Category: News

WCER shares news and stories that highlight research discoveries, past achievements, publications, and the people behind the work.

Field Day Lab Celebrates 10 Years on March 4

The Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER), in collaboration with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI), is proud to announce today the 10th anniversary of the Field Day Lab. This milestone event will be celebrated at UW–Madison’s Memorial Union on March 4, 2025, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Since its inception, Field Day Lab, …

MSAN Institute Returns April 10-11, 2025

The Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) and the Multicultural Student Achievement Network (MSAN) announced that registration is open for the 2025 MSAN Institute. The two-day professional learning conference will take place in Madison on April 10 and 11. The professional development event is for K–12 teachers, principals, other school staff and school district leaders who …

WIDA Research Brief: Pracademics at the Intersection of Multilingualism and Transculturalism

Pracademics, or individuals who “occupy significant positions as both academics and practitioners” (Posner, 2009, p. 16), play a pivotal role at the crosshairs of multilingualism—the knowledge and use of multiple languages (European Commission, 2007); translanguaging—the practice in which individuals engage in sense-making using all of the language varieties available to them (Castro, 2020); and transculturalism—the dynamic and fluid navigation across communities (WIDA, 2021, 2023).  …

WCER Welcomes Carrie Parker As New MLRC Research Director

The Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) is excited to announce today that Carrie Parker has joined the center’s Multilingual Learning Research Center (MLRC) as a Research Director. As part of her role, Parker will collaborate with MLRC Research Director Mariana Castro and MLRC School Network Director Jon Nordmeyer to lead innovative research projects to improve educational …

Special Education Teacher Residency Program Recruitment Now Open For 2025 Cohort

The Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER), in collaboration with Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) and the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Department of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education, today announced recruitment for the 2025 cohort of the Special Education Teacher Residency Program is now open. This innovative program aims to address the critical shortage of special education …

Multicultural Student Achievement Network 25th Annual Student Conference Addresses “Leaving Our Legacy”

The Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) and the Multicultural Student Achievement Network (MSAN) today announced that more than 150 high school students and their chaperones from multiracial school districts across the country are meeting this week (Nov. 13-16) in East Lansing, MI, for the 25th annual MSAN Student Conference. The students and their chaperones …

WIDA is Partner in Accessible Pathways Project Awarded $3.9 Million to Advance Research on Multilingual Learners With Disabilities

The state of Minnesota has been awarded $3.998 million over four years for the Accessible Pathways Project through the Competitive Grants for State Assessments (CGSA) competition. This project aims to better understand and support multilingual learners (MLs) with low-incidence disabilities, in this case, students who are blind/have low vision (BLV) and those who are deaf/hard of …

UW–Madison’s Burt Launches Black Males in Engineering Project Aimed at Combating Shortage of Black Men in STEM

A new multimedia resource aimed at combating the shortage of Black men in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields launched today at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. As the shortage of Black men in STEM remains a dire challenge in the United States — according to 2022 statistics from the National Science Foundation, only 2% of …

Former DNR Comms Director Joins WCER as Director of Communications & Marketing

Katie Grant joined WCER’s leadership team as the center’s new director of communications & marketing on Aug. 12. Grant is a communications professional with a focus on organic social media strategy and community engagement, marketing strategy, and crisis communications. She excels in executing forward-thinking, long-term strategies that get results, with experience amplifying social media reach …

U.S. Scholars Learn “New Ways of Imagining” Research Data in Summer Institute on Campus

Angela Crumdy, a postdoctoral researcher of teacher development at the University of Pennsylvania, had at least two compelling reasons for visiting UW–Madison for a week in July to learn a research methodology that’s without peer in pulling human insights from big data. First, she says, she was drawn to the method, known as quantitative ethnography, or …