Progress 09/01/20 to 08/31/23

Outputs
Target Audience:The targeted audience of our SBIR Phase II project are teachers who implement THINKING PRO (formerly Front Porch Experience) in high school classrooms of grades 9 through 12 at both general and honors/AP level. We have provided training and professional development to teachers and administrators in English Language Arts (ELA), social studies, English as a Second Language (ESL), and response to intervention (RTI) for low achieving students. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As part of the SBIR Phase II project, we have developed and optimized an extensive, teacher professional development (PD) program to accompany THINKING PRO (formerly Front Porch Experience). Teachers complete a training workshop where they are introduced to the technical and curricular components of the online module. Teachers then receive ongoing support and opportunities for lesson planning, analysis and reflection on their own teaching, and goal setting. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?In the Year 3 reporting period of the SBIR Phase II project, we have disseminated our results at professional associations for school teachers and administrators, targeting 3 national conferences as public knowledge sharing and training platforms. These conferences include: The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) annual conference The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) annual conference The National Social Studies Supervisor Association (NSSSA) annual conference Please see "Products" for a detailed list of conference presentations. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The purpose of the Phase II project was to optimize, expand, and develop a commercial release version of THINKING PRO (formerly Front Porch Experience) and associated professional development workshop and companion website for teachers. By further enhancing the quality of our curriculum, we have continued to improve high school students' learning and engagement, improve their college and career readiness, and thereby, contribute to the economic development of rural communities. By providing teachers with professional development tools and resources, we strengthened their practice and empowered them to use THINKING PRO in schools across the country to enhance their students' learning outcomes. Our SBIR Phase II R&D focused on four technical objectives: Objective 1: Expansion and optimization of the online module; Objective 2: Teacher companion website; Objective 3: Technical usability of the online module; and Objective 4: Multi-year, multi-site analysis of student learning and engagement. In the Year 3 reporting period, we have completed all four technical objectives established in the grant application. For Objective 1, we optimized and finalized our suite of 20 interactive learning videos, which adjust to student ability levels and learning pace to foster cognitive skills and are our technology innovation. An interactive video can be experienced here: https://www.thinkinghabitats.com/interactive-learning-videos We developed a new version of our service called "THINKING PRO Essentials," a shorter, self-paced program that features a gamified sequence of our learning videos. We created a Professional Learning Community (PLC) for teachers and administrators, including instructional resources, a webinar series, and a bi-monthly newsletter that is sent to 270 subscribers. For Objective 2, we have completed the creation of our companion website to promote the commercially ready version of THINKING PRO. The website is the landing page for teachers and connects with our learning platform and PLC. Please visit our homepage here: https://www.thinkinghabitats.com For Objective 3, we tested the technical usability of the THINKING PRO Curriculum Unit and its accompanying professional development program with English Language Arts (ELA), Social Studies, and English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers in different schools. We also tested our new THINKING PRO Essentials version with a sixth-grade classroom. We received positive feedback from teachers and students that helped us refine the curriculum and professional development process. For Objective 4, we collected and analyzed student learning and engagement data to determine the effectiveness of the online module. Our interactive videos continue to have positive learning outcomes in fostering students' cognitive skills. Across the Phase II grant cycle, 88% of students reached proficient or above across the critical thinking videos and 85% of students reached proficient or above across the reading comprehension videos. Furthermore, 70.5% of students improved their scores from pretest to posttest. When providing feedback on our learning program, 75% of students agreed that THINKING PRO challenged their thinking and learning, helped them be mindful of how they engage with the news, and empowered them with thinking tools relevant for decision making. We are excited that we were able to continue to demonstrate the impact of THINKING PRO on student learning outcomes throughout the SBIR Phase II R&D.

