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Consistently one of the top-ranked programs in the NCAA, the UCLA Football machine has exported hundreds of professional players over the years, with nearly 40 former Bruins currently active on NFL rosters. Another handful tote clipboards or sport headsets on NFL coaching staffs. 

What you may not realize, however, is that nearly a dozen of those alums hold Transformative Coaching and Leadership (TCL) Masters degrees from UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. Taught by legendary former Bruin coaches and renowned UCLA instructors, the program emphasizes a holistic understanding of persons, an ethic of social justice and the development of one’s own coaching and leadership philosophy. 

This fall alone, nearly a dozen graduates of that TCL program are suiting up for NFL organizations, representing Bruin Nation coast-to-coast, from Seattle to New England. 

Selected by the Patriots in the fifth round of this April’s NFL Draft, Northern California native Atonio Mafi is back east as one of fourteen offensive lineman playing for eight-time Super Bowl Champion coach Bill Belichick. In Los Angeles, there’s Chargers defensive tackle Otito Ogbonnia and Rams safety Quentin Lake. 

Meanwhile in San Francisco, 2022 UCLA alum Qwuantrezz Knight recently inked a new contract with the 49ers. The 6-foot cornerback and former team captain at UCLA is kicking off his second year with the Gold Rush, following a season of work as a reserve defensive back.

“I was able to learn a lot, despite not playing my first year,” Knight says. “(Just) watching how the league operates on the business side and how big-name players move throughout the NFL – I was able to sit back and take in all of that.”

A fan favorite at the Rose Bowl, Knight has been turning heads at San Francisco’s training camp practices. Known for his on-field enthusiasm, the former East Gadsden High (Gretna, Fla.) standout’s leadership skills have been on display in the Bay Area since he arrived. 

This past winter, he was one of several 49ers players that brought joy to the families of incarcerated men at San Quentin State Prison (California’s largest and oldest correctional institution) by providing holiday gifts from the wishlists of their children, nieces and nephews. 

Knight didn’t think twice about providing a helping hand when the opportunity presented itself.

“Nothing’s changed,” he says. “I’m still the Q Knight that Bruin nation knows.”

Studying John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success as part of his coursework at UCLA, Knight says the Wizard of Westwood’s framework of successful behaviors continues to guide his actions as a professional.

“Wooden’s Pyramid… all that goes beyond sports,” Knight explains. “Shout out to the Bruin Nation. Fours up for life. The aspects of leadership that we talked about every day (at UCLA) can be applied to anything, even business. 

“Even though I’m a young guy, there are still players that look to me as a leader and I’m always talking to the team and giving guys encouraging words.”

San Francisco 49ers cornerback Qwuantrezz Knight surprised the families of incarcerated men in 2022 as he delivered Christmas gifts to the children of San Quentin State Prison inmates. Ben Warden/49ers.

Knight’s optimism and guiding presence were recognized by San Francisco’s coaching staff this past spring as he was named Practice Squad Player of the Year. During his playing days at UCLA, Knight also joined several of his graduate school classmates in the TCL program as they mentored local student athletes at Crenshaw High in South Central Los Angeles. 

Leading that 10-week mentorship program was one of Knight’s UCLA School of Education and Information Studies professors, Dr. Julia Pelikhova. The TCL program advisor, who has worked as a counselor in Los Angeles public schools for over a decade, says Knight and his classmates' impact on the students was considerable. 

Each of her grad students guided a pair of Crenshaw pupils. 

“(They) led the young players in huddles, made sure to teach them teamwork, and inspired confidence in their ability to overcome barriers,” says Pelikhova, adding that most of her program alumni have remained in contact with those Crenshaw students to this day.

“Everyone can tell that football, for Qwuantrezz, is a way to inspire others,” Pelikohova recalls. “Q Knight is an unforgettable young man and he often talked about being a role model for inner city youth.

“His ‘hype’ energy was felt in the classroom among peers during group discussions,” she added. “And he always had something insightful to add. But, most importantly, it always came from the heart.”

Small wins, Knight says, are the 49ers main focus as they gear up for a season-opening showdown in Pennsylvania against another storied NFL franchise, the Pittsburgh Steelers, on Sept. 10.

“Things aren’t going to happen overnight,” he acknowledges. “But you stay the course and get better each and every day. And I brought that same attitude into (this) offseason. 

“And hopefully, at the end of the day, after those small wins, it’ll be enough to be not just a 49er, but a player on any NFL staff.”

Learn more about UCLA’s Transformative Coaching and Leadership Master of Education program.

UCLA School of Education and Information Studies alumnus Quentin Lake (‘22) is gearing up for his second season with the Los Angeles Rams. Los Angeles Rams/Courtesy photo

Flip on an NFL game any given Sunday and you’re more than likely to spot at least one UCLA alum somewhere on the gridiron. 

UCLA Transformative Coaching and Leadership Alums Making Waves in the NFL

Diane Mizrachi’s journey as a librarian and researcher has taken her across the globe and more recently, across world history. Named the 2023 Alumna of the Year (’11, Ph.D., Information Studies) by the UCLA Library and Information Studies Alumni Association (LISAA), she looks back on her career in the UCLA Library, where she currently serves as Librarian for Jewish and Israel Studies and Social Sciences, and as a researcher of library anxiety among college students, with questions that she developed while living and working in Israel, as a reference and instruction librarian at Beit Berl College and a MLIS student at Bar-Ilan University. 

Mizrachi’s research also led her to groundbreaking work in helping libraries and institutions repatriate books that were looted by the Nazi regime in World War II, an issue not yet widely addressed by academic libraries in North America. She is currently working with her colleagues to establish a model for returning books to their rightful owners or countries of origin whenever possible. 

A Southern California native, Mizrachi graduated with her undergraduate degree in history. While living in Israel in the 1980s and 1990s, she began a graduate certificate program in library science at Bar-Ilan University and completed her required internship in the library at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv.  In 1994, Mizrachi began her librarian career at Beit Berl College, while the library was in the process of automating their system from the card catalog to the computerized ALEPH program. This gave her a chance to observe variances among students’ adaptabilities and attitudes toward this major change. 

While working full-time and with two children at home, Mizrachi returned to Bar-Ilan to complete her MLIS degree. Her thesis investigated library anxiety among Israeli college students, and was the first study of library anxiety in Israel and the first study investigating the relationship between library anxiety and computer attitudes.

Mizrachi and her family moved back to Los Angeles and she began working as a reference and instruction librarian at UCLA’s Powell Library in 2002. Her desire to continue her research of students’ library and information behaviors and to investigate phenomena that could be applied in the profession compelled her to enter the doctoral program in the UCLA Department of Information Studies in 2005. With the guidance of Professor Emerita Marcia Bates, Mizrachi conducted an ethnographic study of UCLA undergraduates’ academic information ecologies. One finding in particular surprised Mizrachi - 30 of the 41 students stated that given the choice, they would prefer to read academic texts in print rather than electronic format, despite being “digital natives.” Many of the students felt they learned and retained material better when experiencing the tactile properties of printed textbooks. Based on her preliminary dissertation work, Mizrachi was awarded the Doctoral Travel Award in 2009 by the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T).

