Dear Colleagues,
The HEDCO Building, pictured above, is the anchor innovation hub among the six buildings that house the majority of our classrooms, research and outreach units, clinics, and faculty labs. The scope of our innovation work, however, requires some of our units to be housed at additional locations either nearby or off-campus.
We need considerable research space, because driving change by developing highly scalable products and services has always been part of the distinctive culture of our college. In fact, the R&D work of our faculty has created an “EduTech” industry in Eugene and Lane County.
Our R&D, however, has always been inspired by our desire to effect evidence-based change that redresses disparities in education and health – “products with purpose.” This work is now focused on addressing racism and bias. Heather McClure and Dane Ramshaw’s work aimed at leveraging virtual reality technology to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion training serves as but one example.
This work is ever more crucial this week as we all try to find ways to lift up our Asian and Asian-American colleagues and communities.
I wish you well with these same endeavors,
Randy W. Kamphaus
Dean of the College of Education
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College of Education faculty members Heather McClure and Dane Ramshaw have partnered with Shift Bias, a virtual reality training development company, to create a new curriculum for diversity, equity and inclusion training that incorporates virtual reality.
McClure worked with Shift Bias to help generate ideas for the curriculum and provide feedback on content from other contributors. Ramshaw set up the technology infrastructure of the program to ensure the content could be delivered at a large scale.
Participants begin with an online equity assessment that establishes a knowledge baseline to begin learning from. Once the assessment is complete, participants can move on to the course curriculum, which is designed to be completed in eight weeks. It is approximately 3½ hours long, broken up into 15-minute intervals. The VR practice scenario occurs in week seven of the training.
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To date, KinderTEK has been used by approximately 5,000 elementary students and over 200 teachers in almost 100 schools in 50 districts. KinderTEK was most recently mobilized to foster preschool students' kindergarten readiness. This year, the KinderTEK Pro Connected and iPads were made freely available to over 180 Head Start families to foster math learning, communication with Head Start and access to additional educational resources in these hard times.
KinderTEK also introduced a parent portal seamlessly linking parents and students at home with their classroom teacher. This innovative connection gives teachers a multitude of learning options and launched just in time to help meet the needs of students building math skills while distance learning.
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NumberShire Level 1, developed in partnership with the Center on Teaching and Learning in the UO College of Education, is an educational mathematics video game designed to accelerate the math achievement of first-grade students with or at risk for learning disabilities. NumberShire is an intervention program intended to supplement core mathematics instruction in multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) that uses a narrative arc to engage students in learning whole number concepts and skills. NumberShire can be downloaded from the Apple App Store as NumberShire 1: Class and NumberShire 1: Home.
NumberShire has been used by more than 4,000 elementary age students, 200 teachers, and 45 schools. In 2020, NumberShire game and online teacher resources were freely available to over 25 teachers and 500 students as well as 36 families from 12 states to support virtual learning through COVID-19 school closures. Online teacher resources are available that provide a web-based data reporting tool, instructional and implementation materials and supports, and enhanced gaming features, including a supplemental self-regulation application.
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Oregon Research Schools Network (ORSN) partners with educators and school districts to improve school climate and preK-12 academic outcomes in Oregon.
While each ESD partnership functions differently, with different goals and objectives, each includes a bespoke online platform where users (e.g. educational assistants, classified staff, licensed educators and school administrators) can securely login to access project specific video-based micro-professional development modules (‘micro-PD’), support materials, and synchronous / asynchronous communication channels. These online platforms are digitally connected to the partner ESD web domain, and function as a digital hub for the project itself. Read more about ORSN developments.
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Career Trek engages students in highly interactive, developmentally-appropriate, and gamified career exploration. Designed specifically for elementary school, CareerTrek scaffolds vocabulary and activities to introduce and reinforce key, evidence-based career development concepts. Kids gain career awareness by completing activities and games to learn about careers and connect them to interests and skills.
CareerTrek is developed by IntoCareers, an outreach unit at the College of Education. Summer 2021 IntoCareers celebrates its 50th Anniversary of developing quality career information systems and career development resources. IntoCareers customizes the CIS Enterprise & CIS360 career planning platforms to provide scalable tools & resources to serve students & adults. At the outset, IntoCareers worked with partner states to mail bound books of resources to high schools across the states. Through the 80s and 90s delivery methods changed to floppy discs, CDs, and finally the early stages of the internet. Now, IntoCareers hosts a white-labeled, customizable, scalable, and fully-mobile responsive CIS360 platform. Read more about IntoCareers’ exciting work.
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Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports Applications (PBISApps) is a not-for-profit group, developed and operated by faculty and staff at Educational and Community Supports (ECS), a research unit within the College of Education. ECS began in 1999 directed by Dr. Robert Horner and remains focused on the same mission: To implement practices resulting in positive, durable, scientifically validated change in the lives of individuals with disabilities and their families. PBISApps began with a mission to support educators to create effective, equitable learning environments for all students by giving educators access to high quality data systems and training.
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