Gobee, a prototype assessment tool for emergency settings, set out to make it easier for teachers and facilitators to measure children’s learning progress. Following the initial stages of development, War Child and NYU Global TIES share their learnings and publish the codes on an open-source platform.

Despite widespread enthusiasm for remedial education programming with refugee populations, there is little rigorous evidence on how to design and implement such programs. We employ a cluster-randomized design of non-equivalent treatment groups to test the impact of access to two types of program enhancement: longer program duration and the addition of skilltargeted social and emotional learning (SEL) activities for Syrian refugees enrolled in Lebanese public schools. We find that, compared to 10 weeks of programming, 26 weeks marginally increases students’ literacy skills (ES = 0.04) and significantly improves behavioral regulation (ES = 0.31), but students reported less positive perceptions of their public school environment (ES= −0.83 to −0.89) and remedial tutoring site (ES= −0.15 to −0.24). We also find that the addition of skill-targeted SEL activities to 26 weeks of programming results in higher student reports of school-related stress compared to programming without skill-targeted activities (ES = 0.21). Implications for program and policy are discussed.

In this insightful brief, we delve into the transformative power of the Core Practice approach—a beacon of hope for educators working in challenging environments. The Core Practice framework introduces evidence-based, high-impact teaching techniques that promise not only to enhance student learning outcomes but also to provide a practical, coherent, and adaptable solution for teacher professional development.

This report summarizes the results of a survey the Gobee team launched to better understand the experience of stakeholders in the Education in Emergencies (EiE) sector when it comes to EdTech in low-resource settings, with a special focus on digital assessments and what it takes to develop and maintain open-source models (OSS) and data protection regulations.

In 2019, Dr. Lindsay Brown at NYU Global TIES for Children co-developed and implemented the Building Expert Teachers Through Evidence-based Research (BETTER) program with Laura Killips.

The purpose of this product is to summarize and showcase the achievements on communication of the evidence and lessons learned from the 3EA E-Cubed project. In sum, we generated 59 total communications products across 12 different formats targeting diverse audiences. These products are presented in 12 different formats, to cater to these diverse audiences and maximize the reach and impact, ranging from academic journals, policy briefs, and datasets to press releases, blogs, webinars, interactive online tools, and more.

Science is the most useful when it catalyzes change. In this tool, we provide actionable recommendations and guidance on how to best support education in emergencies, to get the evidence into the capable hands of the education stakeholders.

Key messages for researchers and practitioners:Key messages for researchers and practitioners:

When studying brief and skill-targeted social-emotional learning activities, consider calculating measures of dosage: how much (quantity), how often (repetition pattern), and for how long (duration) the activities are implemented. Examine these measures as potential predictors of program outcomes or moderators of the program impact; and use the information to determine the “optimal dosage” when scaling up.

Link these measures with teachers’ and enumerators’ reports on implementation to provide better guidance on overall implementation quality. Examine these measures as potential predictors of program outcomes or moderators of the program impact; and use the information to determine the “optimal dosage” when scaling up.

Link these measures with teachers’ and enumerators’ reports on implementation to provide better guidance on overall implementation quality."

In humanitarian settings, social-emotional learning (SEL) programs for children are often delivered using a field-feasible approach where the programs are more easily deployable and adaptable in the field, require minimal training, and depend less on the strict sequence and structure of the program components to elicit the intended treatment effect. However, evidence is lacking on what aspects of this implementation approach enable the SEL programming to be more beneficial to children’s SEL development.

This blog is written by Dr Lindsay Brown, Senior Research Scientist at NYU-Global TIES in Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. Lindsay primarily investigates how to support teachers in areas of conflict and crisis with a focus on flexible and scalable teacher professional development strategies. She works mainly in the Middle East and Africa.

Image credit:

Pawel Czerwinski
@pawel_czerwinski via Unsplash.