Publications

• Type: Book Chapters Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: Feucht, F.C., Michaelson, M.K., Rotshtein, R., Bargardi, S., Bush, R. & McBride, J. (2022). Creating â¿¿Front Porch Experiences⿝ for High School Teachers and Students: Two cases of a local-news-driven curriculum in English and Social Studies classrooms. In R. Spannring, W. Schmidt, & C. Unterrainer, (Eds.), Institutions and Organizations as Learning Environments for Participation and Democracy. Springer Nature.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Feucht, F.C. (2023, May). Letâ¿¿s Talk About News: Skill Building Through Local News Curriculum. Online workshop delivered for the Media Education Lab (https://mediaeducationlab.com/).
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Feucht, F.C. (2023, April). Letâ¿¿s Talk about News: Students analyze and deliberate current issues using a non-biased process. Presentation delivered at the annual conference of the Michigan Council for Social Studies (MCSS), Traverse City, Michigan.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2023 Citation: Feucht, F.C., Rotshtein, R., & Bargardi, S. (2023, February). Community Engagement and News Media Literacy: Students Explore Local Issues That Matter to Them and Advocate for Change. Presentation delivered at the annual conference of the Ohio Council of Teachers of English Language Arts (OCTELA) , Columbus, OH.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: Feucht, F.C. & Bush, R. (2022, December). Letâ¿¿s Talk about News: Students analyze and deliberate current issues using a non-biased process. Presentation delivered at the annual convention of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Conference, Philadelphia, PA.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: Feucht, F.C. & Bush, R. (2022, December). News media literacy meets civic engagement: Discover an unbiased, non-partisan way of engaging students in local issues. Presentation presented at the annual convention of the National Social Studies Supervisor Association (NSSSA), Philadelphia, PA.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: Feucht, F.C. (2022, November). THINKING PRO: How do I teach news media literacy in my classroom? Teacher training session delivered at National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE) Conference, Anaheim, CA.

Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22

Outputs
Target Audience:The targeted audience of our SBIR Phase II project are teachers who implement THINKING PRO (formerly Front Porch Experience) in high school classrooms of grades 9 through 12 at both general and honors/AP level. We have provided training and professional development to teachers and administrators in English Language Arts (ELA), social studies, English as a Second Language (ESL), and response to intervention (RTI) for low achieving students. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As part of the SBIR Phase II project, we have developed and optimized an extensive, teacher professional development (PD) program to accompany THINKING PRO (formerly Front Porch Experience). Teachers complete a training workshop where they are introduced to the technical and curricular components of the online module. Teachers then receive ongoing support and opportunities for lesson planning, analysis and reflection on their own teaching, and goal setting. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?In the Year 2 reporting period of the SBIR Phase II project, we have disseminated our results at professional associations for school teachers and administrators, targeting 3 national conferences as public knowledge sharing and training platforms. These conferences include: The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) annual conference The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) annual conference The National Social Studies Supervisor Association (NSSSA) annual conference Please see "Products" for a detailed list of conference presentations. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?As we conclude the SBIR Phase II project, we are collecting additional data from a larger sample of teachers and students implementing THINKING PRO(formerly Front Porch Experience) in classrooms and finalizing the commercial version of THINKING PRO and its accompanying professional development. For Objective 1, we will finalize and integrate the optimized interactive videos and pretest and posttest assessments into our curriculum. We will revise and expand on existing content and activities to ensure strong alignment with the new competency framework we have developed. For Objective 2, we have completed development of our teacher companion website and will be making updates to the website as they become necessary over time. For Objective 3, we will be working with high school teachers to implement THINKING PRO in more classrooms and provide ongoing support and professional development. We will refine the usability of THINKING PRO and its accompanying professional development. For Objective 4, we will finalize our multi-year, multi-site data collection and assess THINKING PRO's overall impact on student engagement and learning outcomes.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? The purpose of the SBIR Phase II project is to optimize, expand, and develop a commercial release version of THINKING PRO (formerly Front Porch Experience) and associated professional development workshop and companion website for teachers. By further enhancing the quality of our curriculum, we can continue to improve high school students' learning and engagement, improve their college and career readiness, and thereby, contribute to the economic development of rural communities. By providing teachers with professional development tools and resources, we can strengthen their practice and empower them to use THINKING PRO in schools across the country to enhance their students' learning outcomes. Our SBIR Phase II R&D focused on four technical objectives: Objective 1: Expansion and optimization of the online module; Objective 2: Teacher companion website; Objective 3: Technical usability of the online module; and Objective 4: Multi-year, multi-site analysis of student learning and engagement. In the Year 2 reporting period, we have completed or are near completion of the four technical objectives established in the grant application. For Objective 1, we continued to optimize the module's technical and curricular components by expanding and updating our suite of interactive videos, developing a competency framework, and optimizing the module's assignments and assessments. The interactive videos adjust to student ability levels and learning pace to foster cognitive skills and are our technology innovation. An interactive video can be experienced here: https://www.thinkinghabitats.com/interactive-learning-videos For Objective 2, we have completed the creation of our companion website to promote the commercially ready version of THINKING PRO. The website is the landing page for teachers and connects with our learning platform. Please visit our homepage here: https://www.thinkinghabitats.com For Objective 3, we tested the technical usability of the module and its accompanying professional development program with several teachers and received positive feedback that helped us refine the professional development process. Among these were several rural English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers, who found THINKING PRO to be effective in boosting their students' reading and communication skills, showing potential for a new demographic of teachers interested in purchasing our product. For Objective 4, we collected student learning and engagement data to determine the effectiveness of the online module. Our interactive videos continue to have positive learning outcomes in fostering students' cognitive skills. When implementing with Year 2 students, 92% of students reached proficient or above across the critical thinking videos and 83% of students reached proficient or above across the reading comprehension videos. When providing feedback on our learning program, 88% of students agreed that THINKING PRO encouraged them to listen to and share ideas with their peers and 87% agreed that THINKING PRO empowered them with thinking tools relevant for decision making. We are excited that we were able to continuously increase the impact of THINKING PRO on student learning outcomes throughout the SBIR Phase II R&D. References: National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (2019). Nations Report Card. Retrieved from: https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/reading/

