Understanding Federal Grant Programs to Help EdTech Providers Build Evidence-Based Solutions
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed just how much educators are routinely being asked to do and the vast complexity of the problems they are tasked with solving. And the depth of these challenges facing educators and their students is being demonstrated with the latest cycle of results from NAEP Long-Term Trend Assessment Results published by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Results from fall of the 2022-23 school year showed declining scores in both reading and mathematics for 13-year-old students–a trend that has continued for the past decade.
As Mark Schneider, Director of the federal Institute of Education Sciences (IES), points out in a recent blog, these results clearly indicate that “America’s students are struggling.” The question now becomes, what can education stakeholders do to improve the situation? That’s where edtech and evidence comes in.
Today’s classrooms are highly technology-enabled and dependent–just like so many other facets of modern life. Technology is here to stay, and as the pandemic also demonstrated, it can be a powerful tool to facilitate teaching and learning in new and innovative ways that level the playing field. But to be truly effective, it needs to be research-based, contextually appropriate, and thoughtfully implemented.
That’s what the current Transformative Research in Education Sciences Grant Program from IES aims to support. This year’s program will “focus on accelerating learning and reducing persistent education inequities by leveraging evidence-based principles from the learning sciences coupled with advanced technology to create high-reward, scalable technology solutions.”
Ready to apply? Check out the full application details and IES submission guidelines. Act fast–due date is Thursday, August 17. Crunched for time? LearnPlatform by Instructure can help!
While the initiative intends for the awarded interventions themselves to have transformative impact, what might be most transformative is the structure of the grant–one of the first from IES to formally require a three-way collaboration from a State/Local Education Agency, an EdTech/Intervention Provider, and a Researcher/Research Organization. This structure prioritizes objectivity and high-quality research while encouraging districts and edtech providers to work in closer partnership for greater impact. Winning collaborations will be awarded up to $3.75 million over three years (with the possibility of grant extensions) in support of pioneering ESSA-aligned approaches that improve student and teacher outcomes.
A grant program of this magnitude also indicates the value education agencies are placing on evidence, signaling the growing and ongoing importance of the work. This is further supported by IES’ announced intention to create a new National Center for Advanced Development in Education (NCADE) unit, which Schneider describes as “...essential to the modernization of education R&D in the long run, and, in the short run, it's needed to identify ways that we can employ education technology and the learning sciences to improve student performance and help students recover from the pandemic.”
How EdTech Providers can Partner with LearnPlatform by Instructure for IES Grants
Because the Instructure family includes thousands of education agency and provider partners, an independent research arm, and unique technology and services for building and sharing ESSA-aligned evidence safely and cost-effectively, we are available to support your education research & development needs:
Independent, third-party research
Our highly qualified team of published researchers, evaluators, and data analysts have years of successful experience as Principal Investigators, applicants, IES grantees, and What Works Clearinghouse-certified reviewers and have run more ESSA-aligned research studies in the last two years than any organization in the country.
Third-party validation, distribution of findings, and scalability support
Ensure reviewers value your commitments with our cost-effective third-party validation services, distribution of findings to the entire education landscape through the Instructure Learning Platform, and validated ESSA Evidence Badges™, Universal Evidence Reports, and other supports.
Contact us now to discuss your evidence needs, receive application and budget support materials, and set yourself up for success with this IES grant.
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