When Mizrachi transferred to her current position at the Charles E. Young Research Library (YRL), she wondered if these attitudes were still true. In 2014, she created an online survey for UCLA undergraduates and 390 responses supported her earlier findings; approximately 70% reported preferring print format for their academic readings because again, the students felt they learned the material and retained it better. With Serap Kurbanoglu of Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey; Joumana Boustany of the University of Paris; and Alicia Salaz, a scholar from Qatar currently the University Librarian at the University of Oregon, Mizrachi launched the Academic Reading Format International Study, the largest study performed on this topic to date. Between 2015 and 2018, the team collected data from more than 21,000 students at 38 institutions in 33 countries. 

Mizrachi and Salaz also examined UCLA students’ format attitudes in 2021, in the midst of the COVID pandemic and its remote learning environment. Again, most respondents preferred print, although many were simply suffering from screen fatigue. In addition, Mizrachi and Salaz created the Reading Event Analysis Model (REAM), an instrument to help practitioners predict when a reader will prefer a text in print or prefer reading an electronic source. This model was published in the Journal of Documentation in 2021.

Mizrachi has published nearly 80 academic articles, papers, book chapters, and book reviews, and has been an editor of publications for the European Conference on Information Literacy (ECIL) since its inception in 2013. Two of her articles on the repatriation of Nazi-looted books received the Literati Outstanding Paper Award from Emerald Press and were published respectively in the journals Judaica Librarianship and C&RL (College & Research Libraries).

Mizrachi has also presented her research at the ECIL, the annual conference of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL), and as an invited speaker to librarians in Qatar among other venues. Her professional activities include serving as chair of the UCLA chapter of the Librarians Association of the University of California (LAUC-LA) from 2009 to 2010. She was president of LAUC in 2015-2016, and remains active on various committees within the organization.

This summer, Mizrachi began a pioneering study investigating whether actors prefer to learn their parts through printed or digital scripts in order to bring their roles to life. 

Diane Mizrachi, (’11, Ph.D., Information Studies) has been honored as the 2023 Alumna of the Year by the UCLA Library and Information Studies Alumni Association. Courtesy of UCLA Library/Elena Zhukova

What led you to pursuing a career in librarianship?

I always loved ballet and I thought I'd like to go professional, and my parents [said], “We don’t know about that.” So, when we found out that the University of Utah offered a BFA in ballet as well as a masters and a Ph.D., that was the great compromise. But after a couple of years, I burned out [and] switched my major to general history. I emphasized Middle Eastern history because I had developed an interest in Israel and the Middle East. I met my husband on a trip to Israel and after we were married, I finished my degree at Utah, and then we moved back to Israel. 

I always loved libraries and had in the back of my mind that I would really enjoy being a librarian. Somebody told me about the [library] program at Bar-Ilan University. At first, they only offered a graduate certificate, which was enough to  get employment as a professional librarian. When they were finally recognized by the Ministry of Education for the full master’s degree, I continued working full-time as a librarian and did the supplementary work [for] the master's degree as well. That’s when I caught the  research bug, 

It’s really satisfying to do research that's never been done before. You’re always working on - you know the cliché – on the shoulders of giants, or the shoulders of other scholars. But to take that work and move it forward in a new direction is for me, thrilling and extremely rewarding, and that's what drives me. 

Tell us about your pioneering study of library anxiety. 

It can be compared to situational anxiety - getting into a situation that that makes a person anxious. It could be based in just not knowing what to do when they come into a library. Students think, “I'm a UCLA student, I should know how to use the library,” but they don't know what to do or how to get started, and they’re embarrassed by their lack of knowledge or to even ask questions. They’ll go to Google, not realizing that the library could offer better resources [with] professional level assistance. 

Most students have had library anxiety at some point. Whenever I speak to a class, I mention library anxiety, the main symptoms, and some causes, and I always see people nodding. One time, I spoke about library anxiety to a class of undergraduates. Afterwards, a young woman came up to me and said, “I recognize my situation because going into a library makes me anxious, and now I know that this is not uncommon.”

This student was a silver medalist on the U.S. Olympic [gymnastics] team in 2008 and a NCAA champion for [UCLA’s] team. For her to get up in front of the world and do death-defying flippy things – that was okay, but to go into a library made her anxious. This was an important lesson for me, in how fear and anxiety are very much personal constructs - you can't generalize about anybody or any situation. I always tell professors, don't assume that your students know how to find good information. Have somebody - myself or one of my colleagues - come in and talk to the class.

In this post-COVID learning era, how have you seen the use of the library changing?

If you come into YRL [now], it's packed with people. The students are using the building. I did a study of UCLA students with my research partner, [sending] out a survey in spring of 2021. I thought, now that their readings are all online, maybe they find the convenience of electronic [texts] outweighing print. We got results that approximately 70% of the student body preferred print for academic readings. About 230 students – especially undergraduates - showed they really did miss the tactile aspects of books. In 2024 or 2025, I hope to do a post-COVID follow-up study to mark whether there has been a shift in attitudes and behaviors. 

What we found in our study is that for short texts, the students were fine with online. When texts were longer [or] jargon-heavy, most preferred textbooks in print. In the library, we tend to buy the [digital texts] because textbooks are extremely expensive, and often it's just a chapter or part of the book that the student needs. We have hypothesized that [with] material that the students have not been exposed to, they need to hold a physical book to absorb [learn the] new information best.

What got you interested in the history of Nazi-looted books and finding ways to return them to their rightful owners or places of origin? 

In 2021, I got an email from a curator at the Jewish Museum in Prague. Before the war, there was a community library in Prague that included secular as well as holy Jewish books. They still have a catalog of material up until 1939. The library is now under the auspices of the Jewish Museum, and they are trying to rebuild that pre-war collection. Ivan Kohout, the curator, has been going through online catalogs and auction catalogs and originally found three books in the UCLA library collection that had the ownership stamps of the Prague Community Library and the catalog number that matched the 1939 catalog, using an online database called HahtiTrust. He gently inquired if we would please return these to the institution. 

It turned out that University Librarian Virginia Steel had been approached by a community library in Munich a couple of years before this, with the same claim of a book we had in our collection. She didn't find any guidelines for libraries on how to proceed, and so, in consultation with her, [UCLA] administration, and people in various library departments , we devised a procedure and repatriated the item. 