Publications

• Type: Book Chapters Status: Accepted Year Published: 2022 Citation: Feucht, F.C., Michaelson, M.K., Rotshtein, R., Bargardi, S., Bush, R. & McBride, J. (accepted). Creating â¿¿Front Porch Experiences⿝ for High School Teachers and Students: Two cases of a local-news-driven curriculum in English and Social Studies classrooms. In R. Spannring, W. Schmidt, & C. Unterrainer, (Eds.), Institutions and Organizations as Learning Environments for Participation and Democracy. Springer Nature.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: Feucht, F.C. & Bush, R. (2022, December). Letâ¿¿s Talk about News: Students analyze and deliberate current issues using a non-biased process. Presentation delivered at the annual convention of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Conference, Philadelphia, PA.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: Feucht, F.C. & Bush, R. (2022, December). News media literacy meets civic engagement: Discover an unbiased, non-partisan way of engaging students in local issues. Presentation presented at the annual convention of the National Social Studies Supervisor Association (NSSSA), Philadelphia, PA.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2022 Citation: Feucht, F.C. (2022, November). THINKING PRO: How do I teach news media literacy in my classroom? Teacher training session delivered at National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE) Conference, Anaheim, CA.

Progress 09/01/20 to 08/31/21

Outputs
Target Audience:In the Year 1 reporting period of the R&D project, we implemented our optimized and expanded FPE curriculum in an English Language Arts (ELA) classroom with 31 ninth-grade students. We also worked with a group of 13 pre-service teachers in a college Social Studies methods course in using the FPE to improve critical thinking and media literacy instruction in their Social Studies teaching. We conducted a professional development training workshop with 10 teachers in a rural school who are interested in using the FPE as an intervention for low achieving (RTI) and English as a Second Language (ESL) students. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?In the Year 1 reporting period of the Phase II project, we developed a more extensive, teacher professional development (PD) workshop. Teachers are introduced to the technical and curricular components of the FPE and given the opportunity for hands-on exploration of the module, group discussion with peers, planning and reflection. We developed a framework and schedule of activities for the PD, put together presentations and resources for teachers, and conducted the first training sessions this summer with a group of 10 participating teachers, with implementation scheduled for the fall. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?In the Year 1 reporting period of the Phase II project, we have disseminated our results at professional associations for school teachers and administrators targeting a total of 7 regional and national conferences as public knowledge sharing and training platforms. Regional professional associations and their conferences: The Michigan Council for Social Studies (MCSS) virtual conference The Michigan Council for Social Studies (MCSS) virtual webinar series National professional associations and their conferences: The annual convention of the National Social Studies Supervisor Association (NSSSA) The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) virtual conference The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) virtual conference The National Newspaper Association (NNA) annual convention The Department of Education (DOE) and Institute of Education Sciences (IES) 2021 Ed Games Expo Please see "Products" for a detailed list of conference presentations. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?For Objective 1, we will continue to optimize the technical and curriculum components of the FPE, as well as our professional development workshop, based on the feedback we receive from teachers, administrators, and consultants. For Objective 2, we will build upon our training materials to create training videos and develop the website as a space where teachers can share tools and ideas and form connections with their peers. For Objective 3, we will collect usability data from teachers who participated in our training as they implement the FPE in their classrooms. We will also collect data from teachers at other schools who will participate in our PD and use the FPE in their classrooms in Year 2. We will analyze these data to help us further optimize the FPE curriculum and PD workshop. For Objective 4, we will collect student learning and engagement data using a larger sample of students across multiple school sites for a large-scale data analysis and comparison across multiple years, ranging from Phase I to Phase II, encompassing a total of 3 years of data.