News from WCER

Online Lab to Prepare Students for College Writing

November 22, 2010

The Minority Student Achievement Network is developing an interactive, on-line writing lab to help high school juniors and seniors complete school assignments and help prepare them for college level writing.


How Does Mentoring Affect Student Career Choices?

November 15, 2010

A new multidisciplinary mentoring program bridges theory, research, and practice to increase and diversify the number of college students who pursue science careers.


Research is Important, but so is Teaching

November 15, 2010

Some federal funding agencies, including the National Science Foundation (NSF), have begun demanding visible, practical results of funded research.


FAST Program Receives UN Recognition

November 8, 2010

Families and Schools Together (FAST), a long time project at WCER, has become a global phenomenon.


Value-Added Research in Milwaukee Public Schools

November 1, 2010

For the past seven years WCER staff have worked with Milwaukee Public Schools district staff to develop their capacity to analyze and make full use of data on students and schools.


Evaluating the Chicago Community Trust Education Program

October 25, 2010

Since 2005, researchers from the Consortium for Policy Research in Education have been evaluating the Chicago Community Trust’s Education Program.


Advanced Career Pathways in Manufacturing

October 18, 2010

Wisconsin is among six states receiving grants from the U.S. Department of Education under the Promoting Rigorous Career and Technical Education Programs of Study (POS) Program.


A New Practice Guide for Using Data Effectively

October 15, 2010

Educators face increasing pressure to improve student achievement. To this end, educators and policy-makers use data, such as standardized test scores, to evaluate their practice and to monitor students’ academic progress.


Value-Added Models: Next Steps

October 11, 2010

One of the Value-Added Research Center’s research priorities is to develop and refine a new value-added model that combines the best features of models with random and fixed individual effects.


Measuring Student Gains in Metagenomics

October 4, 2010

Undergraduates are learning how new antibiotics can be developed in cultured and uncultured bacteria.


The Learning Sciences: Brand or Big Tent?

September 27, 2010

The aims of the Learning Sciences (LS) are to understand the nature of learning from a broad range of perspectives, and to shape the ways that learning environments and resources are designed and used.


Virtual Mentoring and Assessment for STEM Learning

September 20, 2010

How can all students be assured the opportunity to learn significant math and science content?


ELL Students Benefit from Formative Assessments

September 15, 2010

Classrooms across the country are welcoming an ever-growing number of students whose native language is not English.


Building Education Partnerships

September 13, 2010

Education partnerships are central to most education reform initiatives.


The Effects of Time on Student Success

September 7, 2010

Catherine Compton-Lilly offers a new case study that explores time as a context in which a low-income, African American boy defines himself as a particular type of student and literate person and was ultimately relegated to a particular school trajectory.