If repatriation and provenance issues are happening at UCLA, I'm sure they are happening in other academic libraries as well, but nobody's talking about it. We've got to have dialogue and guidelines on what to do so others in similar situations can have something to follow.

People are aware of the massive book burnings that the Nazis would hold when they came to power in the 1930s. But the Nazis also came up with a parallel strategy to found institutions for the study of “the Jewish question.” They would bring in their scholars to study Jewish texts from the Nazi perspective, to prove scientifically the superiority of the Aryan race and to justify their campaign to demonize Judaism and annihilate the Jewish race. As the German army went across Europe, there were a few associations that were part of the S.S. [that would] go to private, public, and community libraries, and loot the books. Whatever wasn't destroyed on-site was packed up and sent to various sorting centers across Europe, and prisoner librarians were forced to go through these crates and to sort them. If [the books] had commercial value, the regime could sell it to collectors, or if they were of value for one of these institutions, they would be sent to the to the library there.

Fortunately, these institutions were never actualized, but at the end of the war, you had literally millions of books in sorting centers all over Europe. They found crates in monasteries, in abandoned buildings and train stations, and in caverns. With all the other post-war chaos, you had this issue of what to do with these stolen articles. Artwork and other [stolen] properties have garnered headlines for decades, but books [are] not unique items like a piece of art, so it’s difficult to find to whom they belong.  

The U.S. Army and the Western allies set up centers [with] a policy of returning books to the owners. The largest center was called the Offenbach Archival Depot. If they couldn't find the owners, whether it was an institution or an individual, they would officially send them back to the country of origin. This was very controversial and various Jewish groups were against this blanket policy. Let’s say that a book was part of a library from a synagogue in Poland that was destroyed, and all the people affiliated with that synagogue perished. And, maybe some people in that community where the synagogue existed were part of the the oppressors. Do you send [the books] back to a vacuum?

After a couple of years at Offenbach, The Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, Inc. organization took over the work of repatriation and distribution. Most of the books that were ownerless or not able to be returned were distributed to Jewish institutions, libraries, and organizations in Israel, the U.S., Canada and Australia. The idea was to get them out of Europe.  

A lot of book dealers, booksellers and private individuals were scouring through these remains for commercial interest or for their own collections. We believe UCLA purchased these books during the 1960s from book dealers in Israel and elsewhere. Now that we know they were looted from individuals and institutions, we believe we have the moral obligation to return them, when it is viable.  

Last May, the UCLA Library sponsored a four-part webinar on Nazi-looted books, as well as related issues. Before the webinar, as part of our campaign to publicize what's going on, we [invited] the Czech Council General to UCLA and symbolically handed him the six volumes we had found that belong to the Jewish Museum in Prague, positioning UCLA as a leader in this. We can put some moral pressure on institutions [to realize], “We may have purchased these books in good faith, but that doesn’t rectify the original crime.” 

I recently met with a librarian in Jerusalem, and we hope to get started on a project that I'm very excited about, to recreate the library of an institution that was destroyed. We want to reconstruct that historical collection digitally. At UCLA, we have at least three or four books. We will scan them if they're not already scanned and put them on HathiTrust or some other database. We’ll make a record with a link to the digital item and [with] all the other libraries and institutions that also have holdings from the same collection, we can create a unified catalog. Scholars would be able to find the books digitally from anywhere in the world or go to UCLA and use them. This is a fantastic model for when you can't repatriate [an item] and no one still has a legal claim to it. 

I am also on a task force under the Association of Jewish Libraries which is examining the issue of Nazi-looted books in academic libraries. At our AJL conference in June, we realized that a handful of institutions are currently working on related projects, and we recognized the need to share and support each other. Some of our goals include creating an ownership stamp database, and a curriculum for provenance research training.

Congratulations on being selected as Alumna of the Year by the UCLA Library and Information. Studies Alumni Association! To whom would you like to give shout-outs? 

The award was a complete surprise. Sue Kim Chung is the president of (LISAA), we did our doctoral studies together. When she contacted me [about the award], it was so gratifying. Sometimes you do your work and think, who cares? Am I making any difference? To be recognized is very validating. So first of all, I want to say thank you to the Library and Information Studies Alumni Association for seeing this.

And then, of course, I thank my professors. My doctoral advisor was Professor Emerita Marcia Bates. Other members of my committee were Professor Jonathan Furner and the late Mary Niles Maack. I’d also like to give a shout-out to my professor from Israel, Snunith Shoham, who was my master’s advisor. It was under her that I did the study on library anxiety and that I caught the the research bug and [realized] that I enjoy doing this.

I’d like to thank my cohorts, the students, and especially my family. I gave my husband a special shout-out. He actually enjoys grocery shopping and cooking and he's pretty good at clean-up. He's always encouraged me with my work but doing that as well just makes it so much easier, one less thing to worry about. 

What inspired your new study on what format actors prefer in learning scripts? 

I have a friend, Gian Franco, who went through the the UCLA School of Film and Television. He used to hang out at Powell Library and he's a professional actor, based primarily in Europe.

He was in L.A. and stopped by for a visit, and I was telling him about my work with the students. To make a point, I said, “When you get a script, how do you prefer to read your script, to learn it for your role – in print or online? And he said, “Oh, definitely, in print, I always print it out.” 

He was giving me the same kinds of reasons, the tactile reasons [as] the students… that made me think [about] the kind of reading that actors do. It's not academic, but they do have to internalize the reading and internalize their role in order to bring that character alive. I created a very short survey to be distributed. My friend said he could distribute it among his networks, and he also gave me feedback on the survey. It’s a whole new way of looking at reading. It could also be applied to public speakers and storytellers in libraries.

We’ve received approval from the UCLA Internal Institutional Review Board distribute the survey in Hollywood, but we decided to postpone the distribution until the Hollywood strikes are concluded because we figure people are more a likely to answer a survey when they're less concerned about their livelihood and losing their mortgages. I understand their reasons for striking, and I'm with them. 

UCLA Librarian for Jewish and Israel Studies and Social Sciences involved in pioneering work on repatriating Nazi-looted books to their countries of origin.

Diane Mizrachi Honored as 2023 LISAA Alumna of the Year

The UCLA Department of Information Studies has appointed Nicole Barry (McDaid) as an assistant professor of environmental justice education, effective July 1, 2023. Barry’s research focuses on STEAM teaching and learning, particularly within Indigenous contexts, with an emphasis on partnerships across schools, families, and communities. Recent publications include “Then the Nettle People won’t be lonely: Recognizing plant personhood in an Indigenous STEAM summer program,” for the journal, Cognition and Instruction; “Indigenous Water Pedagogies: Cultivating Relations Through the Reading of Water,” for the Occasional Paper Series; and a chapter co-authored with UCLA Associate Professor of Education Ananda Marin, “Enacting Relationships of Kinship and Care in Educational and Research Settings,” for the book, “Critical Youth Research in Education: Methodologies of Praxis and Care.” The book is co-edited by UCLA Professor of Education Teresa McCarty, and was published in 2020 by Routledge. 

