.

I have been tweeting from the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) here in Denver. Today in particular I was gratified not only by the number of retweets but also by the number of original replies and added information.  After the session I told the organizers that the presentations were reaching more people than those who happened to be in the room.  They were delighted.

The session was titled “Barriers to equilibrium: Research supply and demand” and was organized by the AERA Research Use Special Interest Group. The audience consisted of researchers, practitioners, and communicators.

We used the hashtag #AERA and some of us were using the Tweetchat room  www.tweetchat.com/room/aera

I reproduce below my 18 tweets from the session and then the 19 retweets and comments that those tweets received in real time and afterward. Notice that some tweets were retweeted 3 times, greatly expanding their reach to all followers of each person tweeting.

First my tweets, then the responses.

How when & why teachers use research: 31.065 Learning Point Assocs. #Aera

http://www.curee.co.uk/ #Aera

How to empower Ts who access & use research? #Aera

What are some possibilities for engaging practitioners in data gathering? Some already do, and feel overwhelmed. #Aera

Research supporting practice in education www.oise.utoronto.ca/rspe #Aera

Knowledge brokers operate in the ‘white space’ of the broader ed system #Aera

Important to have a skilled facilitator, coach, cheerleader, who can span boundaries bet. worlds of practice & resch #Aera

In BC (Canada) professional learning communities are suspect & considered a threat to T autonomy. #Aera

Practitioners need help implementing research. Govt (in BC) not a trusted source of info. #Aera

Practitioners either still unaware of relevant resch or lack time to find and use it. #Aera

Best way to facilitate resch use: time for practitioners to collaborate w colleagues. #Aera

Scholarly reward system does not emphasize dissem to practitioners. Need for more open access. #Aera

Schools & districts shd create a library of ed resch. Ts will use resch under the right conditions. #Aera

Districts shd filter high quality for Ts, give structured time for using resch, #Aera

Teacher prep programs shd bring researchers and preservice Ts together, encourage Ts’ use of resch on the job. #Aera

Be clear abt context of study & applicability to other settings #Aera

Researchers shd promote work, use synopses, show applicability, give illustrations, write in accessible manner. #Aera

Barriers to Ts using resch: lack of time, articles overwhelming, controlled rsch settings not ‘real life’, may lack practical examples #Aera

Retweets and comments

Bonita DeAmicis bonitadee  @DrGarcia @doug_holton @pabaker55 Ed pract. tired of research promoted by $$-makers, too. Question bias in purpose + feels slimy. #aera

Doug Holton doug_holton @bonitadee @pabaker55 teachers value ideas that make sense-unfortunately sometimes they are not research based #aera

Greg McVerry jgmac1106  @bonitadee @pabaker55 #aera yes I hear it all the time from teachers “show me one study that says x and I will find one that says opposite.”

Bonita DeAmicis bonitadee  @pabaker55 + Ed practitioners don’t value research. They hear contradiction from yr to yr. Need ways to weed out junk quickly. #aera

Bonita DeAmicis bonitadee @pabaker55 + Ed practitioners don’t value research. They hear contradiction from yr to yr. Need ways to weed out junk quickly.

Bonita DeAmicis bonitadee  RT @jgmac1106: @pabaker55  I think any grant funded by IES should have to be published in open access journals.

Greg McVerry jgmac1106 @pabaker55 #Aera I think any grant funded by IES should have to be published in open access journals.

Rey Junco reyjunco  @jerridkruse @pabaker55 Thats why it’s incumbent on ed researchers to translate some of their findings to practice

Seann Dikkers sdikkers  @pabaker55 http://bit.ly/cbkQHo #Aera

Jerrid Kruse jerridkruse   @pabaker55 web 2.0 provides opportunity to connect research to practice. Ie: http://researchtopractice.wordpress.com

Jerrid Kruse jerridkruse  @pabaker55 that is not a dig against teachers, but against researchers who have lost sight of the goal #AERA

Jerrid Kruse jerridkruse  @pabaker55 in many ways research has become so esoteric, that practitioners can’t make use of it #AERA

Jerrid Kruse jerridkruse  @pabaker55 I don’t think is enough. Need to change higher ed expectations. Part of tenure should be demonstrates work with real schools.

