R&D Partners
With our R&D partners, we have engaged over 4,000 learners and 1,000 educators across 14 states in our work to develop and validate new assessment measures and to explore innovative assessment delivery platforms.
R&D Partners
Together, we are working to capture the variables that learners, educators and community partners have identified as critical for understanding the fullness of the learner experience—an experience shaped by classroom-based achievement metrics as well as social and emotional well-being.
LiberatED
Team
Dena Simmons
Founder and Executive Director, LiberatED.
Meiko Lin
Director of Research, LiberatED
Sukhiminder Kaur
Research Associate, LiberatED
LiberatED’s overarching goal is to co-develop an inventory of liberatory practices (ILP) with Black and Latinx youth and middle school educators with the hope of cultivating the conditions for liberation in classrooms throughout the U.S. and beyond. In addition to the ILP, we aim to develop three accompanying resources: an associated educator reflection guide, a companion student feedback form, and an ILP protocol (i.e., an instruction manual for educators, who wish to implement the practices in the ILP).
The Center for Whole-Child Education (CWCE)
Team
Supraja Narayanaswamy
Principal Investigator, Director of Data and Research, CWCE
Elizabeth Dowling
Principal Investigator, Research Professor, CWCE
Claudia Hebert
Data and Research Coordinator, CWCE
The Center for Whole-Child Education (CWCE) Design Inventories (WCDIs) are a suite of measurement tools designed to support healthy, whole-child development in educational settings. Composed of school, classroom, and student level WCDI, the inventories include a comprehensive set of evidence-based indicators that represent the degree to which existing systems and practices support whole-child learning and thriving.
Through the proposed project, CWCE will partner with the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development (IARYD) at Tufts University to rigorously test the latest versions of the WCDIs and work with partner schools and their key stakeholders – teachers, students, and administrators – to continue learning and refining the WCDI for broad use as an ecological assessment tool. The key research objective of the project is to test the measurement and statistical properties of the WCDI assessments (including their structure, reliability, and validity) to develop evaluation tools that are sensitive to change over time and can be used by educators to evaluate and reflect on the context and conditions of their respective school’s alignment with whole-child design.
Educator and Student Wellbeing Positive Feedback Loop
Team
Josh Boots
Principal Investigator, EmpowerK12 Dr.
Olga Price
Co-Principal Investigator, George Washington University
EmpowerK12, along with the George Washington Center for Health and Health Care in Schools, School Talk, The New Teacher Project, and Mathematica, will develop a suite of wellbeing assessment tools that investigate how social and emotional wellbeing, including identity development, of students ages 8 -13 and their educators influence each other. They will utilize both comprehensive seasonal surveys and near real-time check-ins that will provide an actionable, supports-aligned framework for educators and learners.
Adult Social Emotional Learning Assessment (ASELA)
Team
Nakeyshia Kendall Williams
Principal Investigator, MindCatcher
Created by MindCatcher, ASELA is a social-emotional wellbeing assessment tool that seeks to increase awareness of how educator strengths may be utilized in the learning environment to support the academic and social emotional well-being of Black and Latinx youth ages 8-13. As the first part of their work, this team will identify key domains of social-emotional learning across educators, from general and special education, to content area and related service educators in order to determine the elements needed for any comprehensive educator-focused assessment of social and emotional well-being.
Asset-based Intersectional Identities Among Latinx, Black, and Indigenous Youth: Centering Student Voice to Inform Teacher Practice and Research
Team
Dr. Mildred Boveda
Co-Principal Investigator, Pennsylvania State University
Norma González
Co-Principal Investigator, Tucson Unified School District
Dr. DeLeon Gray
Co-Principal Investigator, North Carolina State University
Dr. Francesca López
Principal Investigator, Pennsylvania State University
Lorenzo López
Co-Principal Investigator, Tucson Unified School District
Dynah Oviedo
Co-Principal Investigator, Tucson Unified School District
Dr. Nilam Ram
Co-Principal Investigator, Stanford University
Created by MindCatcher, ASELA is a social-emotional wellbeing assessment tool that seeks to increase awareness of how educator strengths may be utilized in the learning environment to support the academic and social emotional well-being of Black and Latinx youth ages 8-13. As the first part of their work, this team will identify key domains of social-emotional learning across educators, from general and special education, to content area and related service educators in order to determine the elements needed for any comprehensive educator-focused assessment of social and emotional well-being.
Centering Student Experience for Student Impact
Team
Malika Ali
Co-Principal Investigator, Throughline Learning
Karina Rodriguez
Principal Investigator, Throughline Learning
The Student Experience Survey (SES) provides teachers, school leaders, and community members more insight on how students experience their learning environments and see themselves as learners. Students, particularly those from communities that have been oppressed by systemic inequity, will be more engaged with their learning and will show evidence of growth in academic skills. The survey will provide critical information to educators that supports their implementation of culturally responsive practices. Through a rapid visualization tool, educators are able to increase and expand their use of data metrics through utilizing information that is more representative of the goals that students and their communities have defined as important to their success.
Measuring Inclusive Constructs of Mathematics Identity (MICMI)
Team
Dr. Elizabeth Anderson
Co-Principal Investigator, Embraced Wisdom Resource Group
Dr. Nicole M. Joseph
Principal Investigator, Vanderbilt University
The Measuring Inclusive Constructs of Mathematics Identity (MICMI) provides timely information to educators on the intersecting identity created when race, gender, and disciplinary belonging converge—so that greater opportunities for learning and engagement are provided to preadolescent and adolescent girls. Co-design of the MICMI starts with Black girls as they identify the intersectional assets needed for more effective math learning that transcend a physical space or curriculum. The MICMI will provide actionable insights to educators, caregivers, and the girls’ themselves as they navigate the concurrent developmental trajectories associated with race, girlhood, and mathematics identities.
Informed by, Validated by Black Voices: Expanding and Validating an Assessment Tool for Culturally Affirming Instruction
Team
Dr. Dawn X. Henderson
Co-Principal Investigator, Village of Wisdom
Dr. Amber Majors Lapido
Principal Investigator, Village of Wisdom
The Culturally Affirming Climate Survey (CACS) for grades 3-6 provides timely information as to the racial and cultural experiences of Black children and other children of color, in order to create culturally affirming learning environments. An extension of this survey for grades 7-12 provides an ecological assessment of the learning environment, presenting accessible and actionable information for schools and communities. The CACS survey for grades 3-6 will be developed by a collaborative team of Black parent researchers, Village of Wisdom, and Discriminology. The team is committed to assessing equity and cultural affirmation and ensuring that assessment is informed by the voices of those with everyday school experiences.
Assessment for Good is committed to protecting student and child privacy in all aspects of our program. Among other requirements, all R&D partners must contractually agree to adhere to our strict privacy and security requirements and projects must go through Institutional Review Board (IRB) review.