Professor Barry has been an invited presenter at several conferences on environmental justice issues in teaching and learning. At the 2022 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), she participated in a Presidential Session titled, “Community within: Activism and community-based research as a way of life,” and in a paper symposium with her work on, “Beginning with our original teachings: Launching activities with Indigenous Axio-Onto-Epistemologies to create conditions for thriving.” Professor Barry also gave a workshop, “Centering Human and More-Than-Human Interactions Across Wildly Different Educational Contexts,” for a conference of the North American Association of Environmental Education in 2021. 

Barry's co-authored papers, “Living stories in teaching and learning for remaking nature-culture relations,” and “The Power of Storytelling and Storylistening for Human Learning and Becoming,” were chosen for the 2020 International Conference of the Learning Sciences. Her co-authored article, “Creating science learning environments in which Indigenous students can thrive,“ is featured on the National Science Teaching Association Blog. Professor Barry also contributed the chapter, “Indigenous Family Engagement: Authentic partnerships for transformative learning,"  to the book, “Research on Family School Partnerships: Ethnocultural Diversity and the Home-to-School Link,” published by Springer in 2019. Her new publications in press or preparation are the co-authored chapter, “The Future is Black and Indigenous!” for the book, “Futures of Indigenous Education,” to be published by The New Press; and a co-authored article, “Indigenous science education and STEM-related education,” which will appear in Oxford Bibliographies.

Professor Barry has been recognized for her work with a number of prestigious honors, including the Spencer/National Academy of Education Dissertation Fellowship, the Gates Millennium Scholarship/Fellowship, the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research Fellowship, and the Sibyl N. Heide Fellowship from Northwestern University.

Barry’s national and international leadership experience includes her service as a reviewer for the journal, Mind, Culture, and Activity; a graduate student representative for the AERA Indigenous Peoples of the Americas Special Interest Group; and organizer of the 2020 Learning Sciences Graduate Student Conference. She is currently a member of the Political and Ethical Perspectives on Learning Virtual Lab; an advisory board member for the M.S. in Education program at Northwestern University; and an advisory board member for the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research (CNAIR). Professor Barry is a member of AERA, the International Society of the Learning Sciences, and the American Psychological Association.

Most recently, Barry worked on Dr. Megan Bang’s collaborative research project, “Intergenerational Learning, Deliberation, and Decision Making for Changing Lands and Waters,” funded by an “Advancing Informal STEM Learning” grant from the National Science Foundation. Barry also recently served as an Indigenous STEAM Summer Program Teacher, supported by another NSF AISL grant to explore the impact of culture and experience on reasoning about complex socio-ecological phenomena among students from diverse backgrounds.

Barry’s teaching experience also includes assisting with courses from “Foundations of the Learning Sciences” to “Moral Development: Hip hop culture to the Amish way,” at Northwestern University. She has also taught high school English classes for Seattle Public Schools and the Marysville Charter Academy for the Arts in Marysville, California. 

Professor Barry achieved her Ph.D. in learning sciences at Northwestern University. Her dissertation was titled, “Understanding and cultivating close nature-human relations: Indigenous Knowledge Systems and education toward sustainable and just environmental futures.” Barry earned her M.A. in teaching at Pacific University, and her bachelor’s degree in sociology at Northeastern University, with which she graduated summa cum laude.

Assistant professor of environmental justice education brings expertise in collaborative teaching and learning in Indigenous communities.

Nicole Barry Joins the UCLA Department of Education

In the coming months, professional organizations in the educational measurement community will be working to develop the next edition of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, the professional benchmarks and code that guide the development and evaluation of testing practice. One key issue to be considered is fairness in testing and assessment.

A recent special issue of the research journal Educational Assessment, “Fairness in Educational Assessment and the Next Edition of the Standards," co-edited by UCLA’s Joan Herman,  Alison Bailey, and Jose Felipe Martinez, seeks to encourage reflection and discussion around the different assumptions and conceptualizations of fairness in assessment and their implications for the next edition of the Standards. The publication aims to address persistent concerns over issues of racial injustice and educational equity. 

“In the wake of the pandemic and amid racial and social tensions, there is a public questioning of standardized assessment, what it is and how fairly are we assessing students.  The three of us put our heads together and said, "This would be a perfect opportunity to have a special issue around the question of fairness and assessment,” says UCLA professor Alison Bailey. 

“This special issue takes that core question about how we are going to update and infuse the notion of fairness with everything that's going on. We are hoping to try to get out in front of that conversation, to plant some ideas, raise some concerns and challenges, and make sure they are at the forefront of people's minds as the new edition of the Standards gets put together,” Bailey adds. 

The special issue includes articles by Jennifer Randall, Professor of Psychometrics and Test Development at the University of Michigan, Randy E. Bennett, the Norman O. Frederiksen Chair in Assessment Innovation at the Educational Testing Service, and Guillermo Solano-Flores, Professor of Education at Stanford University.

In “It Ain’t Near ‘Bout Fair: Re-envisioning the Bias and Sensitivity Review Process from a Justice-oriented Antiracist Perspective,” Randall argues for a proactive justice-oriented assessment development process that re-envisions the purpose and outcomes of bias and sensitivity reviews to make them actively anti-racist. 

In his article, “Toward a Theory of Socio-culturally Responsive Assessment,” Bennett advises that testing as an enterprise must rethink its practices and better respond to today’s calls for equity, to address the growing perception that current testing perpetuates social injustice.  The article lays out preliminary theoretical guidelines and design principles for enacting socio-culturally responsive assessment. 

In “How Serious Are We about Fairness in Testing and How Far Are We Willing to Go? A Response to Randall and Bennett with Reflections about the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing,” Solano-Flores examines challenges faced in moving from principles and recommendations to systemic and meaningful change in assessment practice. Acknowledging the contributions of testing to inequity and social reproduction, he underscores the influence of students’ opportunity to learn in current achievement gaps. Solano-Flores offers a historical perspective on efforts to address test fairness, procedures, and guidelines developed by testing agencies and professional bodies.  He cautions that it is easier to look socially responsible than to actually achieve test fairness. Principles, propositions, and recommendations are not a guarantee of change. 

A final commentary by the three editors highlights the key conceptual, methodological, and practical challenges raised by the three core articles and their implications for the Standards, and for research and innovation needed to produce high-quality tests that are fair, inclusive, and educationally useful. 

The three articles agree on raising possibilities for evolving definitions of fairness, and for holding higher expectations for test developers and users relative to fairness and inclusiveness throughout test design, development, and validation. The editors underscore the importance of intently focusing on these ideas in the coming revision of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing.  

