News from WCER

Good, Burch Examine the Potential Dangers of Privatizing Digital Education

April 17, 2014

Digital education may be an innovative path forward for the American public schools system, but many of the existing virtual teaching programs have serious flaws, according to a new book co-authored by WCER researcher Annalee Good and former UW–Madison Assistant Professor and WCER researcher Patricia Burch.


Sharing Responsibility to Improve Teaching and Learning

April 9, 2014

Educators in elementary and secondary schools around the country can now tap into the Comprehensive Assessment of Leadership for Learning (CALL) survey to assess how to improve their schools.


Common Core Standards Do Not Account for Diversity

April 7, 2014

A professor considers the Common Core Standards in the context of students she has taught and the historical inequities that have plagued American schools.


Examining Past NSF Grants: A Step Toward More STEM Graduates

April 2, 2014

Each year, the National Science Foundation (NSF) spends tens of millions of dollars pursuing one of its highest priorities: increasing the number of students entering and completing degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).


Thinking Like an Engineer

April 1, 2014

Well-designed video games can help students prepare for their careers.


Customized Information for School Improvement

March 24, 2014

CALL is an online survey system that assesses leadership in both elementary and secondary schools.


Measurement for Fair Comparisons Across Districts

March 17, 2014

Value-added measures provide a way to measure the contributions that districts, schools, classrooms, and teachers make to gains in student achievement.


Working to Turn Around Schools in Philadelphia

March 4, 2014

The Families and Schools Together (FAST) project designs and distributes research-validated programs to help connect parents to their children’s schools, with the goal of strengthening families and improving outcomes for students.


Puntambekar Brings International Conference on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning to UW

March 4, 2014

This week marks a significant milestone for Sadhana Puntambekar. Amazon.com will begin selling a two-volume account of the proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Computer-Support Collaborative Learning (CSCL),


Learning in the Making: Leveraging Technologies for Impact

February 24, 2014

Informal learning environments across the U.S., sometimes called “Makerspaces,” are community centers that offer tools and resources empowering people to design and prototype their inventions.


Self-Affirmation Exercises Reduce Gap

February 17, 2014

Self-affirmation writing exercises have been shown to improve achievement of students who are identified as belonging to racial/ethnic groups that may be subject to stereotype threat.


Learning Physics with Hypertext and Design Challenges

February 11, 2014

CoMPASS science materials for middle schools enable students to understand relationships between concepts and principles including work, energy, force, acceleration, and mechanical advantage.


Visiting Scholar Brayboy Calls for Renewed Focus on American Indian Education in WCER

February 6, 2014

Students should be evaluated not just on their test scores or grade-point averages, but also on their capacity to craft a more democratic society, according to Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy.


School Context Shapes Peer Ethnic Discrimination

February 3, 2014

As with other forms of bullying, students who are verbally or physically harassed because of their membership in an ethnic group suffer declines in their psychological, social, and academic health.


Self-affirmation writing as strategy for reducing achievement gaps

January 28, 2014

Students’ grade point average, motivation, academic engagement, and achievement goals appear to decline during middle school.