Research Projects

CASTL is an interdisciplinary research center working to advance the quality and impact of teaching through scientific study in educational settings from infancy to higher education. Projects at CASTL bring together researchers and practitioners across expertise and age levels.

Projects are grouped by age level on this page. You can also view CASTL projects grouped within the following categories:

  • Child Development: Includes children and adolescents developmental skills, behaviors, and interactions (including socio-emotional, self-regulation, motor, language & literacy, and STEM).
  • Teacher Development and Support: Includes professional development, coaching, monitoring, and curriculum development.
  • Methodologies: Includes implementation research, observational instruments, longitudinal data collection, and randomized control trails.

May may also view an archive of previously completed projects.

 

Projects by Age Level

New Version of the CLASS™ for Observing Infant Settings

The new Classroom Assessment Scoring System™ - Infant Version provides a much-needed tool for objectively describing the quality of interactions between caregivers and infants and the extent to which caregivers enable infants to learn about their environment. READ MORE

 

Success Story

Head Start began in 1965 and is the longest-running national school readiness program in the United States. Nearly 25 million low-income children and their families have benefited from Head Start's education services.

In 2007 Congress required Head Start to include research-based performance standards in its program monitoring. Head Start chose the CLASS tool for its nationwide improvement efforts. It is being used in all 50,000 Head Start classrooms int he U.S. as a measure of high quality teaching.

"With an assessment tool like CLASS, we've found a missing piece of the puzzle that we've been looking for, for a very long time," reports Amanda Bryans, director of the Office of Head Start's Educational and Partnerships Division. "This tool...[focuses] on something that we know is so important to a young child's life: supportive relationships built on quality interactions."