The special issue has encouraged conversations among the measurement community including the three sponsoring organizations, the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the American Psychological Association (APA), and the National Council for Measurement in Education (NCME). These organizations are working to expand the exchange of ideas and information and offering opportunities to learn more and provide feedback on the revision of the Standards.

The special issue of Educational Assessment, “Fairness in Educational Assessment and the Next Edition of the Standards,” is co-edited by Joan L. Herman,  Alison L. Bailey, and Jose Felipe Martinez. The issue can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10627197.2023.2215979 

A one-day conference at the UCLA James West Alumni Center on October 6 will bring together members of the management committee overseeing the next edition of the Standards with the editors and authors of the special issue and other prominent researchers and practitioners, including AERA president and UCLA Education professor Tyrone Howard, NCME past president Ye Tong, and Policy Analysis for California Education executive director Heather Hough among others. The event will engage researchers and practitioners in reflection and discussion around conceptual, technical, and policy issues relevant to the advancement of fairness in the next edition of the AERA/APA/NCME Standards.  The conference is co-sponsored by the UCLA Department of Education, UCLA CRESST, and Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE). Additional information, including a full list of program participants, can be found at https://seis.ucla.edu/calendar/re-envisioning-fairness-in-educational-assessment

Publication examines “Fairness in Educational Assessment and the Next Edition of the Standards.” October 6 event at UCLA will explore “Fairness” as researchers consider revision of testing Standards

UCLA Researchers Edit Special Issue of Educational Assessment

UCLA Center X has been awarded an $8 million Teacher Quality Partnership grant from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. The five-year grant will fund a collaborative partnership to build a pipeline of well-prepared middle school teachers and leaders with the knowledge and skills to serve in high-need schools and further positive outcomes for middle school students. The project is intentionally interdisciplinary, with a focus on racial and cultural literacy and adolescent literacy.  

The grant establishes “Cultivating Excellence: Teaching and Leading in Middle Schools” (Cultivating Excellence), a collaborative partnership between the UCLA Teacher Education Program (TEP) and the UCLA Principal Leadership Institute (PLI), housed in Center X, and the UCLA Department of Social Welfare with high-need school districts in southeast Los Angeles County and the Lancaster region. Two community colleges will also partner in the project.

Developed by UCLA TEP director Emma Hipolito, TEP faculty advisor Imelda Nava-Landeros, and Tonikiaa Orange, PLI director, and their partners and colleagues, the grant project envisions an 18-month teacher residency and leadership development program preparing pre-service middle school teachers to receive a California Preliminary Teaching Credential and master’s degree in education.

“The idea is to focus in a concentrated way on the needs of middle school students,” says Hipolito. “We think this is a pivotal age for kids in terms of their academic future and their development as young adults.”  The project aims to recruit and prepare 80 new middle school teachers through a high-quality teacher residency led by the UCLA Teacher Education Program. 

A vital element of the collaboration will be to engage with community college students and educators to develop a new pipeline of future teachers from communities that have been historically marginalized and under-resourced. As part of its recruitment effort, Hipolito says the project will, “build a pathway to teacher preparation programs from two community colleges with very diverse student populations and assist community college students in completing that journey to become middle school teachers.”  Cultivating Excellence seeks to build a more robust pathway between Hispanic Serving Community Colleges (HBCUs) and teacher preparation programs at UCLA and other institutions.   

“Our goal is to create a pipeline of new educators that come into the field of education by extending our work with Hispanic serving community colleges,” adds Orange. “Our vision is for the community college students to actually go into the schools and earn service credit and become more interested and engaged in teaching in the community. We are looking to build a bridge into the profession.”

The Cultivating Excellence collaboration will also recruit, train, and support aspiring middle school leaders and enhance the credentials of experienced middle school leaders and mentors. The project includes the development of two micro-credentials engaging participants in professional learning. 

The needs of middle school students are unique and the project will develop mentor teachers and aspiring leaders with the understanding, knowledge, and skills to meet their needs by offering training and access to current research and effective practices currently taught through the UCLA PLI. The development of new middle school leaders will be centered in the communities of the Northern Antelope Valley. Cultivating Excellence will also offer training and support to help established leaders serve as mentors. 

“This grant provides us the opportunity to work with teachers and leaders in new and innovative ways,“ says Orange.  One of these innovations is to create micro-credentials to help teachers and leaders develop an understanding of adolescent and racial literacy and culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogies for use with middle school students. Micro-credentialing will also further the learning and skills of community college students participating in the program.” 

Another innovation is a focus on social and emotional learning. The pandemic added stress to students' and families' mental and emotional health and raised awareness of the need for effective social and emotional learning practices.  As a partner in the project, the UCLA Department of Social Welfare will provide knowledge about issues connected to the mental health of children and families as the project works to develop middle school educators with knowledge of transformative social-emotional learning skills and practices.  Transformative social-emotional learning practices will be integrated into all aspects of the project, including coursework and professional development experiences for mentors and community college students. 

A vital aspect of the grant project is its geographic location and focus on schools and communities with high levels of poverty.  Rising costs and gentrification in Los Angeles have driven many low-income students and their families to the northern Antelope Valley and the cities of Palmdale and Lancaster. The project intentionally aims to serve students and educators in this region. The project is also partnering with the Norwalk-La Mirada School District and the southeast divisions of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Southeast LAUSD encompasses the neighborhoods of Cudahy, Southgate, and Huntington Park, where 26 percent of residents have an income below the poverty level and less than half of residents are high school graduates. 

“I’m so excited for this work,“ says Nava-Landeros. “I grew up on the southeast side, so for me, it's coming home to an area of L.A. that has gone through so many shifts and changes and suffered from environmental, racial, and social injustices, but is also a place of amazing possibilities. There has been such a history of not really fitting in, that I think is so emblematic of the middle school condition. I'm glad that we are going to focus on this area, part of what was the Industrial corridor of Los Angeles, with all the history and pain that it brings with it, but also the possibility.” 

“This Teacher Quality Partnership Grant represents a strategic investment in the educators and students of our community and will further the ongoing pursuit by UCLA Center X of excellence in education through a passionate commitment to equity and inclusive diversity,” said Christina Christie, Wasserman Dean of the UCLA School of Education and Information Studies.

“It is also important to note that this grant project reflects the knowledge and expertise of three women of color who are deeply committed to the children and educators of the communities this grant intends to serve.  Doctors Hipolito, Landeros, and Orange have poured their heart and soul into the development of this visionary project and are to be commended for their effort.”

