MCPER researchers have been awarded a $3.5 million, 4-year federal grant to gauge the effectiveness of different professional development models aimed at vocabulary and reading comprehension instruction in fourth-grade content area classes.
In each research year of the new project—Examining the Efficacy of Differential Levels of Professional Development for Teaching Content Area Reading Strategies—60 fourth-grade teachers and their students will join the study. Teachers will attend an annual conference at UT Austin, where they will learn the vocabulary and comprehension components they will use in their classrooms over the course of the school year. The project will measure and compare the effectiveness of professional development versus a control condition in the first year and then compare different types of professional development in subsequent years.
Elizabeth Swanson will lead the project as principal investigator with MCPER Executive Director Sharon Vaughn and Associate Director Greg Roberts as co-principal investigators. The funding is through the National Center for Education Research.