Metiri Group Consultants for Mid-Atlantic Regional Educational Laboratory Contract

Dr. Vandana Thadani has extensive experience conducting field-based studies of technology programs in K12 and university settings. As an evaluator for CENS Educational Group, Dr. Thadani evaluated the efficacy of education module that incorporates real-time data from embedded network sensors; designed field study, constructed measures, and advising on professional development and implementation of study. As an Associate at Metiri Group, Dr. Thadai designed and implemented scientifically-based research study involving technology use in middle-school science classes. She conducted evaluations of numerous, large-scale K12 and University education technology initiatives nationwide. Project funding sources included NSF, EETT, PT3, and Lilly Foundation funds. Dr. Thadani worked on a team commissioned by the State Education Technology Directors Association (SETDA) to recommend the data that should be collected by each state to meet Federal technology-related reporting requirements and contributed to development of methods and instruments used for technology-use data collection in each state. She has had numerous publications and has participated in state and national educational, such as the U.S. Department of Education’s 2002 PT3 Evaluation Resources: Standards Aligned Surveys and Survey Building Tools Grantee’s Meeting in Washington D.C. Currently Dr. Thadani is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Loyola Marymount University.

Dr. Taylor Martin is an Assistant Professor of Science and Mathematics Education at the University of Texas at Austin. For more than ten years, Dr. Martin has been involved in designing, developing, and evaluating innovative mathematics and science curricula for the elementary school to the college level. Dr. Martin’s primary research interest is how people learn content in complex domains from active participation, both physical and social. She has conducted research in this area as part of several National Science Foundation funded projects. One was the Jasper Project at Vanderbilt University: a large-scale investigation of project-based instruction and its impact on student learning. Another was the Technology Tools Project at the University of North Carolina Greensboro: a professional development program that trained large number of teachers in using technology in their classrooms. The Teachable Agents and Inventing to Prepare for Learning Projects investigated the use of computer technology and student innovation on learning in complex domains like algebra and statistics. Many of these projects contributed to the research foundation for the development of Bransford and colleagues’ How People Learn (HPL) principles for designing learning environments.
As an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin, she is cooperating with local elementary schools to improve assessment tools for young children’s mathematics and to examine how hands-on activities impact mathematics learning. In addition, she is investigating the effects of curricula based on How People Learn principles on the development of adaptive expertise in biomedical engineering through cooperation with the VaNTH Engineering Research Center in Bioengineering Educational Technologies. In this work, she has led the effort to develop, implement, and evaluate assessments of adaptive expertise. She has published the results of this research in journals and at national and international conferences.

Dr. Sara B. Kajder is an assistant professor of literacy education at the University of Louisville. Her research has focused both on how preservice English teachers exercise technological pedagogical content knowledge and the ways in which k-12 readers and writers use digital technologies to construct multimodal compositions. Kajder earned her doctorate in English education and instructional technology from the University of Virginia where she was a research fellow in the Center for Technology and Teacher Education. In that work, she served as the principle investigator (English Education) in national research initiative with Canon USA and Olympus, exploring the impact of using digital images in k-12 classrooms in order to increase student textual literacy and explore the development and use of interpretive reading communities.
A consultant for Holt, Rinehart, Winston Publishers, the National Gallery of Art, Texas Instruments, Canon USA, Apple Computers, and Microsoft’s Partners in Learning program, Dr. Kajder has worked to guide the development and implementation of one-to-one and literacy focused hardware and software tools into the k-12 classroom. Instructionally, she works with k-12 schools in the US, Bermuda, and Central America to develop technology-infused instructional practices that develop and advance students’ literacy skills. Dr. Kajder serves as the co-chair of the technology commission of the Conference on English Education, co-chair of the English committee of the Society of Information Technology and Teacher Education, and represents the National Council of Teachers of English at the annual National Technology Leadership policy and research summits held in Washington, D.C. She has extensively published books, chapters, and journal articles and has presented worldwide. She was awarded the 2002 National Technology Leadership Fellowship from the Conference in English Education and the Society for Information Technology in Teacher Education. Prior to her work at UofL and UVA, Kajder taught middle and high school English/Language Arts in Montgomery County, MD.