Ideas Featured

by Jenna Somers Ellen Goldring Effective principals have been shown to improve teacher and student outcomes as well as the culture and climate of schools. Now a new study provides insights on how school districts can develop principal pipelines to ensure schools are staffed with effective leaders. Led… Read More

The Nashville Partnership for Educational Equity Research has received a three-year, $650,000 grant from the William T. Grant Foundation to study early postsecondary opportunity offerings, access, and success in Metro Nashville Public Schools and to design solutions for addressing disparities. EPSOs—high school academic offerings that expose students to advanced… Read More

By Jane Sevier Across the globe, educators hunger for resources to strengthen their teaching. Vanderbilt University’s IRIS Center, housed at Peabody College of education and human development, is meeting that need. From Africa and Asia to Europe and from North America to South, educators and independent learners in 229 countries… Read More

By Jenna Somers    Jason Grissom Jason Grissom, Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor of Public Policy and Education, is approaching the end of his one-year term as president of the Association for Education Finance and Policy. AEFP is an organization of researchers, policymakers, and practitioners in the field… Read More

Lauren Malachowski and Kathryn Humphreys When a parent needs to cook dinner or take a shower, often they will place their baby in a bouncy seat, swing, exersaucer, or similar seating device intended to protect the baby and grant a degree of independence to both the parent and infant. For… Read More

The Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth’s annual KIDS COUNT State of the Child report features information from the 2022 Prenatal-to-3 State Policy Roadmap created by the Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center at Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development. The State of the Child report… Read More

By Jenna Somers Christopher Candelaria News headlines often give the impression of teacher shortages as national and state level crises, but if policymakers want to ensure classrooms are adequately staffed, they need to examine and address labor market conditions more locally, all the way down to the school level. That’s… Read More

Duane Watson Duane Watson and Yolanda J. McDonald, two faculty members of Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development, recently published articles in Nature and Nature Water, respectively. McDonald’s article is in the inaugural issue of Nature Water, which was published in January. Watson, Frank W. Read More

By Jane Sevier A five-year, $6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs will continue funding of the IRIS Center at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of education and human development. The center, founded in 2001, bridges the research-to-practice gap through a free,… Read More

By Jenna Somers Brent Evans (Vanderbilt) On February 28, the Supreme Court of the United States will hear arguments in two cases challenging the legality of the Biden administration’s student loan debt relief program, which, if it prevailed, would cancel about $400 million in debt for about 16 million… Read More

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently appointed University Distinguished Professor Velma McBride Murry to the National Advisory Mental Health Council. The council advises the current U.S. secretary of health and human services and the director of the National Institute for Mental Health. Read More

Vanderbilt Peabody College Professor Mary Louise Hemmeter has received an $11.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education to expand the Pyramid Model for Promoting Social Emotional Competence in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classrooms in diverse districts across the country. Read More

Autumn Kujawa, assistant professor of psychology and human development, recently received a two-year, Brain and Behavior Research Foundation Young Investigator Grant of $70,000 for a novel study to identify biomarkers associated with suicidal behavior in adolescents. Read More

Armed with a two-year, $141,444 grant from the Foundation for Prader-Willi Research, Professor of Psychology and Human Development Elisabeth Dykens is developing the first psychometrically sound self-report survey of hyperphagia for people with Prader-Willi syndrome. Read More

Sarah Brown-Schmidt, professor of psychology and human development, recently received a three-year $382,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for her research project, “Perspective-taking in Conversation,” to understand the cognitive mechanisms that allow people to engage in everyday conversation. Read More

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine recently appointed Associate Professor of Psychology and Human Development Lisa Fazio as a member of the Committee on Understanding and Addressing Misinformation about Science. Read More

The Institute of Education Sciences recently awarded a five-year, $4 million grant to a research team based at Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development and the University of Texas at Austin to examine the efficacy of Sound Partners, a reading intervention, delivered through cross-age peer tutoring. Read More

Newly published research from Peabody College of education and human development and the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation highlights the perspectives of the paralysis community on COVID-19 vaccine boosters. Among the key findings is evidence that individuals living with paralysis have specific safety concerns that should be addressed… Read More

By Andy Flick Associate Professor of Psychology and Human Development Laura Novick, and graduate student Joanna (Jingyi) Liu, published a paper highlighting the importance of intentionally and thoughtfully designed figures to explain evolutionary relationships and overcome preconceived misconceptions. The work was inspired, in part, by a common misconception… Read More

The Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center at Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development recently released its third annual Prenatal-to-3 State Policy Roadmap at the Research to Policy Summit. This guide informs state policy leaders and advocates about the most effective policies and strategies for supporting… Read More