Driving and Inspiring Greater Quality in Education Innovation
Our education system is going through a time of tremendous change and uncertainty. With challenges ranging from the demands of AI integration, looming budget cuts, teacher shortages, and significant cuts to education research by the federal government, the context of PreK-12 education is rapidly changing.
At the ISTELive25 and ASCD Annual Conference, the Advanced Education Research and Development Fund (AERDF) led conversations aimed at learning and collaboration as a means to meeting the challenges of the moment and charting a path forward together.
As the nation’s first discovery and invention hub for education, we start at the front end of learning science and innovation, seeking the fundamental, cutting-edge research and new technical capabilities needed to solve for persistent, complex teaching and learning problems.
Through our portfolio of R&D programs, we combine scientific rigor with co-design to discover breakthrough solutions that unite educators, scientists, and technologists with students to tackle the public education’s most pressing challenges.
What Innovation Looks Like: AERDF Awardees at ISTE+ASCD
To demonstrate what’s possible when we break down siloes and center learners and educators in education R&D, AERDF debuted the latest advancements in math, literacy, assessment, and AI at this year’s ISTE+ASCD Annual Conference. From literacy screening in minutes to boosting math comprehension in the schoolyard to co-designing strengths-based formative assessments using the power of generative AI, AERDF’s R&D programs and awardees are generating new scientific research, technical advancements, and dynamic prototypes pushing on the edge of what’s believed to be possible in education.
In this blog, we share many of the latest inventions and developments from our AERDF Awardees and partners across our R&D Programs – EF+Math, Assessment for Good, Reading Reimagined, and AugmentED – including: Magpie Literacy, Juego, Stanford ROAR, Big Words Project, Read STOP Write, Achievement Network, Throughline Learning, MindCatcher, Playlab AI, MIND Research Institute, University of Tennessee, University of Buffalo, Texas A&M, Michigan State University, University of Denver, Georgia Southern University, Leanlab Education, Learner-Centered Collaborative, Alliance for Learning Innovation, InnovateEDU, and The Reinvention Lab at Teach for America.
Take a look at the evidence-backed education solutions and insights our R&D programs are generating. These are making their way into the hands of thousands of educators and learners and impacting math, reading, assessment, and the future of teaching in the age of AI.
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Seeing Student Strengths
What if assessment went beyond measuring content knowledge and revealed insights into the strengths and skills students use to power their learning? We’d then have a more holistic understanding of how students learn and educators could make day-to-day, data-driven decisions about the learning opportunities and resources their students would most benefit from. Awardees MindCatcher Education and Throughline Learning, with our third R&D Program, Assessment for Good, are designing assessments that can deliver accurate, meaningful, and immediate data to guide teaching, all while honoring each learner’s unique strengths (an approach AFG calls “asset-based” assessment).
Current educational standards often focus on norms, expecting all students to reach specific milestones at pre-set times with little room for nuance. In response to trying to meet these standards, educators can too often focus on what needs fixing—in students, schools, and themselves. That is why MindCatcher Education has developed ASELA, an assessment that helps reframe challenges through an assets-based lens. By using ASELA, educators gain practical strategies for building classrooms that center strengths over deficits.
There is a strong evidence base connecting academic success and concepts such as belonging, academic mindset, cognitive skills, and engagement. Therefore, to uncover the factors impacting academic achievement, we can use the power of assessment to measure the quality of a student’s learning experience. So, Throughline Learning developed the Student Experience Survey (SES) to quantify and analyze the learning experiences of different student groups across grades 3-12. By complimenting data on academic performance with data about the student learning experience, we can offer educators a more holistic understanding of their students as learners, and better understand and address root causes of existing inequities.
Assessment is a powerful tool that can do more than measure content knowledge. We’re making it possible for learners to experience education tools that see and value their innate brilliance. And by sharing these insights with educators, they have the information readily available to help them make data-driven decisions about how to inspire the growth and development of their students.