April 2020 Newsletter

Dear Colleagues,

The current pandemic is making it impossible to ignore the health, economic, and educational disparities in our country. At the same time, current education research has been greatly impacted—through the cancellation of conferences (e.g., the 2020 DRK-12 PI Meeting), school closures, massive remote learning efforts, and delays in data collection. How are we, the education research community, responding to the challenges and opportunities?

This month's Spotlight features DRK-12 projects that have focused on infectious disease, such as those funded through NSF RAPID grants during Ebola, Zika, and COVID-19 outbreaks. DRK-12 projects have contributed to a list of online learning resources. Former and current CADRE Fellows, postdocs, and other early career researchers convened to discuss the particular challenges they may face and to share support and potential solutions. Awardees are offering virtual sessions and conference materials online. And we are looking forward to the DRK-12 presentations at the STEM for All Video Showcase next week (May 5-12). We hope you will join us in supporting your colleagues by viewing videos about their work and joining the discussions.

There is a lot of news from NSF to share:

  • NSF has posted information on the implications of COVID-19 on research projects. Read more below in the project tip.  
  • New DRK-12 awards are being announced. Congratulations to those receiving award notifications. For those receiving declinations, we thought you might want to know that NSF released its annual merit review digest providing data on FY18 research proposal submissions. In a preface to the report, the National Science Board draws attention to how 1,835 proposals were rated "Very Good" or higher but did not receive funding due to lack of resources.
  • Sethuraman Panchanathan has been nominated to succeed Frances Córdova, whose term ended in March, as director of NSF. In the meantime, Kelvin Droegemeier is serving as acting director.
  • NSF requests recommendations for membership on its advisory committees, including the Advisory Committee for Education and Human Resources and STEM Education Advisory Panel.
  • NSF-approved formats for the Biographical Sketch and Current and Pending Support sections of proposals will be required starting June 1, 2020. Join a webinar on May 14, 2020 at 1:00- 2:30PM ET to learn more about the format requirements, as well as the new capability to prepare and submit separately submitted collaborative proposals in Research.gov. Do you have feedback about the new format and process? Submit it by email to policy@nsf.gov or via the Research.gov Feedback page.

In the midst of all of the COVID-19 upheaval, we also want to recognize the 50th anniversary of Earth Day and highlight currently funded DRK-12 projects focused on environmental education.

Thank you to all of you who are committed to STEM education. We hope that you are able to stay well and safe.

Sincerely,
The CADRE Team

Spotlight on Teaching and Learning About Infectious Diseases

Infectious Diseases

While COVID-19 has disrupted our lives in unprecedented ways, it is not the first pandemic or epidemic to cause fear, uncertainty, and spread of misinformation. In 2015, NSF funded three RAPID DRK-12 awards to educate the public about the Ebola virus and other infectious diseases. These projects aimed to improve understanding of virulence and transmissibility as well as support students, teachers, and administrators as consumers of information about infectious diseases.
 
This spotlight features products and findings from that work that have relevance in the current pandemic, as well as a perspective piece by Jacqueline Miller, which emphasizes the importance of developing critical-thinking skills to help learners navigate this context and others of social importance (e.g., climate change).

Virtual DRK-12 Session

Even though the 2020 DRK-12 PI Meeting has been cancelled, we can still share our project work. Join us for a webinar to discuss how professional development can support educators to bring out all students' voices and agency as mathematics learners. Hear about examples, successes, and challenges from three DRK-12 projects.

Strengthening Educators' Practices for Engaging and Empowering Students with Disabilities and Difficulties as Mathematics Learners
June 4 | 1-2 PM ET
Panelists: Amy Brodesky, Education Development Center; Jessica Hunt, North Carolina State University; Judy Storeygard, TERC

Register

2020 DRK-12 Conference Materials and ResourcesConference Materials

View slides and posters developed by DRK-12 projects for the SREE, AERA, and NARST conferences. For those of you who prepared materials for cancelled conferences, we are happy to share your work. Submit them here.

If you are interested in learning more about your DRK-12 colleagues' work, we also invite you to explore our Reading List of recent publications, view our updated COVID-19 and Online Learning collection, and browse our resource lists of recent publications, products, and project websites, as well as planned presentations.

Webinar Recording and Slides: DRK-12 Research Methods Webinar Series on Social Network Analysis

The American Institutes for Research (AIR) hosted two webinars on social network analysis--- an analytical approach that focuses on the relationships among actors in a system using quantitative or qualitative data. View the slides and recordings below to learn more.

Webinar 1: Social Network Analysis - An Introduction
Slides | Recording

Webinar 2: Applying Social Network Analysis to STEM Education Research
Slides | Recording

tipsProject Tip: Implications of COVID-19 on NSF-Funded Projects

NSF announced measures to provide "administrative relief" to projects affected by COVID-19. These include extensions to due dates for project reports, the ability to charge costs to grants that would not normally be allowed, and the waiving of some prior approval requirements. Awardees can apply for no-cost extensions to their grants following the normal procedure, and some deadlines for submitting proposals have been extended. More highlights of the measures include: 

  • IRB | NSF will accept a "review pending" determination notice in place of an approval or exemption determination. NSF will be flexible with the form that this notice takes as long as it makes clear that no work with human subjects, including recruitment, will be conducted until full IRB approval is obtained. Ongoing research determined to be in the best interest of already enrolled subjects may continue after expiration of IRB approval, but send notification to your IRB. IRBs, institutions, and individual researchers may wish to consult the Office for Human Research Protections' guidance on the effects of disasters on human research protections.
  • Cancelled travel and event expenses | Awardees may charge grant-related cancelled travel and event expenses to the award but shouldn't assume that supplemental funding will be available if charging those expenses results in a shortage of funds to complete those activities, if required, in the future.
  • Deadlines | Awardees who are unable to meet deadlines should contact their POs to discuss the issue. NSF has automatically extended the due date for submission of all annual and final project reports due between March 1 and April 30, 2020, by 30 days.
  • Prior approvals | Awardees are required to obtain NSF prior approval for many program or budget-related reasons (e.g., change in the project scope or objectives, change in a PI or co-PI, the transfer of funds budgeted for participant support costs to other categories of expense, and subawarding work under an NSF award). However, some other prior approvals are temporarily waived by NSF.

The latest information is available at nsf.gov/coronavirus.

Newsbites from NSF, DRK-12, and NSF Networks

News from NSF
 

News from DRK–12 Projects & Awardees

News from NSF Networks
 

See our CADRE & NSF Network Events page for ATECentral, CIRCL, CAISE, CS for All Teachers, EvaluATE, NSF INCLUDES, or STELAR events that may be of interest to you.

Email cadre@edc.org to share news from your project.

Upcoming Opportunities

The following funding and publication opportunities, listed by deadline, may be of interest to you and your DRK-12 project members. 

Funding
For more NSF funding opportunities, see CADRE's list of Upcoming NSF DRL Solicitation Deadlines.

Publications
For other publication opportunities, including those with ongoing submissions, see CADRE's list of Publications for STEM Educators, Policymakers, and Researchers.
 
Conference Proposals
For more conference information, see CADRE's list of Conferences for STEM Educators, Policymakers, and Researchers.
 
Job Openings

Other Opportunities
 

For job, funding, and capacity-building opportunities for doctoral students, postdocs, and other early career scholars, visit our Early Career News & Opportunities page.

A complete archive of our newsletters and announcements is available on cadrek12.org.

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