{"id":130578,"date":"2017-10-18T09:16:56","date_gmt":"2017-10-18T13:16:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?post_type=school-college-post&p=130578"},"modified":"2017-10-18T09:16:56","modified_gmt":"2017-10-18T13:16:56","slug":"5m-federal-funding-support-educational-psychology-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2017\/10\/5m-federal-funding-support-educational-psychology-research\/","title":{"rendered":"$5M in Federal Funding to Support Educational Psychology Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

Led by educational psychology professors in the Neag School of Education, two research projects have recently been awarded a total of nearly $5 million in federal funding, made available through the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are incredible, national-level investments in one of the world\u2019s top gifted and talented education programs, furthering the research of two outstanding professors and their research teams,\u201d says Scott Brown, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology and the head of the Neag School\u2019s Department of Educational Psychology.<\/p>\n

Project LIFT
\n<\/strong>Awarded a total of $2.4 million in funding that went into effect earlier this month, Project LIFT (Learning Informs Focused Teaching) is focused on students with high academic potential \u2014\u00a0particularly those from underserved populations.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe overall premise of Project LIFT,\u201d according to principal investigator Catherine Little<\/a>, professor of educational psychology, \u201cis that students with high academic potential are more likely to demonstrate high-potential behaviors while engaged in instruction that encourages such response.\u201d In addition, she says, \u201cteachers can strengthen their use of such instruction through professional development and access to resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Project LIFT, the research team will be building on ongoing work in the field centered not only on promoting teachers\u2019 understanding of the behaviors that may indicate high potential in students, but also on offering students access to opportunities to demonstrate their potential.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are incredible, national-level investments in one of the world\u2019s top gifted and talented education programs,
\nfurthering the research of two outstanding professors and their research teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor Scott Brown, Department Head, Educational Psychology<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cWe feel that it is really important to focus on how general education teachers are equipped to support the needs of advanced learners within the context of serving all the learners they support,\u201d Little says, adding that \u201cthe most powerful supports can come through curricular and instructional resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

By examining differences in teacher practice, teacher perceptions, and student achievement between a treatment and comparison group, the researchers hope to learn more about how teachers understand these populations, as well as what professional development approaches are helpful for these teachers in their work.<\/p>\n

Also part of Project LIFT are Christopher Rhoads<\/a>, associate professor of measurement, evaluation, and assessment; Rebecca Eckert<\/a>, associate clinical professor of teacher education; and Kelly Kearney \u201914 Ph.D., a research associate in the Department of Educational Psychology.<\/p>\n

The project is funded through September 2022.<\/p>\n

Thinking Like Mathematicians
\n<\/strong>Professor of educational psychology E. Jean Gubbins<\/a> is the principal investigator of a second newly funded project, entitled \u201cThinking Like Mathematicians: Challenging All Grade 3 Students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Funded for five years through the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act, the project is a \u201cscale-up of promising evidence-based quantitative and qualitative mathematics studies; identification and programming studies; and a qualitative study of identification practices for English learners,\u201d which were also previously funded by the Javits Act, according to the researchers. These prior studies emphasized the importance of supporting talented students from historically underrepresented groups.<\/p>\n

The Thinking Like Mathematicians project \u201cfocuses on providing challenging curriculum to promote talent development among all students in academically and culturally diverse schools,\u201d Gubbins says, \u201cand experiments with developmental identification strategies, which are important issues in our field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Funding for the project\u2019s first year, which went into effect Sept. 1, is $500,000, with funding for the second through fifth years remaining the same in each subsequent year, pending the availability of funds from the U.S. Department of Education\u2019s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education.<\/p>\n

Bianca Montrosse-Moorhead<\/a> and Aarti Bellara<\/a>, assistant professors of measurement, evaluation, and assessment, as well as Tutita Casa<\/a>, associate professor of curriculum and instruction, are serving as co-principal investigators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Led by educational psychology professors in the Neag School of Education, two research projects have recently been awarded a total of nearly $5 million in federal funding, made available through the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":130579,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1855],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1878],"class_list":["post-130578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-neag"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 23:39:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/130579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130578"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=130578"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=130578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}