Program areas at Digital Promise / National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technology
Networks: Digital Promise's networks, including the league of innovative schools and the verizon innovative learning schools (vils), provide an opportunity for the most innovative educators and leaders to connect, convene and collaborate on shared goals. in 2019, the league of innovative schools launched numerous "challenge collaboratives" to tackle pressing problems in education including real world learning, data interoperability, and computational thinking pathways. Vils launched its sixth cohort adding 52 middle schools to the program. Since its inception in 2014, vils has served over 120,000 student and 9,100 educators in 153 schools, providing devices, data plans and professional development to all students and educators in those schools, transforming the learning environment and closing the Digital divide.
Powerful learning: powerful learning is a set of principles guiding educators to design learning experiences that engage the hearts and minds of learners. 2019 activities included the continued growth of the micro-credential initiative with 3,447 micro-credential submissions resulting in 2,158 of them being awarded. 520 unique micro-credentials were available on the platform in 2019. The adult learning initiative released a landscape report on the role of data in the adult learning ecosystem, and initiated subsequent Research on frontline worker advancement with funding provided by walmart. Also in 2019, the oer deeper learning for ngss project brought together three school districts to explore how the challenge based learning framework can be used to create science experiences that lead to deeper learning for students through the creation of oer units of instruction aligned to the next generation science standards.
Research in action: Research in action works to transform the relationship between education Research and practice. in 2019 we continued the us department of education funded united2read project. United2read aims to improve literacy skills and close the achievement gap. Digital Promise also expanded its Research map adding modules about social emotion learning and whole child supports.
Learning sciences Research: learning sciences Research focuses on the why, what, and how of learning, in and out of school. in 2019 Digital Promise also contributed to numerous nsf and us department of science funded Research projects aimed at increasing our understanding of the learning sciences.