Research Centers, Projects & Initiatives
Penn GSE is home to several faculty-run centers that produce cutting-edge research on global issues in education. Additionally, the School’s many practice-driven initiatives put innovative practices, strategies, and tools directly into the hands of practitioners, both in Philadelphia and across the globe.
The Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy (Penn AHEAD) is dedicated to fostering open, equitable, and democratic societies through higher education.
A center for global education innovation, Catalyst @ Penn GSE connects people and ideas to develop new ways to advance education in novel and meaningful directions.
Penn GSE’s Center for Professional Learning offers Virtual Institutes, Certificate Programs, and a variety of webinars and workshops for teachers, school leaders, and community organizations.
The Center for School Study Councils (CSSC) serves as a catalyst for public school superintendents to be proactive leaders and facilitates their professional learning and application of that learning.
The Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning (C-SAIL) examines how college- and career-ready standards are implemented, if they improve student learning, and what instructional tools measure and support their implementation.
The Coalition for Educational Equity provides innovative resources, research-based training, and technical assistance and consultation to school district leaders throughout the Mid-Atlantic region in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York.
The Collaboratory for Teacher Education at Penn GSE is a laboratory for the design, implementation, and study of experimental approaches to teacher education.
The Community Based Mathematics Project brings together Philadelphia teachers and Penn GSE faculty and students to develop locally relevant and social justice oriented mathematics curriculum.
The Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) is a joint effort of seven graduate schools of education. Its research focuses on school reform, governance, policy, and finance.
The Core Practice Consortium brings together teacher educators from across institutions, disciplines, and theoretical perspectives to grapple with questions about how better to prepare novice teachers.
The PennPBL program focuses on the important work of cultivating teachers’ capacity to enact the core practices of project-based teaching.
The Ongoing Assessment Project (OGAP) is a large-scale field trial of a mathematics formative assessment program conducted by CPRE and funded by the National Science Foundation.
A research group to learn everything we can about having high-quality digital discussions about literature in English Language Arts (ELA) classrooms.
Semillas Digitales (Digital Seeds in English) is a research-based initiative that collaborates with local stakeholders to improve education in coffee-producing communities in Nicaragua through holistic teacher support and technology integration.
Convened by the Center for Urban Ethnography at Penn GSE since 1980, the Ethnography in Education Research Forum is the largest annual meeting of qualitative researchers in education.
The Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education celebrates innovation in education by recognizing outstanding individuals who have dedicated themselves to improving education and whose accomplishments are making a difference today.
HEARD: The Hub for Equity, Anti-Oppression, Research, and Development at GSE draws together members of our community committed to equity and anti-oppression scholarship and to provide opportunities for continuing learning.
The Institute for Research on Higher Education (IRHE) is a university-wide research institute that conducts research relevant to policymakers and educational practitioners.
The Knowledge Building Innovation Network (KBIN) connects members of knowledge building’s global community to continuously innovate on infrastructures for learning and knowledge building.
The National Center for Adult Literacy (NCAL) focuses on research, innovation, and training in adult education and technology. The International Literacy Institute (ILI), established by UNESCO and Penn in 1994, provides leadership in research, development, and training in the broad field of international literacy and...
Creating a new model of leadership development that builds bridges across sectors and equips leaders to develop visionary approaches to complex challenges in education.
The EBPC is considered the most prestigious and well-funded education business plan competition, celebrating and nurturing meaningful innovations in education, offering a full range of supports to elevate ideas to the next level and move research into practice.
The OSCE builds partnerships with Philadelphia educators, schools, and community organizations to address the challenges of urban education and contribute to residents’ growth and wellbeing.
PEDAL: Practical English for Daily Living offers free English as a Second Language classes taught by students in the M.S.Ed. TESOL program. It provides courses for family members of staff, students, professors, scholars, and post-docs at Penn, as well as Community courses for West Philadelphians.
The Penn Center for Learning Analytics uses a blend of large-scale and small-scale research methods, from analytics and data mining to ethnographic and field observation methods, to study learning and engagement.
The Penn Early Childhood and Family Research Center aims to advance the use of science in a context of public trust to address problems affecting the well-being of young children and families facing systemic injustice and disadvantage.
Our searchable Penn GSE in Philadelphia map offers a snapshot of the many ways that Penn GSE students, alumni, faculty, and staff are answering the call to action and service in schools and community organizations across the city.
The Penn Literacy Network (PLN) is a comprehensive professional development/curricular enhancement/school reform program, providing on-site and regionally-based credit-bearing or non-credit bearing courses, workshops, coaching programs, and leadership trainings.
The Philadelphia Writing Project (PhilWP) is network of over 800 teacher consultants who work with teachers and other educators to explore literacy, writing, teaching, and learning in their classrooms and schools regardless of grade or discipline.
The Project for Mental Health and Optimal Development, based at Penn’s Graduate School of Education, explores the relationship between mental health and optimal development among children, youth, and the adults who support them.
The PLATO Teacher observation tool captures literacy instruction across curricular approaches with students in grades 3-9. It can be used for research, professional development, and to diagnose teacher...
The Racial Empowerment Collaborative (REC) is a research, program development, and training center that brings together community leaders, researchers, authority figures, families, and youth to study and promote racial literacy and health in schools and neighborhoods.
Responsive Math Teaching (RMT) is an NSF-funded research project focused on improving mathematics instruction in a network of elementary schools through a research-practice partnership between Penn GSE and the School District of Philadelphia.
The Research and Interventions Promoting Positive Learning Environments (RIPPLE) Lab group conducts research on how children’s early education experiences shape their development and learning, and how policies and programs can improve these experiences.
The Penn GSE Perspectives on Urban Education journal is an electronic, student-run publication and interactive forum to investigate critical issues in urban education.
West Philadelphia Collaborative History is a website with resources on the history of 20th- and 21st-century West Philadelphia, along with a series of programs to encourage community collaboration and to support educators seeking to use local history in the classroom.
Working Papers in Educational Linguistics is a student-managed journal focused on the many areas of research within educational linguistics.