This blog is part 1 of Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Director Mark Schneider’s three-year anniversary update looking back at some of the highpoints of the time he has served as director of IES. In part 2, Turning to the Future, Dr. Schneider outlines some of the challenges IES will be overseeing.
In part 1 of his anniversary blog, Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Director Mark Schneider documented the progress of IES, but there is a lot more work to be done. In part 2 of his blog, Dr. Schneider emphasized the following initiatives:
Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Director Mark Schneider revisited a theme that appeared in an earlier blog as IES becomes more focused on how best to help students catch up on unfinished learning resulting from the pandemic. IES recognizes that many students were falling behind even before the pandemic, especially the nation’s lowest-performing students. Every lesson learned about recovering must be utilized to remedy the downward trend.
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) will hold its 2021 NCES STATS-DC Data Conference, August 16–20, 2021. This virtual conference is free and open to the public. NCES is accepting proposals from those who would like to present a session at the STATS-DC Data Conference.
The deadline to submit a proposal is Monday, May 24, 2021.
To submit a concurrent session or exhibitor proposal, please visit
https://ies.ed.gov/whatsnew/conferences/Default.aspx?id=12434
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has announced a change to the format of the Biosketch and the content of Other Support. These changes are effective for all applications, Research Performance Progress Reports (RPPRs), and Just-in-Time (JIT) reports with deadlines on or submitted after May 25, 2021.
What does that mean for you?
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has made additional revisions to its NIH Grants Policy Statement (NIHGPS). This version applies to all NIH grants and cooperative agreements with budget periods beginning on or after October 1, 2020.
UF Research has launched a new Research Lifecycle web environment designed to help all users — principal investigators, research administrators, study coordinators, and other staff — easily navigate to the information they need most at any stage of a project. The web environment is designed around a continuous research lifecycle that begins with finding funding and ends with closing out an award, then begins anew. Underlying all stages of the lifecycle is a commitment to research integrity and compliance.
Effective immediately, UF Research will adopt the UF Campus COVID-19 Guidelines found at https://coronavirus.ufl.edu/resources/health-guidance/ as the requirements for UF research activities, with the exception of certain human subject research. The previous requirements within the Research Resumption Plan, implemented last spring at the height of the pandemic, regarding limited numbers of persons per square foot, as well as the submission of proposed activities and personnel through the Research Activity Request portal, are no longer applicable. At present, the UF Campus COVID-19 guidelines include physical distancing, face coverings, hand hygiene, and isolation if ill.
The University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) Florida 4-H program annually engages approximately 200,000 young people ages 5-18 in developmental and educational programs. These youth are guided and mentored by more than 7,000 volunteers and UF/IFAS Extension faculty and staff in every Florida county. Florida 4-H staff are interested in exploratory conversations with departments and colleges at UF to uncover mutually beneficial opportunities. If you are interested in community-based engagement with school-aged youth, please contact Dr. Stacey Ellison, Associate State 4-H Program Leader at staceye@ufl.edu.
This summer, UF Research Integrity, in collaboration with Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) on Campus, will once again host a seminar series on Research Integrity and RCR. Each seminar will be 1 to 2 hours and held via Zoom. Classes are open to all UF faculty, staff, and graduate students. Please visit the UF Research website for the full list of seminars and registration information. Deadline for enrollment in the certificate program is May 19, 2021. However, participants may enroll in the classes on an ad hoc basis throughout the summer.
Register for seminars here: https://research.ufl.edu/rcr/rcr-training/2021-summer-seminar-series-registration/
NVIDIA’s Deep Learning Institute (DLI) online courses are available free to UF faculty, students, and staff. The course examples can easily be ported to the HiPerGator AI cluster and integrated into a researcher’s work or professor’s classes. Students, faculty, and staff can email UFIT’s AI Support team IT-RC-AI@UFL.EDU for a course code to take any of the self-paced classes. Faculty can obtain their own code by requesting a teaching kit (information below).
Congratulations to Christopher Anthony for his subcontract award IES Flow Through from Pennsylvania State University; and Chris Curran and Mark Pacheco for their award from the National Science Foundation.
For more details, see the Awarded Projects table.
Best wishes to Mary Bratsch-Hines for her proposal to Take Stock in Children; Maria Coady and Nidza Marichal for their proposal to the U.S. Department of Education/OELA; Chris Curran for his proposal to the U.S. Department of Justice/NIJ; Christy Gabbard for her proposal to the Florida Department of Education; Lynda Hayes for her proposals to the Florida Department of Education; Herman Knopf and Elizabeth Shenkman for their subcontract proposal DHHS Flow Through from Florida’s Office of Early Learning; Herman Knopf and Philip Poekert for their subcontract proposal Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Flow Through from the University of Miami; Paige Pullen and Philip Poekert for their proposal to the Mississippi Department of Education; Paige Pullen and Philip Poekert for their proposal to the Florida Department of Education; Paige Pullen for her proposal to Trident United Way; Philip Poekert for his subcontract proposals DHHS Flow Through from Florida’s Office of Early Learning; Philip Poekert for his proposal to Episcopal Children’s Services; Joni Splett and Jennifer Doty for their proposal to the U.S. Department of Justice/NIJ; and Ross Van Boven for his proposal to the Florida Department of Education.
For more details, see the Submitted Projects table.
Q & A with Wei Li, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the School of Human Development and Organizational Studies
in Education
I am a quantitative researcher. My research centers on the development and application of experimental and quasi-experimental methods to address issues in education and policy studies. Currently, my methodological work focuses on the design and analysis of longitudinal interventions and multilevel cost-effectiveness studies. My substantive work encompasses research on class size effects, teacher effects, and the effectiveness of online learning and teaching. I am also interested in the evaluation of education and policy issues in China.
My methodological work helps applied researchers design rigorous educational interventions. For example, when educational researchers plan their experimental studies, they need to decide what the minimum required sample sizes (e.g., numbers of students, classroom, schools, etc.) are needed to identify the treatment effects with confidence. My work provides methods and free, user-friendly tools for applied researchers to compute the sample sizes when they design longitudinal experiments and multilevel cost-effectiveness studies. In particular, my work on cost-effectiveness analysis might be of interest to some researchers who are working on Institute of Education Sciences grant applications, which now require cost or cost-effectiveness analysis in the proposals.
I also serve as a quantitative methodologist on several intervention/evaluation studies. Working with my collaborators, we are using advanced quantitative methods (e.g., multilevel models, mediation and moderation analyses, experimental and quasi-experimental methods, etc.) to evaluate the causal effects of educational interventions, programs, and policies on student achievement and non-cognitive skills.
Currently, I have several methodological and applied projects in progress. Read more →
In his American Jobs Plan, President Biden is calling on Congress to invest $180 billion in R&D and the technologies of the future. Two of the initiatives in particular may impact upcoming funding opportunities for the college:
