Drive
to Thrive: Research-based Strategies & Tools for Sparking
Effort and Success in ALL Students
Drive
to Thrive is an applied research program that
is anchored in the findings of our pure research project,
Gateways to Success, a 3-year program that has
been successfully completed with funding from the Federal
Department of Education, as well as other private donors.
In this next exciting phase, a collaborative project with
Fable Vision, our findings will be translated from a research-based,
small-scale classroom study to a large-scale school-based
intervention study using technology, media, and teacher
training.
• Focuses on the development and dissemination of cutting-edge,
research-based tools that motivate students and help them
to become strategic learners and to find their individualized
pathways to success.
•
Drive to Thrive
teaches students to develop personalized strategies that
enable them to become efficient, independent learners and
that foster effort, persistence and resilience.
• Drive to Thrive provides critically important
teacher training, as well as technology and written
materials for teachers and parents that help them
to address the needs of all students, but particularly those
students who are at risk because of learning differences
or attention problems.
Overall
Goals
•
To create classrooms that provide the keys to lifelong success:
• Positive self-concept
• Effective strategy use
• Effort and success
• Motivation, persistence, and resilience
•
To train teachers to help students to develop strategies
for learning more efficiently and for fostering
effort, persistence, and resilience, which have
been shown to be more important predictors of life success
than IQ or skill level.
•
To refine, evaluate and disseminate cutting-edge, research-based
instructional materials that use media and technology to
highlight the importance of motivation, inspire students
to work hard to achieve their personal best, and to improve
students’ competency and proficiency in the basic
literacy skills of written language and mathematics as well
as the content areas.
•
To provide teachers and parents with media-rich, technology-based
tools and training for fostering motivation, self-concept,
a strong work ethic, and effective learning strategies to
improve students’ writing, math,
and success in content area tests.
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Research Institute
for Learning & Development to Launch Year-Long Study
To Prove Efficacy of New Technology-Enhanced Metacognitive
Strategies & Tools
Research Study Aimed
at Increasing Student Performance
Receives $78,000 Grant from the Cisco Systems Foundation
Lexington-based Research Institute for Learning
and Development (ResearchILD) has just received a significant
grant to fund a new year-long pilot and research study to
measure the efficacy of two of its innovative metacognitive
and executive functioning software applications designed
to help improve academic performance. The Cisco Systems
Foundation cash grant for $78,000 from the Cisco Systems
New England Civic Council will fund the entire study being
conducted at the Douglas School in Acton, Massachusetts,
which will span the full 2006-2007 school calendar. The
award will be celebrated as part of ResearchILD’s
7th Annual “Pathways to Success” Benefit this
Thursday October 5th at the Westin Hotel in Waltham, Massachusetts.
The research study will include a new peer
mentoring program, as well as on-going professional development
and support for the educators at Douglas School. The year-long
study will also provide statistically significant research
to document the efficacy of BrainCogs® and EssayExpress™
- two software programs that are key components of this
unique research and technology-based academic improvement
program. The software was co-produced by ResearchILD and
FableVision, an internationally-recognized educational media
& technology developer and publisher. ResearchILD’s
President and Director of Research, Dr. Lynn Meltzer shares,
“We’ve spent over a decade converting research
into practical tools that actually reach and support all
learners – we expect that this study will further
our mission to help millions of learners – challenged
and mainstream – to thrive academically.”
“Cisco Systems is a long-time proponent
of combining technology and education to provide the tools
that students need to succeed,” explains Peg Lovett,
Corporate Philanthropy Project Lead with Cisco System’s
New England Civic Council. “We believe that this blend
of technology, media and research will help move the meter
in improving the performance of many schools in Massachusetts.”
Christopher Whitbeck, Ed.D., principal of
the Douglas School, is excited about the new academic-research
partnership. “The educators here are dedicated and
talented teachers who are excited by their role as co-researchers
in this study,” adding, “We hope to make a significant
contribution to the understanding of how we as a nation
can truly be a learner-centric profession, shifting from
simply covering content to studying how children comprehend
content and this pilot will lead the way.”
This research project is part of the bigger
initiative called “Drive to Thrive: Fostering Persistence,
Effort, and Resilience”, which is a field research
initiative designed to identify predictors of life success
in students, especially those with learning and attention
difficulties. As Dr. Meltzer explains, “The program
develops learning strategies that foster effort and persistence,
processes that are more important predictors of life success
than IQ or skill level.” Dr. Bethany Roditi, Vice
President and Director of Education at the Research Institute
for Learning and Development understands it’s all
about scale, adding “Our goal is to bring this work
to as many students as we can and this generous support
from the Cisco Systems Foundation will lay the groundwork
for scaling out this research-based solution nationwide.”
Funded initially with an SBIR (Small Business
Innovation Research) grant from the U.S. Department of Education,
the award-winning BrainCogs® and Essay Express™
software applications are distributed nationwide and internationally
through FableVision’s publishing group. The product
revenues provide ongoing revenue to the Research Institute
for Learning and Development to further their research and
development of new strategies and tools to help all learners
succeed. Along with the newly announced Cisco Systems Foundation
grant, other financial supporters including Staples Foundation
for Learning, Verizon Foundation, Boston Scientific, John
Alden Foundation, and significant individual contributors
such as Steven Beckhardt, former CEO of Iris Associates
and IBM Distinguished Engineer.
The BrainCogs® and Essay Express™
software applications (www.fablevision.com/education)
have won several major educational awards, including 2006
Parents Choice “Recommended” Award, Media &
Methods Awards Portfolio, 2003 AEP Golden Lamp Award, Finalist,
2003 AEP Distinguished Achievement Award, Winner and District
Administrator’s District’s Choice Award –
Top 100 Products of 2002. As Gigi Devanney of John Hopkins
University’s Center for Technology in Education, points
out, “BrainCogs is truly the first really new and
innovative software application I have seen in the last
several years.” The software was also chosen as a
featured web resource for the PBS special “Misunderstood
Minds”.
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