NC State College of Education Awarded $13.2M in Research Funding January-March 2020

Faculty and researchers at the NC State College of Education, including the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation, were awarded $13,260,745 to support 10 projects from Jan. 24 through March 24, 2020.

Artificial Intelligence Academy: North Carolina Apprenticeships for Innovation

This $5,999,799 grant from the U.S. Department of Labor will support 5,000 workers with training, college coursework and certification to work in the emerging field of artificial intelligence through public-private apprenticeships. The program targets current information technology employees in North Carolina and nationwide who are underemployed or seeking new opportunities, as well as veterans and underrepresented populations. Carla Johnson, Ph.D., professor of science education, is the project’s principal investigator. James Robinson III, senior systems architect at the Friday Institute, is the co-principal investigator.

NC State University’s Leadership Academies

This $3,749,887 grant from the N.C. Principal Fellows Commission will allow the College of Education’s principal preparation program to prepare two new cohorts of school leaders, who will commit to working in high-need school districts for four years following graduation from the Master of School Administration program. Bonnie Fusarelli, Ph.D., professor of educational leadership and policy development and director of NC State’s Leadership Academies, is the project’s principal investigator. Lance Fusarelli, Ph.D., professor of educational leadership and policy development, and Lesley Wirt, Ed.D., associate director of principal preparation, will serve as co-principal investigators.

NC State University’s N.C. Principal Fellows Program Grants Renewal Application

This $2,369,767 grant from the N.C. Principal Fellows Commission will allow the College of Education to prepare 32 additional aspiring school leaders through its innovative Master of School Administration program. Bonnie Fusarelli, Ph.D., professor of educational leadership and policy development and director of NC State’s Leadership Academies, is the project’s principal investigator. Lance Fusarelli, Ph.D., professor of educational leadership and policy development, and Lesley Wirt, Ed.D., associate director of principal preparation, will serve as co-principal investigators.

Professional Online Learning Module (PLOM) Project

This $934,215 grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences will facilitate the development and study of two new professional online learning modules for educators that will be hosted on the Friday Institute’s online platform, The PLACE (Professional Learning and Collaborative Environment). Carla Johnson, Ph.D., professor of science education, is the project’s principal investigator. Mark Samberg, Ed.D, director of technology programs for the Friday Institute, Hiller Spires, Ph.D., executive director of the Friday Institute and associate dean at the College of Education, Jessica Hunt, Ph.D., associate professor of mathematics education and special education, and Janet Walton, Ph.D., senior research scholar at the Friday Institute, are co-principal investigators.

N.C. ASSISTments Expansion

This $99,966 project, funded by WestEd, will evaluate the efficacy of ASSISTments, an online tutoring system that provides coached problem solving support for students as well as cognitive diagnostic reports to teachers to support students’ mathematics homework completion. Allison Black-Maier, Ph.D.,a research associate at the Friday Institute, is the project’s principal investigator.

The Role of Education in Climate Change Adaptation

This $49,850 grant from the Spencer Foundation will fund an interdisciplinary conference of junior and senior scholars from across a variety of disciplines who will develop scholarly capacity, coordination and lines of inquiry to advance climate change education research. K.C. Busch, Ph.D., assistant professor of STEM education, is the project’s principal investigator.

Department of Information Technology BIO Farm Broadband

Through a $25,000 grant from the North Carolina Department of Information Technology, the Friday Institute will provide technical assistance to BIO to develop a speed test application that can be integrated with a survey that will be distributed to farmers in partnership with the North Carolina Farm Bureau. Raymond Zeisz, director of the Friday Institute’s Technology Infrastructure Lab, is the project’s principal investigator.

CAREER: Leveraging the Multifunctional Redox Properties of Pyrogenic Materials to Enable Biological Transformation of Aqueous Organic Contaminants

This $18,965 grant from the National Science Foundation will facilitate the investigation of a new class of conductive, biocompatible materials that can quickly and selectively mediate the degradation of mixtures of organic contaminants. Douglas Call, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, is the project’s principal investigator. Gail Jones, Ph.D., Alumni Distinguished Graduate Professor of science education, will serve as senior personnel on the project.

Strengthening Community Networks for Environmental Learning and Resilience Through Children

This project, funded by $10,308 from the North Carolina State University Sea Grant, aims to define and develop measurements of community-level environmental literacy and train 30 middle and high school teachers in a citizen-science and school-based program designed to build community-level environmental literacy through intergenerational learning. Kathryn Stevenson, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the College of Natural Resources, is the project’s principal investigator. Sarah Carrier, Ph.D., associate professor of science education, K.C. Busch, Ph.D., assistant professor of STEM education, and Nils Peterson, Ph.D., a professor in the College of Natural Resources, are co-principal investigators on the project.

Building a Culture of and Capacity for EE Evaluation: 2.0 Addendum

This $2,988 grant, sponsored by the Pisces Foundation, will allow NC State to contribute to the ongoing effort to study collective evaluation efforts across the field of environmental education by characterizing the landscape of collective evaluation of environmental education. Kathryn Stevenson, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the College of Natural Resources, is the project’s principal investigator. K.C. Busch, Ph.D., assistant professor of STEM education, is the co-principal investigator.