Research Works

This past February at the 2010 San Diego USDoE MSP conference we had the privilege to hear from NSF’s Jan Cuny as she introduced to us a great resource called “National Lab Day“. As Jan said, National Lab Day is neither a specific day nor solely focused on labs. As their website states:

National Lab Day is more than just a day. It’s a nationwide initiative to build local communities of support that will foster ongoing collaborations among volunteers, students and educators.Â

Volunteers, university students, scientists, engineers, other STEM professionals and, more broadly, members of the community are working together with educators and students to bring discovery-based science experiences to students in grades K-12. When an educator posts a project, our system will help them get the resources needed to bring that project to fruition. Â

We recently had the pleasure to meet RPI’s Ron Eglash as he introduced us to his NSF sponsored work on Culturally Situated Design Tools. As stated in the June 2006 issue of American Anthropologist (pdf),

Ethnomathematics is the study of mathematical ideas and practices situated in their cultural context. Culturally Situated Design Tools (CSDTs) are web-based software applications that allow students to create simulations of cultural arts—Native American beadwork, African American cornrow hairstyles, urban graffiti, and so forth—using these underlying mathematical principles.

We were thrilled to discover the important work that Ron is doing right in our own backyard.

City Limits has an interesting Q&A which include a discussion on indicators and evidence of success with Geoffrey Canada; the CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone, Inc.

WNYC’s Brian Lehrer interviewed the author regarding “how effective the project [HCZ]  has been and if it can be replicated.”

Update: WWC just released findings regarding the HCZ’s middle school:

Students offered enrollment in the school had higher math test scores in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades than the students not offered enrollment. By the time they were tested in eighth grade, the effect size for the math test was 0.55. The WWC interprets this as equivalent to moving a student from the 50th to the 71st percentile.

The study authors found no statistically significant differences in ELA test scores in sixth or seventh grade, but a positive effect was found on the eighth grade ELA test. The effect size was 0.19, which the WWC interprets as equivalent to moving a student from the 50th to the 58th percentile.

Hello! RWI is excited to roll out a brand new website for 2010. Thanks to the folks at Intellisites for helping us with the design and installation of the new site. 

Along with information about our services, projects, and personnel, we now have a blog that we will keep populated with news about funding opportunities, program notices, notices to participants in our evaluation projects, and lots more.  We’re sure that the blog content will emerge and change as we get feedback from you about what you would like to see posted.

Let us know what you think! Leave a comment about your impressions of the site. We’d like to know what our visitors want us to share with them.

Best wishes for prosperity in the New Year!