Grant Awards

Tzu-Jung Lin, Associate Professor, Department of Educational Studies

More elementary schools nowadays provide students with laptops and Internet connectivity, but limited research on blended learning has been done at the elementary level. This project aims to iteratively develop and evaluate a seamless blended dialogic intervention where the attributes of both face-to-face and online discussions reinforce each other to promote elementary students’ interpersonal competencies and academic achievement. Project Details

Matthew Brock, Associate Professor

For most elementary students, recess is a favorite time of the school day that is full of rich opportunities to play and socialize with friends. For students with severe disabilities (i.e., students with intellectual disability, autism, and/or multiple disabilities who qualify for their state’s alternate assessment), recess often looks very different. These students are typically on the periphery, rarely interacting or playing with their peers. Recess represents a missed opportunity for building social connections and developing social competence. FLIP (Focusing on Learning, Interaction, and Play at) Recess was developed to address these challenges by training and coaching peers in practical strategies for engaging and responding to students with severe disabilities. FLIP Recess has demonstrated feasibility of implementation in elementary schools, as well as promise for improving social interaction and appropriate play with peers for students with severe disabilities, but the efficacy of the intervention has not yet been tested in a large-scale study. Project Details