Projects

Brief Description

A working group within the internal mini-grant on “Developing UR capacity in Future of Work” has been engaging in “customer discovery” interviews with various HE student services staff across the UR to better understand their current “pain points” and how AI applications may possibly be leveraged to address some of those pain points.

Key accomplishments to date

• Completed and analyzed 26 interviews with representatives of academic advising, career services, and other student services professionals with advising responsibilities at UR, resulting in a research article and 3 other practitioner publications
• Conducted a first set of 15 interviews with UR admissions staff, which resulted in 2 publications to date.
• Engaging in interviews with decision-makers and influencers about AI adoptions in students services and other related departments at UR.

Brief Description

This project developed an Augmented Reality (AR) application designed to assist wheelchair users in navigating the University of Rochester campus. The app addresses a critical gap, as no commercial or university-supported tools currently exist for accessible wheelchair navigation on campus. Using the Road Scanner app provided by LBS Tech (Korea), the team collected detailed information and photographs of accessibility features such as doors, stairs, elevators, and restrooms across key buildings in the Eastman Quadrangle. This data was synchronized with LBS Tech’s API and integrated into Unity, resulting in a prototype that offers wheelchair-accessible route suggestions, estimated travel times, AR-enhanced visualizations of entrances and navigation paths, and voice feedback for hands-free operation.

Key accomplishments to date

• This project was completed as part of the NSF Research Traineeship on Virtual and Augmented Reality (NSF-NRT#1922591) and served as one of the final projects for the practicum course within the NRT program.
• The project was also presented at the 2025 XR Access Symposium at Cornell Tech on June 26, 2025.

Links for More Information

• Augmented Reality (AR) Navigation System for Wheelchair Users

Brief Description

This 3-year interdisciplinary project (titled “ SaTC-EDU: Dual-track Role-based Learning for Cybersecurity Analysts and Engineers for Effective Defense Operation with Data Analytics”) was funded by NSF to design, implement and study novel learning experiences for cybersecurity analysts and cybersecurity engineers, with the goal to develop not only greater knowledge and skills, but also mindsets that are more conducive to innovative problem solving and teamwork via generative AI.

Key accomplishments to date

• Piloting two preliminary versions of the program - one using hyflex and one fully online.
• Based on the challenges experienced in these pilots with sustaining the participation of working professionals in a multi-week program, we have designed a new version of the program that involves an intensive 3 consecutive days experience - to be piloted in-person in Fall 2025 and online in Spring 2026.

Brief Description

This NSF “CS4all” grant is designed to support 9-12 teachers’ use of innovative computer science curriculum materials. In collaboration with RIT and Syracuse University, the project will leverage the Accessible Learning Labs (ALL) previously created by Daniel Krutz and his research team to provide high-quality and easily adoptable CS materials to 9-12 teachers, mentors, and students. 

Key accomplishments to date

• This grant was awarded in September 2025, with a start date of January 2026.

Links for More Information

• Accessible Learning Labs:

Brief Description

This project, funded by the Moskowitz Family Foundation, focuses on providing teachers with online supporting materials and information to fight bullying in school using literacy.  Started in 2018 with *Carol St.George as the PI, after a year the project pivoted to pursuing the original goal by creating a rich website that would make the materials created easily accessible to everyone. Laura Griffone has been responsible for most of the contents of the website, building on her experiences as an elementary teacher and benefiting from **St.George’s expertise in literacy education and *Borasi and *Han experience with creating innovative multi-media instructional materials.

Key accomplishments to date

• A rich website has been developed, and continues to be updated with new materials. The website is publicly accessible through a link on the LiDA website Resources section.

Links for More Information

• Anti-bullying Education through Literacy Website

Brief Description

This project, funded by the Moskowitz Family Foundation with additional support from the Rosenwald Foundation, aims at increasing literacy development in young children, starting at birth.  Started in early 2020, and involving a collaboration with the UR OBGYN department, this project involves the creation and dissemination of materials and information to support reading and other literacy activities with babies. Laura Griffone has led this project, supported by **St.George’s expertise in literacy education and *Borasi and *Han experience with creating innovative multi-media instructional materials.

Key accomplishments to date

• A rich website has been developed and continues to be updated with new materials. The website is publicly accessible through a link on the LiDA website Resources section.
• The team is currently exploring complementary products that could be associated to the website, to increase its reach and impact with the target population.

Links for More Information

• Reading2Babies website

Brief Description

This 5-year NYSED Smart Start grant was awarded in 2021 to the Wayne-Finger-Lakes (WFL) BOCES to better prepare K-8 teachers in their region to implement the new NYS Computer Science and Digital Fluency Standards for K-12 schools.  Several rural and small city districts from this region are participating in this project.  Each year up to 60 K-8 teachers from these districts are eligible to participate in the year-long fully online professional learning offered by this grant, and includes a 3-day-equivalent Summer Institute followed by a few 2.5 Zoom sessions over the school year for all participants (for a total of about 24 PD hours), and additional work within a mentored Professional Learning Community (PLC) for Tier 2 teachers; all participants are also expected to create online materials based on their classroom implementations, to be publicly shared with other teachers on the project website. WFL BOCES awarded a subcontract to the LiDA Center and the Center for Professional Development and Education Reform to design and deliver this professional learning. The Computer Science strand of this project is led by *Borys, and has involved *Borasi, *Miller, *Carson and other Warner doctoral students, graduates and Noyce Fellows.