Jerrid Kruse jerridkruse   @pabaker55 because of “publish or perish” philosophy, education researchers can only pay lip service to affecting real classrooms #AERA

Jerrid Kruse jerridkruse  @pabaker55 do we really wonder why there is disconnect b/w research & practice? Higher ed doesn’t value connecting the two. #AERA

Jerrid Kruse jerridkruse  YES!!! RT: Scholarly reward system does not emphasize dissem to practitioners. Need for more open access. #Aera /via @pabaker55

Jonathan Becker jonbecker @pabaker55 a-freakin-men. #AERA

Greg McVerry jgmac1106  @pabaker55 there are many barriers to schools accessing research. Cost and bad writing high list. #Aera

Dr. David D. Timony DrTimony YES! RT @pabaker55: Teacher prep programs shd bring researchers and preservice Ts together, encourage Ts’ use of resch on the job. #Aera

Notes from “No Reader Left Behind”

My Notes on the Brookings Institute report
“No reader left behind: Improving media coverage of education”

Read the report

In December 2009 the Brookings Institution issued a report called “Invisible: 1.4 percent coverage for education is not enough.” The report concludes that during the first 9 months of 2009 education coverage constituted only 1.4 percent of national news reporting. To launch the report a panel was convened to discuss education in the media, in terms of quantity of coverage and quality of reporting.

Russ Whitehurst, former head of the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Dept. of Education: Within education reporting, school finances and budget got the most coverage. Politics in education and swine flu followed.  Technology in the schools, charter schools, and education research all received less than 2 percent of education coverage. “Much of the educational coverage has to do with things that aren’t about the core business of schools. It would be like reading reviews of restaurants that talk about the economics of the restaurant business and how you get to be trained to be a chef, but never talk about food itself.”

E. J. Dionne, syndicated columnist for the Washington Post:  One of the central and, in some ways, positive findings of the study: “Local [news] outlets are more likely to cover the substance of school policy than national media . . .  At one level, it’s not surprising that local education is more complete than national coverage. Education is dealt with in principle as a national issue and a national problem, but most of the power to affect it exists at the state and local levels. So much of the coverage is necessarily about the state and local level, and much of it is necessarily balkanized. We don’t do enough, I think, to link the problems faced by our local elementary schools or high schools or middle schools or community colleges or universities to national policy. The journalistic systems we have, or at least have had up to this point, tends to make doing so difficult.

“There is also a great bias toward covering ideological and partisan issues that often have only a marginal impact on what teachers do in the classroom day after day, and what students learn in those classrooms day after day.

Darrell West, Governance Studies, Brookings Institution: Community colleges educate 6.7 million students compared to 11.2 million who are educated through colleges and universities. But when you look at the national news coverage, community colleges only get one-tenth the national news coverage of colleges and universities. . . . Relatively little media coverage of education relates to the actual school policy, school reform, education research, or ways to improve the curriculum or learning processes.

Richard Colvin, Hechinger Institute, Teachers College, Columbia University:  The coin of the realm here is stories, compelling stories that people are going to read just because they’re good stories.

Andrew Rotherham, The Education Sector: I get frustrated when certain issues are completed, settled, in the social science literature, for instance, or settled in the research literature, and instead we have these raging debates about them in education. … Someone will say that the Earth or the moon is made of rock, and someone else will put out a study and say, no, the Earth is made of green cheese. You can count on a lot of reporters, unfortunately, to write the story that the debate over the lunar surface continues with two new studies. We have to get past that as a field, and that comes to this issue of training.

Dale Mezzacappa, Education Writers Association: Training reporters is very important .. the other thing is just the time. I mean you can get reporters who have developed a pretty good expertise of how to observe a classroom, and know good research from bad research and everything. But the way newspapers are structured today, reporters don’t get to spend the time to really do in-depth stories that advance the issues and inform the public. They get pulled off for the daily stories, which are not unimportant, but which prevent the longer-term projects.

Russ Whitehurst: We did a survey of superintendents to figure out what they thought of media coverage, and they said, Well, it’s marginally okay. Then we asked them, How much time do you spend explaining education issues to reporters when they call? And they said, Oh, you know, 15 minutes a week.  I’ve said this to many superintendents over the years: You’re an educator. You have to educate the press the same way you educate your parents directly, your students, about what’s going on. You can’t say, on one hand, The coverage isn’t all that helpful, and then not help improve that coverage by making yourself available and by reaching out to journalists when you have time.

The coverage of colleges, whether they be community colleges or four-year schools, has little to do with the pressing policy issues that the nation is facing in higher education. For example, escalating costs, specialization issues, whether there’s going to be a digital revolution and whether the current industry is going to be substantially changed. We spend more per student than any other nation in the world and generally produce mediocre results in terms of graduation rates. Those stories, which are pressing stories for the nation’s interest, are hardly covered.

Mezzacappa: [Even] the people who do know what charter schools are don’t know a good charter school from a bad charter school. I think one of the things that reporters should do is help them figure that out, so that they can make informed choices.