Leveraging Education Advanced Research Now (LEARN)

Overview

<p>It is more important than ever for all students to feel welcome, safe and understood at school and for learning environments to support this goal. Assessment for Good (AFG) is an Inclusive R&D program focused on dramatically improving conditions for the social and emotional health and positive academic outcomes of learners aged 8-13, with a special focus on Black and Latinx students. This is a critical phase in students’ lives for identity development and foundational academic development. It is also the time when most students are initially assessed for disabilities.</p> <p>AFG seeks to improve outcomes for students with and without disabilities through a series of R&D projects that will advance the capabilities needed in a responsive and accessible system of asset-based assessment. By redesigning assessment in this way, educators will have access to vital information on the strengths that students bring to the classroom, allowing them to provide a rich instructional experience that values learner diversity. Transforming assessment so that it connects educators, parents, and students together as partners in learning will maximize impact – setting the stage for an equitable, affirming, and relevant educational experience.</p> <p>LEARN is a means of identifying innovative, rapid response research proposals that will advance solutions that support the assessment of social, emotional and educational assets in culturally diverse populations.</p> <p><strong>GOAL:</strong> Can we build a set of assessment tools that point us to the assets that Black and Latinx learners bring to the learning environment?</p> <p>Through this funding opportunity, our goal is to greate a set of assessment tools.  We are interested in:</p> <ol> <li><span style="font-size:1em">Breakthrough tools that are focused on identity and/or emotion development.</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:1em">Bold ideas that will connect SEL development into existing learning or social routines.</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:1em">Exploratory models that look at:</span></li> </ol> <ul> <li>environtmental variables/contests;</li> <li>student/caregiver administration; or</li> <li>multiple versions of assessment across instructional formats</li> </ul>