Spring 2009 Newsletter

Welcome To CADRE

Dear DR-K12 PI,

At the fall 2008 DR-K12 PI meeting, Joan Ferrini-Mundy announced the formation of a network, housed at EDC, to provide support to grantees in the Discovery Research portfolio. Network staff tried to meet with each PI at least to say hello and learn a little about your project. Since that time, most of you have provided proposal and annual report information to Abt Associates, a partner in this network initiative. We thank you for this information as it will allow us to help NSF, and the DR-K12 community, to better understand the scope and depth of research currently being conducted on STEM resources, materials, and tools.

We now have a name for the network: we are calling ourselves CADRE, the acronym for the Community for Advancing Discovery Research in Education. Over the course of five years, we will organize PI meetings, thematic meetings, working groups, and in-person and virtual communities of practice. We will also prepare a range of print and electronic products designed to be useful to PIs in their current projects or in moving their work forward in the future. In addition, dissemination will be a big emphasis for CADRE’s support to grantees. We share NSF's belief that the research and development related to new DR-K12 resources, materials, and tools can best inform both policy and practice if and only if the collective body of work is disseminated in a focused way.

The foundation of CADRE's programs and services will be the knowledge and expertise of PIs. Much of what we do will be matchmaking: networking you with your colleagues, helping to establish working groups and joint presentations, and developing new and innovative ways of collaboration. We will also be poised to provide, if necessary, specific expertise from EDC, Abt, and Policy Studies Associates (PSA).

We plan to speak with you over the next few months, introduce you in a more personal way to CADRE, and learn how this can be a useful support to you and your team.

For your information, EDC co-PIs Jackie Miller and Paul Goldenberg are involved in our support strand; Abt’s Fran O'Reilly and Alina Martinez oversee the portfolio analysis and thematic studies; and PSA’s Brenda Turnbull and Derek Riley coordinate the dissemination component. Catherine McCulloch serves as CADRE's project director. Our evaluators are the UMass Donahue Institute.

We look forward to speaking with you soon. In the interim, please feel free to contact me directly (bberns@edc.org).

Sincerely,
Barbara Brauner Berns
CADRE Principal Investigator

Index of Conferences and Publications

For your convenience, we have compiled an index of conferences and publications to aid in disseminating your findings, models, resources, and tools to various education, research, and policy audiences. The index includes information about organizations' activities, members, conferences, and publications, with instructions for presentation and manuscript proposals. Please let us know if having this information in one place works for you!

Download:
STEM Conferences April 2009.pdf
STEM Publications April 2009.pdf

Building the DR-K12 Student Assessment Community

In late summer or early fall (depending on PI preferences) 2009, we will convene a meeting for those of you who have DR-K12 grants that focus on assessment. This forum will provide an opportunity for assessment leaders to identify and explore important student assessment challenges from multiple perspectives and disciplines. Two major goals will be (1) to build connections across projects and stronger, clearer articulation among research, development, and assessment; and (2) to build a DR-K12 assessment community. The meeting will be the first of many over a five-year period, allowing PIs to move from sharing individual assessment projects to tackling the "bigger issues" of the collective assessment portfolio of DR-K12.

If you would like to serve as an advisor for this meeting or help inform the community's direction, please contact Amy Busey (abusey@edc.org).

CADRE Advisory Board

We are pleased to introduce the CADRE Advisory Board who will provide advice and guidance to the CADRE leadership group. The members have diverse backgrounds, and several have been NSF PIs. The first meeting will take place on May 19th & 20th in Boston. Board members include:

  • Jere Confrey, Joseph D. Moore Distinguished Professor of Mathematics Education, North Carolina State University's College of Education
  • Chris Dede, Professor of Learning Technologies, Harvard Graduate School of Education
  • Chad Dorsey, President of Concord Consortium
  • Jonathan King, Professor of Molecular Biology, MIT
  • Karen King, Professor of Mathematics Education, New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture Education and Human Development
  • Okhee Lee-Salwen, Professor of Teaching and Learning, University of Miami's School of Education Angela McIver, President of Math Foundations
  • Glenn Stevens, Professor of Mathematics, Boston University
  • R. Don Williams, Research Director, Manager of Global Research for Education Strategies, Products and Services Group, Microsoft Corporation
  • Suzanne Wilson, Professor and Chair of the Department of Teacher Education and Director of the College of Education's Center for the Scholarship of Teaching, Michigan State University

Bios are available here

We will also establish individual advisory groups for major network components.

CADRE Website

On the upcoming CADRE website, all projects will have the opportunity and space to publicize their activities, findings, and resources to DR-K12, NSF, and other audiences. We will highlight the work of the DR-K12 community by featuring projects on the home page and elsewhere on the website.

If you wish to be one of the first DR-K12 projects featured on the website, please contact Amy Busey (abusey@edc.org).

Contact Us

If you want additional information about CADRE or have specific questions, please contact Amy Busey (abusey@edc.org).