The first year of the grant will focus on the planning and development of the Cultivating Excellence project. Hipolito and Orange will serve as project leaders responsible for integrating critical elements of the effort with the UCLA Teacher Education Program and Principal Leadership Institute.  A detailed Memorandum of Understanding will be created and signed by each partner to clearly define roles and responsibilities. Cultivating Excellence project leaders and partners will convene regularly to discuss all facets of program planning, ongoing functions, and sustainability, assess program implementation, engage in inquiry cycles of improvement, and coordinate subsequent feedback loops.  Initial efforts will include recruitment of candidates for participation in the teacher residency program and the development of micro-credentials. 

“The grant represents the UCLA Teacher Education Program and the Principal Leadership Institute’s ability to innovate. We are constantly reshaping ourselves,” says Hipolito. “It also speaks to the importance of community. The work that we do is deeply rooted in community and partnership; it is a journey that is never-ending.”

“As we seek to develop future educators, we hope that this grant will help people to recognize the importance of partnerships,” concludes Orange.  “To create a pipeline of future educators, it is not enough just for students to come to a school and come out as a teacher.  This grant shows why partnerships with community colleges and school districts, and places like the UCLA School of Social Welfare are needed to invest in the development of teachers and leaders for the long haul in a very deep and meaningful way.” 

The University's Teacher Education Program and Principal Leadership Institute will partner to build a pipeline of middle-school teachers and leaders focused on racial and cultural literacy.

UCLA Center X Awarded $8 Million Teacher Quality Partnership Grant by U.S. Department of Education

As the nation marks the civil rights milestone of the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, a new research paper published by the UCLA Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles explores the rapid growth of a multiracial population in the United States, highlighting new challenges and possibilities for the future of the civil rights movement.

The paper, “Discrimination in the 21st Century: How Civil Rights Policies Can Best Embrace the Growing Mixed-Race Population,” summarizes the growth of the modern mixed-race population in the United States and highlights the complications the changing population presents for the future of civil rights law and policy. 

According to the 2020 U.S. Census, multiracials experienced a 276% growth in population between 2010 and 2020, totaling 33.8 million, or 10.2% of the total U.S. population. (This is up from 9 million [2.9% of population] in 2010). 

In analyzing this rapidly emerging population, the researchers find that distinctive among today’s multiracial individuals is an assertion of a mixed-race identity, which they claim embodies a different experience compared to those who report being a single race, such as “white” or “Black.” The report’s authors contend this emphasis on personal identity presents a new dimension that must be considered in the development of new civil rights policy.

Among other key findings of the research paper:

- Mixed-race individuals assert a distinctive identity, but evidence shows that their experiences of racial discrimination often mirror those of single-race minorities (i.e., those who are only “Black” or “Asian”)

- Mixed-race individuals often change their asserted racial identity and may downplay their mixed-race identity in response to their social or political surroundings

- Mixed-race individuals do not share the same experiences of racial discrimination. There is significant variation depending on the person’s racial combination. For example, those who identify as Black-white have different experiences from those who are Asian-white or Latino-white.

 "Mixed-race individuals' experiences with racial discrimination vary greatly and are tightly linked to the specific combination of their racial ancestry,” says co-author Gregory Leslie. “Policymakers should be wary of policies promoting a pan-racial category or a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach that may conceal discriminatory intent or inadvertently misconstrue a diverse, developing group."

Part of a new series of research papers published by the UCLA Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles that illuminate future challenges confronting civil rights in our society, “Discrimination in the 21st Century: How Civil Rights Policies Can Best Embrace the Growing Mixed-Race Population,” aims to make the complexities and complications that mixed-race identities create for American race relations more visible, as policymakers, advocates and other practitioners seek to understand and address the civil rights challenges of a rapidly changing nation. 

“Looking toward the future, we need to integrate and address the needs of a rapidly growing multiracial population into a body of civil rights law and policy that was originally based primarily on Black-white relationships, in a society with caste-like separation between those two groups,” said Professor Gary Orfield, co-director of the UCLA Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles. “This paper does not give specific policy solutions but provides essential data and analysis, prerequisites for creating effective policies for multiracials, rather than further splintering a fragmented society.”

Orfield underscores that this study and others forthcoming show that -- even among multiracials -- those who are multiracial Black face distinct challenges in comparison with other multiracial identities. ”Civil rights policy in our multiracial society must not lose consciousness of the unique dimensions of anti-Black attitudes and discrimination,” he concludes.

“Discrimination in the 21st Century: How Civil Rights Policies Can Best Embrace the Growing Mixed-Race Population,” is researched and authored by Gregory Leslie and Natalie Masuoka.  Leslie is a political psychologist who graduated with an MS in statistics and Ph.D. in political science from UCLA in 2022 and is currently an assistant professor of political science at The Ohio State University. Masuoka is an associate professor of political science and Asian American studies at UCLA and the author of the book, Multiracial Identity and Racial Politics in the United States. 

This paper is the third in a series of research papers on the nation, commissioned and published by the UCLA Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, exploring a civil rights agenda for the next quarter century.   The full paper is available online here. 

John McDonald - jmcdonald@gseis.ucla.edu

Laurie Russman -  russman@gseis.ucla.edu

New publication summarizes the growth of the mixed-race population in the U.S.,   highlights complications for the future of civil rights law and policy.

UCLA Civil Rights Project Explores the Challenges of "Discrimination in the 21st Century"

The Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE), the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools and The L.A. Trust for Children's Health today announced a new partnership to provide technical assistance to school sites seeking to establish or expand a community school model in Los Angeles County, empowering community voice,  leveraging community assets, and strengthening the network of vital community resources in service to students, families, and school communities through the California Community Schools Partnership Program (CCSPP). 

The partnership, known as the Greater Los Angeles Regional Technical Assistance Center (R-TAC), will establish a regional hub for community schooling in Los Angeles County. The mission of the community schools initiative is to “disrupt inequities and break the cycle of poverty by leveraging assets to transform schools into hubs of the community”, connecting schools with health, social service, and other resources and supports. The R-TAC will leverage local government and community partners’ support to align community resources to remove barriers to learning and improve student outcomes for Los Angeles County students.

As defined by the California Department of Education, a California community school is any school serving students using a “whole-child” approach with an integrated focus on academics, health, social services, youth and community development, and community engagement. By centering the school community’s voice, community schools provide an effective support system to families and improve student outcomes by addressing students’ academic, cognitive, physical, mental, and social-emotional needs. By integrating community resources and services like healthcare, counseling, and enrichment programs with family involvement, community schools serve as a holistic improvement strategy to support local education agencies and schools as they address the unique needs and aspirations of their communities. 

The R-TAC is funded by a five-year, $10.5 million grant from the California Department of Education, with additional support from The Greater Los Angeles Education Foundation. The Greater Los Angeles R-TAC is one of eight R-TACs in the state supporting the planning and implementation of the California Community Schools Partnership Program (CCSPP), in partnership with the State Technical Assistance Center (S-TAC). The S-TAC, led by the Alameda County Office of Education in partnership with UCLA’s Center for Community Schooling, the National Education Association and Californians for Justice, will oversee the R-TAC along with the California Department of Education. 

