Stanford’s Transforming Learning Accelerator, a long-range university project, creates effective learning solutions using the latest advancements in technology, data, learning and neuro sciences. We collaborate across disciplines and with partners to bring scalable and equitable solutions to all learners. The Graduate School of Education’s Initiative on Learning Differences and the Future of Special Education is one of five initial focus areas within the Transforming Learning Accelerator. The goal of the Learning Differences Initiatives is to advance knowledge about the complex array of factors underlying learning differences and design learning that affords learner, educator, and system transformation.

The Initiative on Learning Differences and the Future of Special Education has awarded six seed grants to interdisciplinary research teams that will employ quantitative, qualitative, and/or mixed research methods to advance asset-based approaches to pressing challenges facing individuals with learning differences. These projects seek to catalyze creative and transformative research to improve learning outcomes for students with learning differences.

We invite anyone from the Stanford community with an interest in learning differences and/or the future of special education to join our kickoff meeting introducing our grant recipients. Attendees will have a chance to network, hear from grant recipients, and find collaborators for future projects.

Funded projects will focus on 1) the design of learning environments, learning tools, and/or learning practices that address equity issues (e.g., challenges related to access or opportunities) involving learners with learning differences; 2) understanding of learning differences across sensory, physical, cognitive, and/or social/emotional dimensions of human capacity within specific contexts; and/or 3) assessments of human and/or institutional capacities, particularly in the contexts of education, medicine, policy, and psychology and interdisciplinary responses (e.g. re-framings, interventions) to advance inclusive education agendas.

Projects receiving funding include:

• Bayesian Modeling of Individual Differences in Self-Directed Learning Based on Observed Attention Allocation Patterns
  • PI: Nick Haber, Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Education
  • Xinjie Chen, Research Associate and Project Manager, CSET 
  • Nilam Ram, Professor, Communication
  • Thomas Robinson, Professor, Pediatrics - General Pediatrics
  • Byron Reeves, Professor, Communication
  • Xiao Yang, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Psychology 

• Bridge to Learning - Academic Life Coaching for Students with ADHD 
  • PI: Victor Carrión, Professor, Psychiatry Department, School of Medicine
  • Travis Bradley, Bridge to Learning Project Director, School of Medicine 
  • Christopher Lemons, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Education
  • Lisa Medoff, Learning Specialist & Lecturer, Program in Human Biology, School of Medicine

• Illuminating the Textures of Disability-Race Intersections: An Interdisciplinary Study of Larry P’s Classification Trajectories
  • PI: Alfredo Artiles, Professor, Graduate School of Education
  • Co-PI: Michael Hines, Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Education
  • Co-PI: Latoya Baldwin Clark, Assistant Professor of Law, UCLA

• Searching for Solutions: DisCrit & Disproportionality
  • PI: Subini Annamma, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Education
  • Co-PI: Ralph Banks, Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor of Law at Stanford Law School; Professor, by courtesy, Graduate School of Education

• Trans-Semiosis and Fairness in the Design of Testing Accommodations/Accessibility Resources for Students with Special Needs 
  • PI: Guillermo Solano-Flores, Professor, Graduate School of Education
  • Co-PI: Ramon Martinez, Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Education 

• Tuning into Learner Differences in Sensory vs. Integrative Experiences of the World: Crossing Boundaries of Speech and Music
  • PI: Bruce McCandliss, Professor, Graduate School of Education
  • Daniel Abrams, Clinical Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
  • Jonathan Berger, Professor, Music 
  • John Hegarty, Instructor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences - Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 
  • Blair Kaneshiro, Adjunct Professor, Music
  • Anthony Norcia, Professor (Research), Psychology
  • Elizabeth Toomarian, Director, Brainwave Learning Center at Synapse School

We hope to see you there!