Search Results | Institute for Educational Initiatives

Three Notre Dame Faculty Recognized in 2025 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings

Three University of Notre Dame faculty members have been named to the 2025 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings. This prestigious annual list recognizes the 200 scholars whose academic work has most influenced educational practice and policy nationwide.

CREO Interim Director/Sociology Professor Amy Langenkamp interviewed on the "Experts Corner" of the ASA Sociology of Education Section

Karin Yndestad, newsletter editor of the Experts Corner, recently interviewed CREO Interim Director Amy Langenkamp. The "Experts Corner" is the Sociology of Education section newsletter of the American Sociological Association (ASA).

Empowering through education: A pathway out of poverty for children in India

When Anaya was in third grade in a primary school outside Hyderabad, India, she was told she would have to arrive an hour before the other students each day to clean the classrooms and toilets. Once she reached her class, she was often isolated, bullied, and overlooked.

Yes, Students Can Read Tough Texts. Here’s How to Scaffold Their Learning

How do you get kids to read—and actually understand—hard texts? Teachers know it’s important for students to read historical primary sources, scientific research studies, or literary texts with unfamiliar language, like Shakespeare or the Odyssey.

Feb

Leveraging Faith-Based Communities to Support Children's Development in Failed States: Lessons from Haiti

Feb 11, 12:30pm

Monica Kowalski awarded $10,000 grant from the Notre Dame Office of Research Initiation Grant Program

Monica Kowalski, Associate Director of Program Evaluation and Research for the Institute for Educational Initiatives and Associate Teaching Professor at the University of Notre Dame, has been awarded an Initiation Grant from the Research and Scholarship Program of Notre Dame Research.

L3 Systems Activation

Activating Systems

Activating the systems surrounding children in Haiti serves the purpose of meeting children’s holistic needs at all three levels of their social ecology: the home (lakay), school (lekòl), and church (legliz), or L3. The GC-DWC’s approach of activating the child’s most central networks means implementing intervention strategies such as parent and caregiver workshop initiatives, partnerships with local communities to establish resource centers, working with parish priests to integrate contextually relevant early childhood education (ECD) materials into baptismal training, and more.

By activating the Haitian child’s most central networks, engaging key stakeholders, and leveraging culturally-relevant and engaging programming, the GC-DWC promotes a whole child approach to development that values the cultural richness of Haitian communities and will create a ripple effect throughout the country.

L3 Components

Whole Child Development

A whole child approach to development and learning engages a broad spectrum of support systems, including family, school, and community, to ensure children and youth reach their full potential. Whole child development (WCD) values all aspects of a child’s well-being—social, emotional, physical, intellectual, spiritual, and creative—to ensure they become active citizens and life-long learners. Therefore, GC-DWC Haiti helps parish-school communities to address concerns surrounding children’s nutrition and health, academic learning, mother tongue literacy, and SEL, and deploys curricular reform, teacher training, and effective investments to combat ethnic, racial, and gender inequalities.

Rapid Evaluation, Assessment, and Learning Methodology (REALM)

GC-DWC Haiti leverages learnings from its L3 system to identify the complex spectrum of issues affecting children’s learning and development and to iteratively test and scale community solutions to these issues, using a Rapid Evaluation, Assessment, and Learning Methodology (REALM). By feeding learning back into the community and to local stakeholders through REALM during program implementation, on-the-ground practitioners are able to refine and make adjustments to programming in the moment, ensuring maximum impact and efficacy.

Innovation Communities

In order to refine its L3 interventions and then scale the most relevant and effective ones throughout its wide network of communities in Haiti, GC-DWC Haiti pilots interventions in 5 communities in the Nord department. Using REALM, the team feeds learning back into communities in order for programming to be improved before being scaled throughout the country.