Jessica Heppen, a nationally recognized expert in education research, policy, and practice, is the president & CEO of AIR. Dr. Heppen been with AIR for 20 years and, in that time, has held several key roles during her tenure.
AIR implemented a multi-site, clustered randomized trail to assess the impact of the ASSISTments program across culturally and geographically diverse settings.
The Preschool Development Grant Birth Through Five initiative supports states to create plans to facilitate collaboration and coordination among existing early childhood care and education programs. AIR has partnered with four states—California, Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota—to support their work as they expand access to high-quality early childhood care and ...
Instructional coaching can promote more effective and engaging learning in the classroom. In this video, Kirk Walters, AIR principal researcher and instructional math coach, shows how to support teachers and help students learn critical math skills-and why it’s important to teach students not only how to do mathematical procedures but ...
The primary purpose of California's Birth Through 3 Program is to increase the number of the most vulnerable children receiving high quality comprehensive services that meet their needs for early learning, health and family support. This paper details the program's purpose and design, and concludes that the proposed enactment of ...
The Guide for Reflecting on Instructional Depth, or GRID, helps teachers reflect on their instruction, identify areas where they can be more student-centered. The four-part video GRID series provides step-by-step guidance for determining students’ depth of mathematical justifications and who is driving those justifications. ...
At least half of states administer or are developing kindergarten entry assessments. In fall 2017 the Illinois State Board of Education began requiring teachers to report data on every child’s skills at kindergarten entry using the Kindergarten Individual Development Survey.
The Texas School Ready! (TSR!) Project consists of communities in which independent districts, Head Start agencies, and child care providers agree to collaborate as partners in providing high-quality instruction to 3- and 4-year-old, income-eligible, at-risk children to promote their readiness for school. AIR was one of three organizations that conducted ...
Slides from a presentation on September 28, 2005 to the Advisory Board for the Long Term Outcomes for Children Receiving Preschool Intervention for Behavioral and Developmental Concerns Project in Cleveland, OH.
Systems to rate the quality of child care and preschool programs are in place or under development in 49 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. In this blog post, Laura Hawkinson and Karen Manship explain that, until validation and evaluation studies are complete, states' varying systems make ...