Research News

Thu
Sep
29

UW-Madison's Bartlett, Vavrus discuss upcoming book on 'FreshEd' podcast

UW-Madison professor Lesley Bartlett and alumna Fran Vavrus appeared on the weekly podcast “FreshEd with Will Brehm” to talk about a book they have co-authored that is due to be released later this year. In this podcast episode, Bartlett and Vavrus discuss the ideas from their upcoming book titled “Rethinking Case Study Research: A Comparative Approach.” These topics include the re-imagining of traditional case study techniques to accommodate factors such as culture, context, space, place and comparison.
Tue
Sep
27

Hubbard, Matthews receive NIH award to examine fractions learning processes

UW-Madison’s Edward Hubbard and Percival Matthews were recently awarded a National Institutes of Health (NIH) research grant worth nearly $1.9 million that will allow the faculty members with the School of Education to examine mathematical learning processes. The project is called, “Perceptual and Cognitive Mechanisms of Developing Fractions Knowledge: A Cross-Sequential Approach.” The grant will allow the researchers leading this multifaceted project to collect brain imaging, behavioral and educational data in schoolchildren.
Mon
Sep
26

Amechi receives ACPA Foundation Grant for study of foster youth

Congratulations to Mauriell H. Amechi, who has been awarded an ACPA Foundation Grant for his research project, "Straight out of Foster Care: A Qualitative Anti-deficit Study of Student Achievers."
Fri
Sep
23

UW-Madison’s Popkewitz featured on 'FreshEd' podcast

UW-Madison’s Thomas Popkewitz was featured on the weekly podcast “FreshEd with Will Brehm” to discuss education research topics. "FreshEd with Will Brehm" is a podcast that takes complicated ideas and topics in current educational research and makes them more easily understood and accessible for listeners. Popkewitz is a professor with the School of Education’s No. 1-ranked Department of Curriculum and Instruction.
Tue
Sep
20

Video of Hess’ AERA Ed-Talk, ‘Political Education in Polarized Times,’ now available

As part of the American Educational Research Association’s centennial year programming, AERA invited 31 people to deliver six-minute Ed-Talks that conveyed key research findings crisply, quickly and in ways that were meant to be compelling to policy leaders about the value and relevance of education research. UW-Madison School of Education Dean Diana Hess was among those who presented earlier this year in Washington, D.C. Hess’ Ed-Talk, “Political Education in Polarized Times,” is now available for viewing on this YouTube page.
Mon
Sep
19

WCER’s Gutiérrez to present at new UW-Madison Postdoctoral Research Symposium

The work of José Francisco Gutiérrez of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) will be showcased at the inaugural UW–Madison Postdoctoral Research Symposium on Tuesday, Sept. 20. The symposium, which runs from 1 to 4:15 p.m., will showcase research from four outstanding postdocs and feature keynote speaker B. Lynn Allen-Hoffmann, a UW-Madison professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, and founder of Stratatech Corp. Gutiérrez’s research with WCER focuses on classroom power dynamics and mathematical learning. He will present on his work from 1:40 to 2:10 p.m.
Fri
Sep
16

Online edition of Summer 2016 OT Matters now available

The online edition of the Summer 2016 OT Matters, an annual news publication for alumni and friends of UW-Madison's Occupational Therapy Program, is now available. The cover story for this most recent edition of OT Matters highlights the important work of Assistant Professor Brittany Travers, who is conducting leading-edge research involving motor and brain development in children with autism. The OT Program is housed within the School of Education's Department of Kinesiology.
Thu
Sep
15

UW-Madison’s Fuller selected for new national leadership program

UW-Madison’s Regina Y. Fuller, a doctoral student with the Department of Educational Policy Studies, has been selected to be part of a new Health Policy Research Scholars program being led by Johns Hopkins University, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. As part of the inaugural cohort of scholars with the program, Fuller plans to build research on how African-born adolescents, in the United States and West Africa, interact with community-based spaces around issues of reproductive health and pregnancy prevention.
Tue
Sep
13

UW-Madison faculty members help secure two NSF INCLUDES Awards

Two projects of the Wisconsin Center for Education Research within UW–Madison’s School of Education are among those selected to receive first-ever National Science Foundation INCLUDES funding. WCER Director Robert Mathieu is the principal investigator on one project and Jerlando Jackson, the university's Vilas Distinguished Professor of Higher Education, is a collaborating investigator on another. These NSF-backed projects are designed to develop bold, new approaches for diversifying the science and engineering workforce of the United States.
Fri
Sep
09

UW-Madison alum Lewis examining ways to help transgender youth within schools

The education research of UW-Madison alumna Maria Lewis is highlighted in a recent news story posted to Penn State University’s website. The article begins: “Maria Lewis is working collaboratively with the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Office for Safe Schools on issues of how to better accommodate transgender youth within the state’s school districts, issues that Lewis believes can be solved not only through research but by revisiting the purpose of an educator." Lewis is an assistant professor of education in Penn State’s College of Education. She earned her Ph.D. from UW-Madison's Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis in 2014.
Tue
Sep
06

