Events

Can Universities Serve the Public Good? Supporting Rigorous Research for Social Impact
A conversation with Dr. Adam Gamoran, President of the William T. Grant Foundation, moderated by Dr. Michael Feuer, Dean of the GW Graduate School of Education and Human Development. Welcome remarks will be given by Dr. Thomas LeBlanc, President of the George Washington University.

5:00-6:00pm Reception (Marvin Center, Room 309)
6:15-7:45pm Presentation with Dr. Gameron (Marvin Center, 3rd Floor Amphitheater)

In his remarks, Dr. Adam Gamoran will lay out a strategy for universities to serve the public good by incentivizing researchers to engage with local partnerships. He will also introduce the William T. Grant Foundation and its funding opportunities.

Meet the Author!

Author Debbie Cenziper will join us for a discussion of her book Love Wins: The Lovers and Lawyers who Fought the Landmark Case for Marriage Equality.

Open to GSEHD faculty, staff and students, book club discussions will led by various members of the GSEHD community.

Trust and Accountability to Build More Equal Education Systems - Reflections from a Study in South Africa

A conversation with Dr. Melanie Ehren, Professor of Educational Accountability and Improvement at University College London's (UCL) Institute of Education and Head of the UCL Research Centre for Educational Evaluation and Accountability.

Accountability and trust are key variables in the improvement of any education system and are often positioned as opposites or substitutes, saying that control destroys trust or that control is unnecessary when you trust someone. Others, however, argue that control can build trust when it locks people or organizations into a collaborative relationship, for example. Trust would also allow for more flexible monitoring, instead of using highly standardized and scripted protocols to measure school quality; such flexibility enables schools to take risks and innovate.

Dr. Melanie Ehren will share preliminary findings from a study in South Africa, presenting examples of how external control in a setting of distrust can undermine agency and improvement and has created large inequity in the system.

Exploring Issues when Generating Data for Simulation Studies in Education

Dr. William Dardick considers issues of generating data in simulation studies that occur in education. In education, real-world problems involve the need to generate data for multivariate and/or multilevel models: students are nested in classrooms with teachers, classrooms in schools, schools in districts and all with many outcomes we desire to study. A proposed method is highlighted based on path tracing logic by Dardick and Harring (2012; in preparation) which provides a solution for data generating parameters regardless of the number of dependent variables and independent variables in a specified model.