Key accomplishments to date

• Despite the major challenges encountered after the COVID-19 pandemic in recruiting K-12 teachers to participate in professional learning programs, a group of teachers has participated each year in the program, and benefited from the learning opportunities offered.
• In the attempt to increase participation we also developed an alternative option consisting of two self-paced asynchronous modules for teachers - one on “Data Visualization” and the other on “Introduction to Coding” - and a few teachers took advantage of these modules, using them to think about their own instruction using technology and explore new technology with feedback from a facilitator.
• Evidence of the impact of this program on teachers’ practices can be found in the recorded presentations provided by each participating teacher at the end of the program, which have been recorded and posted in the project website (created by Gordon Baxter, the program coordinator, with support from *Borys).

Links for More Information

• WFL BOCES Smart Start project website

Brief Description

This 5-year NYSED Smart Start grant was awarded in 2021 to the Greater Southern Tier (GST) BOCES to better prepare K-8 teachers in their region to leverage technology in their teaching.  Several rural and small city districts from this historically under-served region are participating in this project.  Each year up to 60 K-8 teachers from these districts are eligible to participate in the year-long fully online professional learning offered by this grant, which is equivalent to 30 hours of PD and includes a 3-day-equivalent Summer Institute, followed by monthly Zoom meetings and support from a mentor, and culminating in the creation of online materials to be publicly shared with other teachers.  GST BOCES awarded a subcontract to the LiDA Center and the Center for Professional Development and Education Reform to design and deliver this professional learning. This project is led by *Carson, and has involved *Borasi, *Borys, *Miller and other Warner doctoral students & graduates and Noyce Fellows.

Key accomplishments to date

• Despite the major challenges encountered after the COVID-19 pandemic in recruiting K-12 teachers to participate in professional learning programs, a group of teachers has participated each year in the program, and benefited from the learning opportunities offered.
• In the attempt to increase participation we also developed an alternative option consisting of two self-paced asynchronous modules for teachers - one on “Eliciting Prior Knowledge” and the other on “Sharing Student Work” - and a few teachers took advantage of these modules, using them to think about their own instruction using technology and explore new technology with feedback from Carson.
• Evidence of the impact of this program on teachers’ practices can be found in the recorded presentations provided by each participating teacher at the end of the program, which have been recorded and posted in the project website.

Links for More Information

• T3 project public description
• GST Smart Start website

Brief Description

“Hy-flex” – that is, offering courses where some of the students attend classes in person while others simultaneously join those classes virtually – received much attention during the COVID-19 pandemic, as many schools and colleges had to comply with “social distance” mandates that often did not allow all students to be in class at the same time. Recognizing the importance of better understanding how to make the most of this new modality even after the pandemic,  *Kristen Love has been leading a series of initiatives to explore the potential as well as challenges of “hy-flex” for teaching.

Key accomplishments to date

• To date, this has included two UR ED IT mini-grants (awarded in 2022 and 2023, respectively).
• As part of the second ED IT mini-grant,the team continued their study of hyflex implementation in various education and business courses, and disseminated their findings in various conference presentations and publications (currently under review). **Love and *Rashid also created an E-module on effective hyflex teaching, which is posted on the LiDA website.

Links for More Information

• Hyflex Teaching & Learning - eModule

Brief Description

This 4-year project is funded by a $1.8M grant from the NSF Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier program to develop new technology that will facilitate the deployment of AI-powered music production solutions to musicians to make them more self-sufficient, while also developing the conditions for more musicians to be able to take advantage of these new tools.  An important component of the project focuses on the preparation of future musicians. This project builds on a previous Future of Work planning grant, focusing on the emerging occupation of “artist-technologists”.  It is a collaboration between UR Eastman School of MUsic, Hajim School of Engineering, Warner School of Education, as well as Northwestern Computer Science Department.

Key accomplishments to date

• The Future Technology sub-team has made major progress on developing the promised prototype.
• The Future Work/Workers sub-team conducted 42 interviews with a diverse group of musicians in 2023 and received over 200 responses to a national survey conducted in 2025.
• A 1-week summer camp for high school students on using AI in music-making was designed and piloted in summer 2024, and then refined and implemented again in summer 2025. Detailed reports of both experiences have been created.
• A college course on using AI in music-making was first designed and piloted as a 2-semester course in 2023-24, and then significantly redesigned to be offered as a 1-semester course (piloted in Fall 2025).
• We are working at putting together an e-book that will include curated resources that could be used by other music educators to implement the summer camp and/or college course.

Links for More Information

• TEAMup project public abstract
• TEAMuP project overview
• TEAMup poster presented at the 2023 PI meeting
• Open-access article on ethics of AI in music

Brief Description

The new Computer Science and Digital Fluency Standards for K-12 schools adopted in New York State in 2020 expect ALL k-12 teachers to be able to integrate several of these standards in their courses. Yet most pre-service teacher preparation programs are not set up to prepare their students for this new mandate. The LiDA Center has developed a few new courses and programs to address this challenge, while also obtaining external funding to support some of these initiatives.

