Ideas In Action Featured

By Jenna Somers After a hard day of work, a parent reading a bedtime story to their child might feel too tired and stressed to think of questions that could spark insightful conversations about the story with their child. But these conversations—which scholars call dialogic reading—are critical to literacy development. Read More

By Jenna Somers Key Takeaways Researchers uncovered new personality traits and developed a new personality hierarchy using novel data science methods in taxonomic graph analysis (TGA). TGA could lead to a more precise understanding of personality and classifications in psychopathology. The researchers’ TGA method builds personality hierarchies from the bottom… Read More

Amy Owen The Tennessee Education Research Alliance, a research-practice partnership between the Tennessee Department of Education and Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of Education and Human Development, is pleased to announce Dr. Amy Owen as its new executive director. Owen succeeds Dr. Laura Booker, who will transition into… Read More

Since 2020, educators, policymakers, and families have grappled with the long-term effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on student learning and well-being. While pandemic recovery efforts are ongoing, one of the most persistent challenges has been chronic absenteeism. Nashville PEER hopes to understand this issue at its roots with a new… Read More

By Jenna Somers A growing number of federal agencies require researchers to establish data management and sharing plans to receive federal funding. The National Institutes of Health’s policy took effect in 2023, requiring researchers to include these plans in their grant proposals and to share their data upon publication… Read More

A recent study out of Vietnam, published in Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, offers important insights into how culture effects adolescents’ aggressive responses to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). ACEs include child abuse and neglect, exposure to domestic violence, and other such damaging experiences. The study focused on the… Read More

By Jenna Somers Richard Welsh Suspended FuturesTransforming Racial Inequities in School Disciplineby Richard O. Welsh   Racial disparities in school discipline can arise based on how educators perceive and respond to student behaviors, according to research by Richard Welsh, associate professor of education and public policy at… Read More

By Jennifer Kiilerich Only a third of American students read proficiently, according to the 2024 National Assessment of Education Progress. Scores continue to lag behind those from 2019 and 2022, and there has been little overall improvement since the NAEP began tracking reading in 1992. Educators and policymakers have… Read More

by Jenna Somers Jessika Boles After consulting with the palliative care team, Jessika Boles, MEd’08, found herself speaking with a mother about honoring her daughter’s legacy. “One of the ways we can do that is through handprint art, since handprints and fingerprints are unique to each person. Would you… Read More

By Jennifer Kiilerich When top special education researchers, a cutting-edge dyslexia academy and research center, and influential school leaders converge at Vanderbilt University, big ideas are bound to emerge. That is exactly what happened at the Tennessee Association of Independent Schools Neurodivergence-Informed Schools conference, hosted by the Roberts Academy… Read More

As fewer people enter the education profession and high rates of principal turnover persist, school districts need strategic and systematic approaches to recruiting, hiring, and supporting effective school leaders. Principal pipelines may be the answer. Principal pipelines are a comprehensive and aligned system for identifying, developing, and supporting school leaders. Read More

The Prenatal-to-3 Policy Impact Center at Vanderbilt University Peabody College of education and human development has launched the Early Childhood Governance Landscape, a new tool that illustrates how states structure early childhood governance—and what those choices mean for coordination, funding, and access to services for young children… Read More

The IRIS Center at Vanderbilt, which provides free online resources about teaching and learning, helped about 1.5 million people from all 50 states, more than 1,000 public school districts and more than 1,500 U.S. colleges and universities. That’s an increase of 15 percent over 2022, reflecting the growing importance of online instructional resources in today’s educational landscape. And its reach is even broader than that—hospitals, health care systems and justice systems logged in to benefit from its effective, evidence-based resources. Read More

In two recent studies funded by the National Institutes of Health, moderate-severe TBI was associated with difficulties in communication, namely remembering spoken language and integrating information in gesture with speech. Both impairments can inhibit a person’s ability to understand and effectively communicate with others, but the research teams hope the studies’ findings could pave the way for improved therapies and assessments to help people with TBI communicate more easily in their daily lives. Read More

By Jennifer Kiilerich Meghan Burke, professor of special education at Peabody College Only about 20 percent of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities currently access formal support services. Meghan Burke, professor of special education at Vanderbilt Peabody College, has built a career around growing that number, helping… Read More

By Jennifer Kiilerich More than 60 percent of American students aged 12-18 are interested in a career in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, according to a 2023 Walton Family Foundation survey. On the road to a life in STEM, proficiency in high school math has been identified by researchers as… Read More

By Jenna Somers Many young children struggle in math due to difficulty in understanding place value and calculating with two-digit numbers. But would the burden of learning these foundational concepts ease if they were introduced to children through the fun of playing a board game? A multi-institutional research team, including… Read More