Refugee children face significant adversities that can threaten critical developmental processes and hamper learning outcomes. This study examines how post-migration risk factors at the community, household, and individual level experienced by primary school-aged Syrian refugee children in Lebanon (N = 448, Age M = 9.08, SD = 1.90) are associated with cognitive, emotional, and behavioral developmental processes as well as literacy and numeracy performance. We identified several risk factors, including attending a lower grade than their age-expected grade level, that uniquely predict Syrian refugee children's developmental processes and academic outcomes.

Despite substantial cross-national interest in remedial programming as a way to support low-achieving students, evidence of its effectiveness is rare, particularly in low-income and/or crisis-affected contexts. In this article, we present experimental evidence of the impact of a remedial tutoring program on academic outcomes from a two-level randomized trial of two treatments in Niger: school randomization testing the impact of skill-targeted SEL activities and within-school student-level randomization testing the impact of access to remedial tutoring.

In 2019, Dr. Lindsay Brown at New York University’s Global TIES for Children (NYU-TIES) co-developed and implemented the Building Expert Teachers Through Evidence-based Research (BETTER) program with Laura Killips. BETTER is designed to support intentional and sustained teacher learning across contexts. It utilizes practice-based strategies to develop teachers’ foundational skills and knowledge and to sustain them with the support of teacher coaches and other resources within education systems. The program builds upon decades of scientific research that demonstrates that effective professional development: demands active and applied learning from its participants; provides sustained and repeated learning opportunities; showcases models of effective practice; provides expert support; and fits within a coherent framework of practice.

Teachers are expected to do it all: to attend to students’ academic, social, and emotional, skills while finding time to plan, grade, and develop professionally. In the wake of COVID-19 school closures, they are expected to remediate for loss of learning, target instruction to multiple skill levels, and ensure a safe learning environment. But they are currently provided with only a “patchwork of opportunities” to build such skills, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and humanitarian contexts, where teachers are especially crucial. This approach to professional development does not provide an opportunity to build expertise in the teaching practices that are required to fulfill such wide-ranging expectations.

The COVID-19 outbreak ignited a monumental education emergency, disrupting in-person learning and relying on technological schooling solutions that exacerbated many pre-existing education inequities. Lack of child care options, inconsistent access to technology, and variable quality of remote learning experiences all contributed to some students’ infrequent or complete lack of attendance to virtual schooling. As kids go back to in-person learning, schools and educators face a critical question: How do we handle students who have missed most or all of remote learning?

Image credit: IRC

To generate the evidence needed to understand, improve and share what works to help refugee children learn and succeed in school, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and NYU Global TIES for Children (TIES/NYU) established a strategic partnership, the Evidence for Action: Education in Emergencies (3EA) initiative. In Lebanon, this program was designed and delivered to complement the Lebanese public education system and enhance learning and retention of Syrian refugee children through remedial tutoring programs infused with climate-targeted social-emotional learning (SEL) principles and practices (Tutoring in a Healing Classrooms - HCT) and skill-targeted SEL interventions (Mindfulness activities, Brain Games, 5-Component SEL Curriculum).

To generate the evidence needed to understand, improve and share what works to help refugee children learn and succeed in school, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and NYU Global TIES for Children (TIES/NYU) established a strategic partnership, the Evidence for Action: Education in Emergencies (3EA) initiative. 3EA in Niger was designed and delivered to help strengthen the public education system in Niger and to serve refugee, IDP and host community children in the hard-hit Diffa region. It strove to achieve this through a remedial tutoring program infused with climate-targeted social-emotional learning (SEL) principles and practices (Tutoring in a Healing Classrooms), and adding skill-targeted SEL interventions (Mindfulness activities, Brain Games).

Lebanon Year 1 Deidentified Days

IHDSC met with NYU Global TIES for Children (TIES) researchers Lindsay Brown and Ha Yeon Kim to discuss their research with students in Niger and the insights and challenges that come with doing research in conflict-affected areas. This conversation was edited for clarity and length.