About Us
Translating research results into effective practices and policies.
The Education Innovation Institute was created to leverage new and existing applied research to solve practical problems in education. EII will accomplish this by engaging three groups critical to systemic change: researchers, policymakers, and educators.
EII works to break down barriers between research, policy and practice by staying abreast of the latest research and making it accessible to non-researchers through our policy briefs, blog posts in education publications and speaking engagements. Our briefs highlight goals, problems, popular solutions, unintended consequences and practical recommendations to help policymakers manage the ongoing challenge of developing and refining policies to respond to local, state and national demands.
EII also works with various programs within UNC and the community to prepare those who will be the next generation of teachers, administrators, and education policy researchers. We also support training for current professionals. In response to education policy and reform focused on data and outcomes, EII will partner with teachers and administrators to improve their skills for using data to inform instruction and positive change in their schools.
EII is working with the University of Northern Colorado’s College of Education and Behavioral Sciences to develop a model for evaluating teacher preparation programs that will study the effectiveness of recent UNC graduates in districts across the state. Using academic achievement and other important student outcome data collected over several years, the project will allow us to link teachers from UNC’s program to student performance data in order to gauge their success with children from a broad array of backgrounds – the ultimate measure of any teacher preparation program. UNC has long focused on the performance of its teacher preparation programs by following up with graduates in schools using data from principals and district human resource personnel. The new model will build on this earlier work to provide an even fuller understanding of the circumstances under which UNC graduates are most successful and provide information to make the program even stronger. We hope it will become an example for future evaluation studies as Colorado continues to build its statewide longitudinal data system.