“Community schools meet students where they are, helping them overcome the challenges and disruptions caused by the pandemic,” said Los Angeles County Superintendent of Schools Debra Duardo, Ph.D. “By embracing the whole child approach, community schools ensure students not only learn but thrive in an environment tailored to their unique needs and potential.” 

Seventy-seven local educational agencies have been awarded Planning Grants and 245 schools have been awarded Implementation Grants for the first phase of the program. The R-TAC will  provide professional development, communities of transformational practice, coaching, and training to local educational agencies on the Community Schools framework. 

LACOE will coordinate county-level government agencies, nonprofit community-based organizations, and other external partners to support community school implementation. LACOE has piloted community schools since 2019 through its Community Schools Initiative, which currently operates in 16 high schools and districts across the county, making them uniquely suited to provide planning and implementation support as an R-TAC. Through continued funding and support from the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health and the California Department of Education’s CCSPP implementation grants, the Community Schools Initiative will be expanding to additional schools within the 16 districts, including elementary, middle and continuation schools.

As the research partner for the R-TAC, UCLA’s Center for the Transformation of Schools will evaluate the needs and implementation of community schools, and will draw upon its experience and expertise as a research partner for large statewide initiatives to help the R-TAC and help grantee schools interpret and assess their data as they implement the California Community Schools framework. Additionally, the Center will lead R-TAC efforts to identify unique local measures to understand the effectiveness of the framework. 

"Since the return to in-person learning, the connection between students’ basic needs and academic outcomes is undeniable. We now—more than ever—need a model of schooling that validates the ancillary supports that schools have been providing for students and families outside of academic instruction,” said  Brian Huff, UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools project director for the initiative. “The CA Community Schools Partnership Program enables us to recognize community members and families as essential partners to our schools, which is the only way to truly support the development of the whole child.” 

The L.A. Trust will serve as a student health expert, providing technical assistance to community schools on how to best meet students’ holistic needs. They will provide education and consultation to community schools on health topics, such as developing peer-to-peer leadership programs; facilitating collaborative relationships to support funding strategies and integrate health supports on campuses; health policy advocacy and coalition-building; and best practices in data collection, sharing, and analysis.

“Community schools have been shown to improve attendance, grades, test scores and graduation rates,” said Maryjane Puffer, Executive Director of The L.A. Trust for Children’s Health. “We are excited for this opportunity to expand healthcare access and our peer-to-peer footprint to serve more students and communities.”

UCLA: John McDonald - jmcdonald@gseis.ucla.edu  / Geneva Sum - gsum@gseis.ucla.edu

LACOE: Van Nguyen - nguyen_van@lacoe.edu

The L.A. Trust for Children’s Health: Mariam Jimenez - m.jimenez@thelatrust.org

The California Community Schools Partnership Program leverages assets of the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools, the Los Angeles County Office of Education, and the Los Angles Trust for Children's Health.

UCLA Education Joins Regional Effort to Transform Schools Into Community Hubs

Jennie Grammer’s work examines how experiences in school shape students’ cognitive development and learning, drawing on methods from developmental psychology, education, and neuroscience. An associate professor in the SEIS division of Human Development and Psychology, Grammer focuses her research on the processes –  including executive functions (EF), self-regulation, attention, memory, and metacognition – that play an important role in academic growth and social interactions in school.

For the past decade, Professor Grammer has been conducting neuroscientific research in schools and classrooms to explore the complex interactions between students and their environments that propel developmental change, and to identify classroom-based strategies for teachers to develop more equitable learning opportunities for their students. As faculty director of the UC/CSU Collaborative for Neuroscience, Diversity, and Learning, she brings this expertise to answer some of the most pressing questions around teaching diverse learners in California’s schools.

Before returning to UCLA, Grammer was the Stern Bicentennial Professor of Education Neuroscience at the University of Virginia, where she was a part of an initiative to integrate neuroscience research in UVA’s School of Education and Human Development and across grounds. Her most recent publications include “Informing the Development of School-Based Strategies to Promote Children's Executive Function Skills: Considerations, Challenges, and Future Directions,” and “Opportunities and limitations of using portable brain technology in educational neuroscience,” for the journal, Mind, Brain, and Education; and “Effects of context on the neural correlates of attention in a college classroom,”  for the journal, npj Science of Learning. Professor Grammer is currently the president-elect for the International Mind, Brain and Education Society.

Grammer achieved her Ph.D. in developmental psychology with a concentration in quantitative psychology at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and her B.A. in psychology with a minor in arts studies at North Carolina State University. 

What are the main goals of the UC/CSU Collaborative for Neuroscience, Diversity, and Learning?

All young people, regardless of learning needs, deserve access to educational experiences that promote their growth and development. There is extensive knowledge - from researchers and practitioners - about how to create conditions in schools that  provide the support students need. We also know that to impact academic outcomes we have to consider the whole child, or other factors, including cognition, motivation, challenges that a student might be facing that impacts their ability to engage in the classroom. But this information is not always accessible to educators, and educators' capacity to do the best work for their students is shaped by the larger context of their school, and is impacted - if indirectly - by local and state policy. If we want to have a positive impact on the experiences of students, we have to reach everyone who influences what is happening in the classroom - teachers, administrators, policy makers, and others. 

The UC/CSU Collaborative is focused on bringing research from developmental science, education, and neuroscience to inform how we can best support diverse learners in our classrooms. We recognize that to do this systemic change is needed, so our goal is to reach preservice and inservice educators as well as education leaders and policymakers.

There is amazing work happening across the state to support children and youth. Our effort is a part of a broader investment by the state of California, and another goal we have is to foster collaboration across related state-funded initiatives so we can maximize this investment.

What are some common threads in your work with teachers?

In my research, I am very interested in the expertise of teachers, and learning from them. My graduate students and I are working to understand what they think about cognitive development and how they see their daily work with children supporting this. In our conversations with teachers, when we ask about things like EF or student attention, we end up talking with them about student behavior - mostly behavioral challenges. That’s reasonable, because that's what you see in the day-to-day, and a lot of the discussion around EF and attention converges with to manage behavior in the classroom. That is something that intuitively makes a lot of sense if you have spent time in a classroom, but isn’t necessarily reflective of the research perspective. There is a disconnect between researchers’ definitions of terms like EF or attention and the concerns or questions teachers have. 

