The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the way Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) programs operate in unprecedented ways. This brief has two purposes: (1) To capture some of the adaptations and innovations that programs designed to meet the rapidly evolving circumstances of the pandemic; and (2) To highlight promising practices and pose…

Nadiem Makarim, the Minister of Education and Culture, released "Merdeka Belajar" (Freedom to Learn) as his revolutionary program by the end of 2019. It aims to make significant changes in the world of education. The current study aims to demonstrate the understanding of primary school teachers' understanding of the concept and…

High-quality early care and education is a known protective factor for infants and toddlers who experience early childhood poverty, especially for early communication outcomes. However, the quality of care is variable in the United States, and efforts to increase the quality of interactions is impeded by cost and high rates of turnover in the…

The "IDRA Newsletter" serves as a vehicle for communication with educators, school board members, decision-makers, parents, and the general public concerning the educational needs of all children across the United States. The focus of this issue is "Opportunity." Contents include: (1) Students Deserve to Read Diverse Books --…

YouTube has existed since 2005. Since that time, many marketing professionals have used the site to combine sight, sound, motion, and emotion to appeal to a target audience. USDA-regulated and producer-funded agricultural research and promotion, or checkoff programs, are no different, and many have used YouTube's platform to reach consumers. This…

For decades, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) forms were processed electronically by the legacy Central Processing System. In 2021 the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) initiated a system development effort and in December 2023 deployed a new system to process forms for the 2024-2025 school year. However, student aid…

Background: Few family caregivers of individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities develop long-term care (LTC) plans for their relative. Web-based interventions promoting LTC planning have potential for widespread adoption into clinical practice. Methods: We conducted focus groups with 49 primary caregivers of individuals with…

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of IXL Math online software in raising student achievement on the New York State Math exam, with special focus on effects by student gender, ethnicity and disability status. The study includes an analysis of the relationship between scale scores and time spent using the IXL system, number…

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is the entry ramp to federal grants and loans that many students depend on to afford college. Congress passed the FAFSA Simplification Act in 2020 in part to make it easier to apply for federal aid. However, Education's rollout of the new FAFSA has suffered from numerous challenges and delays.…

In March 2018, metal construction kits were distributed to all elementary schools in Rhineland-Palatinate as part of the project called "Technikkiste" [translation from German: technology box] to promote STEM education. At the end of the year 2018, three more expansion sets followed. So far, no requests have been made to schools, even…

Multilingual learners (MLs) often struggle with science conceptual learning partly due to the abstractness of the concepts and the complexity of scientific texts. This study presents a case of a Virtual Reality (VR) enhanced science learning unit to support middle-school students' science conceptual learning. Using a transformative mixed methods…

Preschoolers can learn vocabulary from educational videos, but children from low-income backgrounds often do not learn as effectively as their higher income peers. We investigated whether adding attention-directing cues to media (Study 1) and slowing the pacing of media (Study 2) supported vocabulary learning for preschoolers from low-income…

As California schools move into online testing and online learning, an adequate technology infrastructure is no longer an option, but a necessity. To fully benefit from digital learning, schools will require a comprehensive technology infrastructure that can support a range of administrative and instructional tools. An earlier PPIC report found…

In this article, the authors describe two independent efforts at "flipping" introductory economics courses employing econlowodown.org resources from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. From an instructor's perspective, it is relatively simple to locate the high-quality free resources available online and assign them to students. Their…

On May 14th and 15th, 2020, the historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU) Action Nation Town Hall, co-hosted by United States Distance Learning Association, the Online Learning Consortium, National Coalition of 100 Black Women, and Tennessee State University, brought together many esteemed panels of experts that came together to share…