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Reading comprehension and critical thinking skills have been identified as persistent national education problems (OECD, 2009; Nippold, 2017), and their effects have been particularly costly on the college and career readiness of students in rural communities where only 29.3% of 18-to-24-year-olds enroll in undergraduate or vocational programs (NCES, 2019). In the Phase I R&D, we developed the Front Porch Experience (FPE), an online learning module that targets these skills by engaging high school students in rural communities with their local news media to improve their knowledge, skills, and dispositions about the news and help them make informed decisions to lead successful lives. Our Phase I research established the effectiveness of the FPE, as over 80% of students demonstrated proficiency when using a series of interactive videos to learn new reading and critical thinking skills targeted by the module, and 70% of students showed improvement in their knowledge and skills from pretest to posttest. Teachers adopted 80-100% of the FPE's features when teaching the module and praised the curriculum for its adaptability to their own classroom needs and the use of a reliable process to teach key disciplinary and cross-disciplinary skills. The purpose of the Phase II project is to optimize, expand, and develop a commercial release version of the Front Porch Experience (FPE) and associated professional development workshop and companion website for teachers. By further enhancing the quality of our curriculum, we can continue to improve high school students' learning and engagement, improve their college and career readiness, and thereby, contribute to the economic development of rural communities. By providing teachers with professional development tools and resources, we can strengthen their practice and empower them to use the FPE in schools across the country to enhance their students' learning outcomes. Our Phase II R&D focused on four technical objectives: Objective 1: Expansion and optimization of the online module; Objective 2: Teacher companion website; Objective 3: Technical usability of the online module; and Objective 4: Two-year, multi-site analysis of student learning and engagement. For Objective 1, we made significant progress on the expansion and optimization of the FPE's technical and curricular components, including the development of several new features that enhance the localization of the curriculum and aim to deepen students' learning and engagement. We developed and integrated a capstone project that provides students significant freedom in choosing reading materials that are meaningful and relevant to them, as well as allowing students to see a greater connection between what they are learning in the FPE and applying it to a real-world context. Finally, we developed and piloted our professional development workshop with a group of 10 teachers who will be implementing the FPE in their classrooms in Year 2. For Objective 2, the majority of milestones for the development of the teacher companion website have been scheduled for Year 2. The materials we developed in Year 1 for the teacher professional development workshop will serve as the starting point for our teacher website, and will be used to create training videos for teachers. For Objective 3, we tested the technical usability of the optimized and expanded curriculum with a class of 31 ninth-grade English Language Arts (ELA) students. The FPE was taught by our research team across a 4-week timespan. We tested the effectiveness of our new curriculum components using direct observation in the classroom and by soliciting feedback from students via a survey at the end of the unit. Students indicated which components of the FPE worked well or did not work well for them. The components that worked best for students were small group discussions (worked well for 72% of students) and the capstone project (56% of students). These results show promise that these new and optimized components of our FPE curriculum enhance the overall experience for students and are a valuable addition to the learning program. For Objective 4, we collected student learning and engagement data from our sample of 31 ninth-grade students through their proficiency scores on the FPE's interactive videos, their assessment scores from pretest to posttest, and responses to the feedback survey at the end of the unit. 89% of students reached proficiency on the reading comprehension videos and 93% reached proficiency on the critical thinking videos. Additionally, 83% of students improved their score on the assessment from pretest to posttest. These results are higher than those from Phase I, showing promise that our optimized curriculum has the potential to achieve even greater learning outcomes for students. Students were asked to respond to a series of items related to their engagement of the FPE, in which they ranked their agreement on a 4-point scale (strongly disagree, disagree, agree, or strongly agree). 64% of students agreed that the FPE challenged their thinking and learning, 68% agreed that the FPE encouraged them to listen to and share ideas with peers, 68% agreed that the FPE helped them feel more connected to their community, 80% agreed that the FPE empowered them with thinking tools relevant for decision-making, and 84% agreed that the FPE helped them be more mindful of how they engage with the news. Within the Year 1 reporting period, we have made progress on all four of the technical objectives established in the grant application. Additionally, we made significant progress and completed a number of tasks ahead of schedule in optimizing and expanding the technical and curricular components of the online module. These expanded components have been well-received by teachers and students, show promise in enhancing the overall quality of our curriculum, and support the usability of our optimized curriculum to improve student learning and engagement. References National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (2019). Nations Report Card. Retrieved: https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/reading/ Nippold, M. A. (2017). Reading Comprehension Deficits in Adolescents: Addressing Underlying Language Abilities. Lang Speech Hear Serv Sch, 48(2), 125-131. doi: 10.1044/2016_LSHSS-16-0048. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (2009). PISA 2009 Assessment framework: Key competencies in reading, mathematics and science. Paris, France.

