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EDC Update Summer 2008

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EDC Update Summer 2008 (pdf, 2.92 MB)
  • Technology Stays After School

    How can afterschool programs make the most of technology, meet the needs of diverse students, and achieve multiple program goals, all while staying within budget? A new online resource from EDC
    can help.

  • Let's Climb!

    With 50 percent of students in Malawi dropping out of school by fifth grade, the Malawian government decided to try a new approach: it introduced an innovative national curriculum, which today is rapidly gaining in popularity among teachers and students alike.

  • Guardando Sexo para Después

    While pregnancy rates among teens in the United States have declined over the past decade, they continue to remain higher among Latinas than any other ethnic group. An innovative EDC teen pregnancy program, shown to be successful among English-speaking families, is now being tailored for Spanish-speaking communities.

  • Mind the Gap

    Like many school districts across the nation, Rochester, Minnesota, struggles to address the disparities in academic achievement among its students. Helping this city of 100,000 identify and address these gaps is the focus of new research conducted by EDC.

    “We needed the school and community to see that addressing the gaps in education was important for all children, not just those of color and with disabilities,” says EDC’s David Riley.

  • An Ambitious Plan Advances Education

    A Caribbean nation determined to address long-standing inequities in its education system is building a long-term national reform program on comprehensive research developed by an EDC team. The reform effort, led by the education ministry, aims to increase educational access and quality in Trinidad and Tobago.

  • Redefining Gender Roles to Stop HIV

    For years, EDC trained African teachers on the basics of HIV prevention—consistently using a condom, for example, or asserting oneself in relationships. Yet teachers would return to environments where traditional gender roles did not support these behaviors.

  • New Resources for Suicide Prevention

    Each year, there are 32,000 suicides in the United States—the equivalent of one every 16 minutes. As communities try to respond, more research and resources are emerging.

  • A Network of Friends

    Because cystic fibrosis (CF) heightens risk of infection, teens are isolated from those who could give them much-needed support: other teens with CF. But now, with help from EDC, they will be able to connect via the Internet.

  • A First in Zanzibar

    “Zanzibar is a small place, and everyone knows everyone,” reflects EDC’s Suzanne Simard. Recently, she has been spending a lot of time on this island, part of Tanzania and just off the east coast of Africa. There, she has worked with the Ministry of Education to pilot models for the development of Zanzibar’s first-ever system of public preschools. She and her colleagues are involved in every aspect of preschool startup—from developing curriculum to training teachers to distributing chalk and counting cubes.

  • Principal Investigators

    Over the next 18 months, EDC will investigate how universities work with school districts to train principals, and which features of that partnership work best. The Wallace Foundation has awarded EDC $1.2 million to explore university-district preparation programs, using surveys, interviews, and observations to document the kinds of curricula, field experiences, and recruitment practices used in the programs.

  • Research for Rewiring Schools

    As schools in the Gulf Coast struggle to rebuild now more than two years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the region, a new initiative is infusing technology into seven districts in Mississippi and in New Orleans’ Jefferson Parish. EDC is a key research partner in this three-year, $41 million initiative by Cisco.

  • Designed for Learning

    The typical science textbook is a dense read, presenting students with a highly specialized vocabulary and hundreds of new terms. For students with language-based disabilities, textbooks can be an insurmountable barrier to success in science.

  • Tuning in to an Opportunity

    It’s not easy to be a student in Somalia, a nation wracked by persistent violence. With 60 percent of residents fleeing Mogadishu, the capital, to live in camps, EDC and local teachers are working to ensure that learning continues. One key strategy is to reach into the camps with a regular schedule of educational radio programs.

  • A Closer Look at Drug and Alcohol Use

    When communities set out to reduce teen alcohol and drug use, they are often hampered by a lack of understanding and denial about the problems. EDC is working with 18 Boston-area towns to collect information on youth drinking and drug use and to help inform responses that will work.

  • Caring Schools Provide a Place to Grow

    For many schools, it’s difficult to find the right combination of communication, compassion, and connection to help students who are struggling because of disabilities or ethnic or linguistic differences. While all schools are required to develop Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) for students with disabilities, these programs often focus on addressing deficits and do not reflect the whole student or the family’s hopes for that child’s future.

  • Just Back: Fred Gross

    How should mathematics instruction change to fit the needs of students with learning disabilities? Fred Gross, principal investigator of EDC’s Addressing Accessibility in Mathematics, has been helping teachers across the United States answer this question.