Rau awarded NSF grants to help STEM students learn with visual representations

UW-Madison’s Martina Rau is the principal investigator on two grants awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) this past summer, with funding for the projects topping $1.1 million. Each of these projects will focus on how to help students learn with visual representations. Learning in the sciences often relies on visual features that depict information. Visual representations, for example, could include a pie chart depicting a fraction or a ball-and-stick model portraying chemical molecules. Rau is an assistant professor with the School of Education’s No. 1-ranked Department of Educational Psychology.
Tue
Aug
30

UW’s Hillman weighs in on governor’s ‘performance-based’ funding proposal

The Wisconsin State Journal recently published a report examining Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to provide new funding for the University of Wisconsin System in the state's 2017-19 budget based on a series of “performance” measures such as graduation rates and job placement statistics. Among the range of experts the State Journal interviewed for this report is UW-Madison’s Nicholas Hillman, an associate professor who studies higher education finance and policy with the School of Education's Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis.
Mon
Aug
29

Lacking other meaningful data, university faculty devise their own evaluation systems

In the fast-growing and job-rich disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, improving instruction at the college level is critical to keeping students engaged in these fields. But filling in bubbles on institutionalized end-of-term teacher evaluation questionnaires, a standard practice at many large research universities, often fails to produce timely and meaningful data for improving instruction, according to a new study co-authored by Oregon State University's Bouwma-Gearhart and UW-Madison's Matthew Hora. Bouwma-Gearhart also is an alumna of UW-Madison's School of Education.
Fri
Aug
26

UW-Madison alumni present at education conference in Beijing

Several alumni of UW-Madison's School of Education recently presented research as part of a group panel at the XVI World Congress of Comparative Education Societies, held Aug. 22-26 in Beijing, China. Each of those presenting from UW-Madison as part of the group panel, “Global Struggles for Critical Democratic Education,” earned doctorates from the School of Education’s No. 1-ranked Department of Curriculum and Instruction.
Mon
Aug
15

UW researchers: Persistence makes the difference in minority participation in science

Several researchers with ties to UW-Madison’s School of Education have co-authored a new report that takes a closer look at the problem of persistence -– and why programs that are designed to guide promising students from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups into science careers often miss the mark. The report is titled, “New Measures Assessing Predictors of Academic Persistence for Historically Underrepresented Racial/Ethnic Undergraduates in Science,” and it appears in the journal CBE-Life Sciences Education.
Thu
Aug
11

Weeth Feinstein is co-author of report shedding new light on science literacy in U.S.

The School of Education's Noah Weeth Feinstein is part of a 12-person committee that produced a report for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine assessing the state of science literacy in the U.S. The study notes that Americans may know more than you think about science. However, when it comes to altering the public’s mindset about complex topics such as climate change, the report says that attitudes may be difficult to change because they are shaped by factors such as values and beliefs -- rather than knowledge of the science alone.
Wed
Aug
03

Vlach part of team that receives support from UW2020: WARF Discovery Initiative

The School of Education’s Haley Vlach is a co-principal investigator on a project that is receiving backing in the latest round of UW2020: WARF Discovery Initiative funding. The project is titled, “From Simple Words to Complex Ideas: Understanding the Role of Language in Learning.” Vlach is an assistant professor with the No. 1-ranked Department of Educational Psychology.
Mon
Aug
01

Research in Higher Education to publish Wang’s paper examining STEM transfer pathways

UW-Madison’s Xueli Wang is the author of a groundbreaking research article examining community college course-taking patterns that contribute to effective academic pathways for transfer-aspiring students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The article is titled “Course-Taking Patterns of Community College Students Beginning in STEM: Using Data Mining Techniques to Reveal Viable STEM Transfer Pathways.” It will appear in the August issue of Research in Higher Education. Wang is a faculty member with the School of Education’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis.
Thu
Jul
28

UW-Madison alum Edwards authors, ‘New Ways to Engage Parents’

UW-Madison alumna and Michigan State University Professor Patricia Edwards is the author of a new book titled, “New Ways to Engage Parents: Strategies and Tools for Teachers and Leaders, K-12.” Edwards received her Ph.D. from the School of Education’s No. 1-ranked Department of Curriculum and Instruction in 1979. UW-Madison’s Catherine Compton-Lilly, a faculty member with the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, penned the foreword for Edwards’ book.
Wed
Jul
27

Diamond’s ‘Despite the Best Intentions’ receives outstanding book award

A book co-authored by UW-Madison’s John Diamond was recently named the winner of the 2016 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Outstanding Book Award by the Racial and Ethnic Minorities Division of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. This award honors the significant theoretical and empirical contributions of Eduardo Bonilla-Silva to the understanding of contemporary race and racism. The publication, “Despite the Best Intentions: How Racial Inequality Thrives in Good Schools,” is co-authored by Amanda Lewis.

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