Welcome to day three of the AERA Annual Meeting. Each morning, AERA14 Preview will provide tips on key sessions and events, as well as other Annual Meeting resources and highlights you won’t want to miss. Make sure to download the official AERA14 mobile app through your app store by searching "aera 2014 annual meeting" or following the instructions on the Annual Meeting Program Mobile App page. Join the conversation: Use the conference hashtag #AERA14, and follow AERA on Twitter at @AERA_EdResearch. Questions? Contact the AERA Meetings Team at annualmtg@aera.net.
Key Sessions
AERA Presidential Address: Barbara Schneider, AERA President; John A. Hannah Chair and Distinguished Professor in the College of Education and Department of Sociology, Michigan State University Aligned Ambitions: What’s Behind the College Mismatch Problem? 4:35 pm to 5:35 pm (Champagne Reception – 5:35 pm to 6:20 pm) Convention Center, Terrace Level – Terrace I Session hashtag: #AERAPres Session will also be live-streamed Every year over 150,000 low-income and minority on-time high school graduates choose to enroll in postsecondary institutions that are less selective than their grades, test scores, and aspirations predict. These choices have long-term consequences for the lives of the students, their future earnings, and the contributions they could make to our society. Why is this case? What actions should be taken to change this? The College Ambition Program is a whole-high school quasi-experimental intervention designed to assist students in fulfilling their ambitions. After four years in the field, working with over 3,000 students, results demonstrate that there are concrete strategies that change college plans and enrollment with the potential for scale-up at a national level.
AERA Distinguished Contributions to Research in Education Award (2013) Address: Alan Schoenfeld, Elizabeth and Edward Conner Chair, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley What Makes for Powerful Classrooms, and How Can We Support Teachers in Creating Them? 10:35 am to 12:05 pm Convention Center, 200 Level – 201C Session hashtag: #AERAEd Our sense of powerful classrooms is somewhat like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s sense of pornography: we haven’t defined them, but we think we know them when we see them. Except that we don’t – opinions about “good instruction” differ, although research clearly says certain things are important. Schoenfeld's R&D goal has been to do some ground clearing – to lay out a straightforward way of characterizing classrooms that produce students who are powerful thinkers, to test that characterization empirically, and then to fashion forms of professional development that supports teachers’ growth in the things that count. He’ll discuss progress along those lines.
The Institute of Education Sciences (IES): Promises and Challenges 10:35 am to 12:05 pm Convention Center, 100 Level, 108A John Q. Easton, IES Director IES has earned a reputation for high quality work, rigor, objectivity, and nonpartisanship. IES and its grantees are called upon to point to instances where its research makes a difference. How can it best convey the relevance and usefulness of its work? Easton will address how IES is promoting the importance of the work it funds, and how individual researchers, their institutions, and other partners can do the same. The Need for Evidence-Based Understanding of Immigration and Its Consequences 10:35 am to 12:05 pm Convention Center, 200 Level - 201A Session will also be live-streamed
Awards Ceremony Luncheon: 2014 Award Winners in Education Research 12:25 pm to 2:25 pm Convention Center, Terrace Level – Terrace I Session hashtag: #AERAAwards Registration for the Awards Luncheon is closed, but it will be live-streamed. The second annual AERA Awards Luncheon is dedicated to recognizing excellence in education research. AERA Council decided to introduce the luncheon at the 2013 Annual Meeting as a way to honor awardees and to visibly acknowledge AERA’s commitment to significant accomplishments related to education research. It is an opportunity to celebrate the field and the accomplishments of the AERA-wide awardees and those who receive special citations.
AERA Distinguished Public Service Award Lecture (2014): Ruby Takanishi, Senior Research Fellow, New America Foundation The Early Education Debates: Information Policy and Practice in Early Education Through Research 2:45 pm to 4:15 pm Convention Center, 200 Level – 201C Session hashtag: #AERAServe Research on children began in the 1920s in university-based institutes to generate usable knowledge for education and child rearing in the United States. Early education and child development research were connected at their origins, but over ensuing decades, in the pursuit of scientific legitimacy and specialization, the fields became increasingly separate. Starting with the War on Poverty in 1964 to the present, early education and both developmental and evaluation research reengaged in controversies about public funding for the education of young children and its effectiveness. These decades provide ample cases to examine how research informed policy and practice in early education, cautionary tales, and remaining challenges.
Annual Meeting Resources
Questions? Contact the AERA Meetings Team at annualmtg@aera.net.