Welcome to Our Learning Platform
Learning Ways is a group of researchers, school leaders, and technologists who have been working together to bring research to practice in public schools. If you're here, you're likely a member of one of our ongoing collaborations, and we thank you for being part of our efforts to close the gap between research and practice through collaboration and technology.
Current Projects: Adolescent Literacy
Our current projects are focused on adolescent literacy, as we believe it is a critical area of importance. Our projects include:
- Disciplinary Literacy: Our efforts to bring disciplinary literacy to scale in middle and high schools are led by Shanon Bosley and Erin Kourafas at Reading Ways, a company that was created as a proof of concept of the Learning Ways approach. The research lead is Joshua Lawrence, and the advisory team includes Dianna Townsend, Jacy Ippoloto, and Sarah Lupo.
- Ohio Adolescent Literacy Network: Our efforts to build state-wide networks to support the work of state and regional support specialists in Ohio is lead by Rachel Daniels, with important advisors including Joshua Lawrence, Dan Reynolds, and Jade Wexler. For more information, see www.oaln.org.
- Nevada State-Wide Networks: Sarah Negrete, Darl Kiernan, and Dianna Townsend are leading our efforts to build state-wide networks in Nevada.
New Project: English Language Development
We are excited to announce a new project in support of English language development for multi-lingual learners. Based on the research of Amy Crosson and Margaret McKeown, and with funding from an IES randomized trial, this project leverages Latin cognates to help all learners, but especially those with native knowledge of Latin-based languages, master English.
The Learning Ways Platform
The Learning Ways platform has been used to scale research-based educational practices in hundreds of schools and foster deep, multi-year collaboration with 17 middle and high schools who have participated in several initiatives. By breaking down barriers in the research to practice pipeline, strengthening relationships across stakeholder groups, and fostering collaborative learning, we bring a unique set of tools to the challenges facing public education today.
Get Involved
- School Leaders: Contact Reading Ways and download their getting started guide. Set up a time to talk to the team directly.
- Teachers and Site Leaders: Thank you for sharing your experiences implementing research-based practices. Please continue to share your work within your community and rate and share your resource adaptations in the discussion section of each resource.
- Researchers: We have anonymized data on implementation and data sharing agreements with many partners across projects. Please contact Joshua Lawrence if you would like join the research team. Typically this will require support form a faculty member in your institution. Please also reach out if you have an intervention that has a strong research base that you would like to scale. Our model ensure ongoing data sharing and principled reinvestment of any profits back into the research community to ensure that we continue to support innovation and development.