Jewish Youth in a Digital Age (JYDA) Project

Adolescents are deeply engaged with digital environments and social media shapes their identity development and well-being. For Jewish adolescents, online spaces offer both community and experiences of discrimination, impacting youth sense of identity and mental health. This pilot study focuses on how Jewish youth interpret positive and negative online content related to their identity, how they decide whether to disclose their Jewishness, and the psychological effects of these experiences.

Making Teaching Matter for Civic and Intellectual Life (MTM) Project

Our goal for this project was to create a school-wide network that promotes conversations about character in teaching and learning among faculty at the UVA School of Education and Human Development (EHD). To do so, we created a professional learning community (PLC) with faculty interested in cultivating civic and intellectual capacities in their undergraduate classrooms and conducted focus groups with undergraduate students to identify the character attributes that matter most and how their university experiences support or hinder their character development.

Excellence in Character Education (ExCEL) Project

This study focuses on how students develop prosocial behaviors in EL Education school environments. Not only are students expected to develop mastery of knowledge and skills in EL Education schools, but there is also an equivalent expectation that students will develop character and engage in high quality work that helps create a better world. Read More

RULER Research Study

The RULER Research Study is a research study examining the efficacy of the RULER program in elementary school grades (K-6). The RULER program teaches emotional intelligence skills by providing instruction in Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing, and Regulating emotion. Read More

Compass Early-Stage Evaluation

Our UVA research team has partnered with Valor Collegiate Academies, a charter management organization (CMO) in Nashville, TN, and its R&D partner, Transcend, to provide early-stage evaluation support for Valor’s unique model of comprehensive human development, called Compass.  Both faculty and scholars engage in this model by completing Badge Work (a curriculum of activities designed to foster growth in the different disciplines of the Compass) and participating in the practice of Circle. Read More

Connect Science

Connect Science is a project-based learning program involving professional development, coaching and a series of 30 lessons that takes teachers and students through a process of establishing classroom norms, teaching students essential social skills, and creating opportunities for students to tackle challenging concepts in science in ways that match the Next Generation Science Standards. Read More

Alleghany Highlands - UVA Collaborative Project

Our research team partners with the Alleghany Highlands community in an education reform initiative supported by the Alleghany Foundation. Through an extensive data collection effort in 2016, our team used surveys and interviews to understand the educational goals and needs of students and families. Read More

Engaging Students in Environmental Service Project

The Engaging Students in Environmental Service Project is an effort to integrate service-learning activities into environmental science instruction in the elementary and middle school years. The work follows from growing efforts in the last decade to enhance children’s social and emotional skills in schools. Read More

Mathematics Learning Study

The Mathematics Learning Study was a one-year study of fifth grade students designed to examine how teachers’ practices contribute to students’ engagement in mathematics instruction and students’ subsequent mathematics achievement. Read More