WERA Pre-Conference Workshop: Learning to Design and Implement Education

Workshop Leads:

Barbara Schneider, Michigan State University

Katariina Salmela-Aro, University of Helsinki

Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin, OECD

Description:

Increasingly countries are interested in implementing reforms that enhance academic, social and emotional learning. The purpose of this workshop is to help researchers create intervention designs and evaluation strategies. Researchers will be given examples of logic models and evaluation designs and opportunities to create their own programs and receive feedback from researchers who have led innovative international interventions. The workshop co-directors, Katariina Salmela-Aro, Professor University of Helsinki; Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin, Senior Analyst OECD; and Barbara Schneider, Professor Michigan State University. All of these workshop leaders are currently directing international evaluation efforts. One of the key features of this workshop will be an emphasis on highlighting the challenges and benefits in conducting international rigorous evaluations of how to enhance, support, and sustain learning outcomes that are hard to measure, such as creativity, critical thinking, curiosity, and other social and emotional concepts fundamental to learning. The workshop will allow participants to discuss and learn about:

• different types of experimental and quasi-experimental designs, their strengths and limitations;
• how to adapt those designs to real-life constraints;
• theoretical models linking social and emotional learning and other types of learning;
• two specific projects currently in-progress at OECD and the US and Finland;
• how to create your own projects and receive critique

We are encouraging researchers and policy makers from different countries to come to this meeting. Teams are welcome to participate including WERA governing participants.