In practical terms, if a teacher is concerned about a child, it’s because they're up out of their seat, they’re distracting other students. Some teachers may see this as behavior that's disruptive in their classroom, which has implications for student learning opportunities - they might be seen as a bad kid. If I feel like you are being disruptive, I might also think you are not ready to learn. However, in our interviews with teachers many have a very nuanced perspective on these same behaviors. They might see the student up and out of their seat, moving around, but question what the cause of that behavior is, not that it necessarily reflects their engagement or cognitive ability. Either way, how teachers perceive behavior - and their sense of efficacy about how to support students who have difficulty with executive functions and attention - matter for what happens to that student in the classroom. We are very interested in understanding what leads a teacher to frame this observation as a question - wondering why a student is behaving in a particular way and what changes in the activity, classroom setup or expectations, might lead to changes in student behavior. 

We are also interested in understanding how the experiences students have in the classroom shape their cognitive and academic development, particularly for students who have ADHD and lower executive function skills. If you are a student who has significant difficulties with attention, your experience in the classroom may be fundamentally different from that of your peers. You are likely also struggling to follow some of the basics of instruction, because the difficulty with attention is impeding your ability to follow teacher-led activities and complete independent work. Imagine now that you are a student who struggles with attention and reading. You may be missing content that other students are accessing by reading independently … during instruction you are having difficulty being engaged. Over weeks and weeks, it is hard not to think, “I'm not good at this. I don't do it the same way that other kids do.” 

It creates this cycle, and sometimes leads to changes in children’s behavior. If I'm a child who is having difficulty with reading, for whatever reason, and my class is engaged in a reading activity that I can't do, what can I do? Maybe I can avoid the negative feelings associated with the task at hand by getting up out of my seat, wandering around, talking to my neighbor. These things are all related to one another, so teachers aren't wrong in seeing links between behavior, difficulties with attention, and learning. Conducting research that helps inform how we identify and prevent this cycle - using our understanding of the connections between behavior and cognition - is the goal.

Have you been able to track the same students over time to find that cycle has been disrupted?  

We study student EF and attention using multiple methods - observing their behavior, collecting neuroscientific data while they are engaged in learning. This has allowed us to link what is happening in the classroom to their behavior and related neural measures. But we have not yet been able to focus on developmental changes, which we hope to do next.  

We have worked with children in early and late elementary school, high school, and college. There is this interesting thing that happens as students gain more experience in school - we become socialized into what being a student looks like. My college students know what it looks like to pay attention, that if they sit there, occasionally make eye contact and nod at me, they've got it. That happens as students have more and more experience with school, including middle and high school. We begin to realize that expectations of a good student are that they sit there, do the work, and appear to be engaged. You don't see as much of that in early elementary school because they can't mask it as well. 

The interesting flip of that is not just how you mask your behavior and play it up but also the strategies you adapt to when you get older, once you've discovered them or someone has helped you discover strategies that work best for you. For example, I have mentored many successful undergraduate and graduate students with ADHD. They have a whole series of strategies that help support their learning. They are really successful academically, but this success reflects well-developed skills, often attained through trial and error and from working with supportive adults. Similar themes have emerged from conversations with highschoolers with ADHD - part of their success comes down to knowing themselves as learners in such an important and intuitive way that they have developed a toolkit to be successful independently as they move out of high school. 

So, we want to understand: how do we also help students do well in the classroom and have those independent tools that they need as they get older? That's part of the interesting developmental trajectory: How do you get that sense of what we call the metacognitive awareness that you would need to know in a particular moment or in a particular type of learning experience? And how we help educators have the tools they need to create conditions for student development.

Have you developed some strategies yet for teachers to use in their classrooms? 

This is the ultimate goal. Doing neuroscience in classrooms or real-world settings is one thing, but then figuring out how we build a strong enough evidence base that we can translate this work into meaningful recommendation to educators is another. We want to make sure that any recommendations we make - especially those resulting from neuroscientific research - are based on solid evidence. We’re creating that foundation of evidence, but we are also learning from educators who are showing results in their classrooms already.  

Will some of these findings improve learning outcomes for students who don't necessarily need these tools?

When I was in graduate school, I studied the way elementary school teachers introduced information in the classroom, and the extent to which they were including metacognitive thinking and questions in their instruction. Some teachers do this pretty regularly - for example, making their thought processes of problem solving very clear for students, asking students to share the same. Some students need less of this – perhaps they have this knowledge already, and maybe they have even gained it intuitively. But other students - including those with less developed self-regulation skills - seem to really benefit from that discussion. They need to hear the think-aloud from the teacher or their peers, “Oh yeah, I should try and solve the problem that way or try and organize my thinking that way.” 

We found that having that kind of discourse in your classroom doesn’t hinder anybody, but benefited the kids who needed it most. It is a good example of a strategy that supports everyone, or at least not hinder anyone's progress.

While spaces like the Lab School or UCLA Community Schools provide a conducive environment for studies like these, how can the Collaborative’s solutions be implemented at public schools that may be underresourced, with teachers who are already taking on too much?

That’s the broader goal as well, which brings us back to the work of the new Collaborative. In the Lab School or UCLA Community Schools, the connections between research and practice require a great deal of work but also support for facilitating this effort. But the goal of the Collaborative is to realize this connection statewide and focus on preparation and service, professional development – all of the settings where educators might be. 

Alison Yoshimoto-Towery (executive director of the UC/CSU Collaborative for Neuroscience, Diversity, and Learning) is leading the way in thinking about how we can support educators across the state. We’re starting with the development of a set of resources, through the creation of an online hub of information and learning management system - which will include learning modules designed for different audiences and related resources - that's accessible for everyone. We’re also identifying other services and resources that are already available in California, recognizing that we have a lot of amazing things already that are all located in different places. For this to be effective, it has to be connected with work happening across the statewide system of support. 

The statewide hub of information will be research-forward, reflecting the knowledge and expertise of the UC, CSU, and other institutes of higher education, but also centered on the voices of educators, practitioners, and students. So, if you are an educator interested in learning more about a particular topic, here's a place where you can come and get started, from a quick skim to a deep dive. You know that it's a trusted source of information that's been vetted by experts from the UC and the CSU, but it is also reflecting the work of your peers in districts where you are or from across the state. 

The goal of this work is to be as responsive to the needs and interests of educators. To do this, we are also surveying preservice and in-service teachers across the state and conducting focus groups and interviews with educators, faculty in teacher education, and decision makers.

There are so many exciting things happening in the state of California to support students, families, and practitioners. We have such an abundance of resources - not only state investment, but  motivated educators and researchers and the political will to transform opportunities for our young people. Coming back to California, and being involved in the work of the UC/CSU Collaborative, I have gained a new appreciation for what this could mean for students and educators - through the Collaborative we have an opportunity to elevate existing work, leverage the expertise across the UC, CSU and beyond, and create the synergy needed to realize this potential. 

Q&A with new Faculty Director of the UC/CSU Collaborative for Neuroscience, Diversity, and Learning, housed at UCLA Ed&IS.