Improving Access and Outcomes in Gifted Education

1. The Education Research & Development Centers Competition (84.305C): Improving Access, Instruction, and Outcomes in Gifted Education (Topic 3) Corinne Alfeld, Ph.D. National Center for Education Research

2. Presentation Outline • Overview of IES • General requirements for R&D centers • Specific requirements for this R&D Center: “Improving Access, Instruction, and Outcomes in Gifted Education” (Gifted Center) • Next steps for applicants

3. Introduction Overview of IES and the R&D centers

4. U.S. Department of Education The Department’s mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access. RESEARCH Established by Congress (Education Sciences Reform Act) in 2002

5. Institute of Education Sciences (IES)U.S. Department of Education • Non-partisan • Charged with providing rigorous evidence to inform education policy and practice, and sharing this information with educators, parents, policymakers, researchers, and the public • The overall mission of IES is to: • Describe the condition and progress of education in the United States • Identify education practices that improve academic achievement and access to education opportunities • Evaluate the effectiveness of Federal and other education programs

6. Organizational Structure of IES

7. NCER’s Purpose NCER supports field-initiated, innovative solutions to improve education research and inform policy and practice.This includes: • Rigorous, relevant research • Dissemination to stakeholders (policymakers, practitioners, researchers, learners, the public) • Training to develop researchers prepared to do the above We have separate requests for Applications (RFAs) for research and training activities. Today’s webinar covers the RFA called 84.305C, which is for education research and development centers.

8. Purpose of the R&D Centers • Contribute to solving U.S. education problems, generating new knowledge and theories relevant to the focus of the Center. • Provide national leadership and disseminate research findings. • Conduct research on supplemental questions that emerge. R&D Centers are cooperative agreements between the Center grantee and IES.

9. Center Topics You must choose one of the following Center topic areas: • Improving Opportunities and Achievement for English Learners in Secondary School Settings (Secondary School ELs Center) • Improving Teaching and Learning in Postsecondary Institutions (Postsecondary Center) • Improving Access, Instruction, and Outcomes in Gifted Education (Gifted Center) (See the Submission Guide for how to indicate your Center topic)

10. Improving Access, Instruction, and Outcomes in Gifted Education The Gifted Center will examine how state, district, and school leaders and educators can implement policies and practices to better identify and serve gifted learners from all demographic backgrounds and improve student outcomes through gifted education.

11. Funding for the Gifted Center The Gifted R&D center is being competed by IES in fulfillment of the requirement in the “Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Program” in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) (SEC. 4644. ø20 U.S.C. 7294 [d]) for a National Research Center for the Education of Gifted and Talented Children and Youth.

12. Requirements and Recommendations When preparing your application, attend to both the requirements and the recommendations. • Requirements • The minimum required elements for an application to be sent forward to peer reviewers for funding consideration. • Recommendations(what the reviewers will focus on when scoring applications) • The suggestions and guidance that applicants should keep in mind when preparing their application narratives. • Where appropriate, recommendations refer to the Standards for Excellence in Education Research (SEER) principles.

13. Requirements for R & D Centers In order for your application to be reviewed, you must meet the requirements for the following: • Education Outcomes • Education Settings • Focused Program of Research • Other Center Activities • Award Limits Each Center has its own specific requirements and recommendations, so read the RFA carefully!

14. Focused Program of Research Gifted Center: • Propose several research projects that, together, have the potential to improve access, instruction, and student outcomes for gifted learners from disadvantaged backgrounds. • Build on findings from the previous Gifted Center. • The RFA includes several project ideas, but IES also welcomes and encourages other ideas developed by the field.

15. Requirements for All Centers: Education Outcomes You must have a plan to measure academic outcomes. These • Vary by topic, age, and setting; • Reflect learning and achievement and/or successful progression through the education system; • May include social/behavioral competencies • May include employment or earnings outcomes • For the Gifted Center, may include other outcomes (see slide 17).

16. Requirements for All Centers: Education Setting Education Settings: you must address a factor under the control of the U.S. education system. • Include formal education settings (such as schools) • May also include non-traditional settings (such as after-school, distance learning, and online programs) • Does not include informal contexts outside the control of an education agency Setting, sample, and outcome requirements vary by center topic. Read the RFA!

