Boston Charter Research Collaborative

Project Status: Past
Focus Area: School Improvement & Redesign
Location: Boston, MA
Timeline: 2014–19
Principal Investigator: Martin West

Featured Publication: Centering Educators' Expertise: Learning About Innovative Approaches to Social-Emotional Learning from School Partners in the Boston Charter Research Collaborative

In this paper, the Boston Charter Research Collaborative shares recommendations for other researchers and organizational partners interested in facilitating educator-focused convenings with the goal of learning more about educators’ on-the-ground work.

The multi-year partnership between six Boston-area charter schools or charter management organizations (CMOs), CEPR, MIT, and TransformEd, focuses on research and practice to support students’ cognitive and social-emotional development. The project, which began during the 2014-2015 school year, to identify and test promising measures of students’ cognitive skills (such as processing speed, working memory, and fluid reasoning) and social-emotional competencies. Collaborative members have also worked together to test the effectiveness of school-based interventions that aim to improve students’ cognitive and social-emotional outcomes.

As we do our work, we draw from research, best practice, and the input of diverse stakeholders; then we apply and share what we’re learning around three key questions:

1. How can the practices, systems, structures, and environment of a school foster students’ social-emotional development?
2. How can researchers and practitioners learn from one another in order to accelerate improvements in student outcomes?
3. What are the most effective ways to prompt a paradigm shift towards schools developing the whole child?

Publications

Centering Educators' Expertise: Learning About Innovative Approaches to Social-Emotional Learning from School Partners in the Boston Charter Research Collaborative

Mindfulness in the Classroom: Learning from a School-based Mindfulness Intervention through the Boston Charter Research Collaborative [Practitioner Brief]

Insights from the Field: Facilitating Dialogue and Learning within a Research-Practice Partnership on Social-Emotional Learning [Working Paper]

Patterns in Student Self-Report and Teacher Report Measures of Social-Emotional Mindsets, Skills, and Habits [Working Paper]

Launching a Multi-Year Research-Practice Collaborative: Lessons Learned from Year One [Working Paper]