Publications

• Type: Book Chapters Status: Under Review Year Published: 2021 Citation: Feucht, F.C., Michaelson, M.K., Rotshtein, R., Bargardi, S., Bush, R. & McBride, J. (Under Review). Creating â¿¿Front Porch Experiences⿝ for High School Teachers and Students: Two cases of a local-news-driven curriculum in English and Social Studies classrooms. In R. Spannring, W. Schmidt, & C. Unterrainer, (Eds.), Institutions and Organizations as Learning Environments for Participation and Democracy. Springer Nature.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Feucht, F.C. (2021, June). Disinformation Games: Using the W-Question System. Video presented as part of a panel at the Department of Education (DOE) and Institute of Education Sciences (IES) 2021 Ed Games Expo, Online.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Feucht, F.C., Michaelson, M.K., Rotshtein, R., Bush, R. & Bargardi, S. (2021, April). News Media and civic engagement: High school students find their voice and place in their community. Professional development training delivered at the Michigan Council for Social Studies (MCSS) Virtual Webinar Series, Online.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2021 Citation: Feucht, F.C., Rotshtein, R. & Michaelson, M.K. (2021, February). News Media Literacy: Students use W-Questions to unpack the content and trustworthiness of news reports. Professional development training delivered at the Michigan Council for Social Studies (MCSS) Virtual Conference, Online.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Feucht, F.C., Michaelson, M.K., Rotshtein, R., Bush, R. & Bargardi, S. (2020, December). Students use W-Questions to evaluate the content and trustworthiness of news reports. Professional development training delivered at National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Virtual Conference, Online.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Feucht, F.C., Bush, R., Bargardi, S., Rotshtein, R. & Michaelson, M.K. (2020, December). Creating Collaborative Civic Spaces through Media Literacy. Paper presented at the annual convention of the National Social Studies Supervisor Association (NSSSA), Online.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Feucht, F.C., Rotshtein, R., Michaelson, M.K. & Bargardi, S. (2020, November). Critical Media Literacy: News Media Literacy: Students use W-Questions to evaluate the content and trustworthiness of news reports. Paper presented at the 2020 National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Virtual Conference, Online.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Feucht, F.C. (2020, October). High School Students Read Local Newspapers. Paper presented at the 2020 National Newspaper Association (NNA) Annual Convention, Online.
• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Feucht, F.C. (2020, October). The Young News Reader: What newspapers should know and do in 2020. Paper presented at the 2020 National Newspaper Association (NNA) Annual Convention, Online.