17. Gifted Center Requirements: Sample, Outcomes, Setting • Sample: Your research must focus on students in grades K-12. • Outcomes: Your research must include academic outcome measures. • You may also include measures of social-behavioral competencies and post high school outcomes, if these are relevant. • You may also include milestones and achievement metrics that are specific to gifted learners (such as grade acceleration and special honors, or alternate measures of giftedness). • Setting: • Your research must be conducted in K-12 schools or use data collected from K-12 schools. • You must plan to conduct research in at least two states or territories.

18. Requirements for All Centers: National Leadership and Dissemination National Leadership and Dissemination to engage with researchers, practitioners, and policymakers • Center website (to post information, resources, and reports) • Innovative uses of technology (such as webinars, podcasts) • Make final research data available for other researchers’ use • Post manuscripts for publication on ERIC In your application, • Describe audiences and activities • Show capacity for leadership and outreach Note that expectations and recommendations vary by topic.

19. Gifted Center Recommendations: National Leadership and Outreach Activities The Gifted Center has some unique recommendations. For example, in the leadership and outreach section, you should: • Describe how the Center’s work will build the capacity of LEAs and SEAs to address the problem of underrepresentation to ensure all gifted students’ access to effective gifted education. • Describe how you will involve other Javits-funded researchers, for example by coordinating communications, hosting meetings, and conducting joint conference presentations to share research and findings. Once again, please refer to the RFA for a full list of recom-mendations for an application to the Gifted R&D center topic.

20. Requirements for All Centers: Supplemental Activities • Supplemental activities • Meetings, smaller-scale studies • Work cooperatively with IES to select and design • No detailed plan needed – will be developed after Center begins • Show capacity for conducting supplemental activities • Set aside at least 5% of total budget

21. Requirements for All Centers: Award Limits Award Limits: You must stay within the maximum for your topic. At least 5% should be set aside for Supplemental activities.

22. Preparing the narrative section of your proposal

23. Center Proposal Narrative • Recommended to be no more than 35 pages • Five sections • Significance • Research Plan • National Leadership and Outreach Activities • Management and Institutional Resources • Personnel • (Optional) Appendices Requirements and recommendations vary by topic!

24. Center Proposal Narrative: Significance and Research Plan (1) Significance • Purpose/why important • Research questions/issues (2) Research Plan (Focused Program of Research) • The research plan you propose • The methods, measures, etc. that you will use

25. Center Proposal Narrative: Leadership and Outreach and Management and Resources (3) Leadership and Outreach Activities • The audiences you intend reach, how you will communicate with them • Website • The groups you intend to work with or get input from (4) Management and Institutional Resources • The organizational management • The resources available to the Center

26. Center Proposal Narrative: Personnel (5) Personnel • Describe the key personnel at your institution and, if applicable, at other (subaward) institutions. • Describe each person’s training, experience, and role. • Demonstrate that they will commit sufficient time to the project.

27. Center Structure and Research Settings • One or more research teams may be involved in the different proposed studies. • The proposed studies can be of any of the IES project types. • Across the studies, IES expects the successful applicant to conduct their research in multiple settings that systematically vary across different populations and learning contexts. • Such variation should improve our ability to identify what interventions work for whom and under what conditions.

28. Next steps

29. The RFA and the Submission Guide • Carefully read the full RFA! • See Part 1 of the FY 2020 RFAs for a summary of changes to the RFA from the previous year • Read the Application Submission Guide For FY 2020 • This is now a separate document and is no longer embedded in the RFA. You can find it here: https://ies.ed.gov/funding/pdf/submissionguide.pdf. • You may need to set up accounts ahead of time, so don’t wait until the last minute! 29

30. Important Dates 30

31. Submitting a Letter of Intent (LOI) • Submit online at https://iesreview.ed.gov • Your LOI should include the following information: • Descriptive title • R&D Center topic that you will address • Brief description of the proposed R&D Center • Name, institutional affiliation, address, telephone number and email address of the Principal Investigator and any Co-Principal Investigators • Name and institutional affiliation of any key collaborators and contractors • Duration of the proposed R&D Center (attend to the Duration maximum) • Estimated total budget request (attend to the Budget maximums for your R&D Center topic)

32. In Summary • Read the Request for Applications • IES Funding Opportunities • Look at abstracts of funded projects (search for R&D centers) • NCER Projects • View IES on-demand webinars • Funding Opportunity Webinars • Review Resources for Researchers

33. Working with Program Officers • Discuss your Center idea with a program officer • Email a description of your ideas and schedule a time for a call • Email short questions • Time permitting, we will review draft applications Gifted Education R&D Center Corinne Alfeld (Corinne.Alfeld@ed.gov) 33