Key accomplishments to date

• *Borasi and *Borys developed a proposal for a new Advanced Certificate (for current teachers in any subject area) and a new M.S. degree in Teaching Computer Science (for pre-service teachers seeking certification in Teaching Computer Science K-12), which was approved by NYSED in 2o22.
• One of the new core courses, "Integrating Computer Science across the Curriculum”, was designed to serve also as an elective for pre-service and in-service teachers in any other Warner teacher education program.
• The new courses and programs have been launched as of May 2025. A $1.2M Noyce Scholarship grant has been awarded in October 2024 by the National Science Foundation to support full scholarships for 21 math, science, and computer science pre-service teachers who will add both the "Integrating Computer Science across the Curriculum” course and an Advanced Certificate in K-12 Digitally-Rich Teaching to their teacher preparation program. The first cohort started this program in May 2025.

Links for More Information

• Warner computer science teacher preparation programs
• 2024 Noyce Scholarship grant - brief description

Brief Description

ROC Reading Partners, led by Warner faculty **St.George and **Love, and under the umbrella of Project Read, is a remote evening reading program that brings together volunteers from Warner Graduate students, U of R and St. John Fisher undergraduates, and community members with Rochester city school students (Grades 2 – 4) to engage the young readers in quality virtually literacy instruction and activities in their homes using Zoom. Building on a previous program (Nighttime Reading Buddies) and leveraging online technologies, the new program was launched in October 2023. Graduate Assistants lead the interactive sessions, running Monday through Thursday evenings 6:15-7:15 pm throughout the school year, which involve volunteers (predominantly pre-service teachers).  An innovative, culturally responsive curriculum that centers on joy  is used during the literacy sessions that also incorporates the children’s interests to foster agency and autonomy. Volunteers have a wide variety of support available to conduct the nightly sessions including a large and diverse collection of digital library material and ample tools and resources from their PD sessions. ROC Reading Partners also includes a robust research component that looks more closely at pre-service teacher experiential data, family engagement and curriculum development tied to the literacy initiative.

Key accomplishments to date

• The previous program, Nighttime Reading Buddies, ran for three years. Planning for the new initiative, ROC Reading Partners, began in Fall 2022, with recruitment of volunteers and participating families launching in Summer 2023. The program officially launched on October 2, 2023.
• Overtime expanded the tutor base to meet growing family participation, maintaining an optimal 2:1 tutor-to-student ratio.
• Implemented a weekly micro–professional development model to support ongoing tutor growth and also built a course in partnership with the University of Rochester to bridge theory and practice for tutors. Created pathways for returning volunteers to serve as mentors and leaders, strengthening the community of practice.

Links for More Information

• ROC Reading Partners brief description
• Information to become a ROC Reading Partner volunteer

Brief Description

In Spring 2024, Warner launched a schoolwide initiative to respond to the new opportunities and challenges presented to education by AI, and generative AI in particular. As part of this initiative, we are investing in developing internal capacity about AI and its implications for education, engaging in research projects around applications and implications of AI for education, and supporting educators (including our own students and faculty) in learning about AI.

Key accomplishments to date

• In January 2024, the dean formed the Warner AI Task Force (chaired by LiDA Director *Borasi) to oversee this schoolwide strategic initiative.
• Multiple opportunities for professional learning about AI and its implications for education have been offered to Warner faculty and staff; an online document was also created to summarize key information and considerations for faculty.
• The implementation of the university-wide guidelines about using AI in instruction launched in January 2025 was supported by (a) facilitating faculty conversations around the guidelines, and (b) providing some concrete tools to guide each instructor’s decision-making about would consider acceptable uses of AI in specific courses and even tasks within the same course.
• A proposal for a new Advanced Certificate in AI for Education and Helping Professionals was developed and approved internally in Spring 2025, and has now been submitted to the New York State Education Department.
• Several research projects around uses of AI in education have been initiated by various Warner faculty; some of these projects have involved seeking external funding through grant proposals.

Links for More Information

• Warner AI Initiative - Approved Proposal (2024)
• Summary document about AI for Warner faculty (Spring 2024)
• Suggested approach to decide on acceptable AI uses in courses (2025)
• Internally-approved proposal for a new Advanced Certificate in AI for Education and Helping Professionals

Brief Description

Coursebots – that is, LLM-powered chatbots customized to draw only from a set of resources selected by the course instructor to support student learning in that course – can be transformative for higher education, not only by increasing efficiency, but more importantly by providing valuable new ways for more personalized and effective student learning. However, these benefits will be realized only if students and instructors are empowered to effectively use the coursebot available to them – which is not happening now. Our team has initiated a set of complementary projects to better understand how coursebots can be best utilized by students and faculty and to promote these innovative uses.

Key accomplishments to date

• The UR Simon School of Business IT team, led by Joseph Ogg, has developed and field tested a functioning dedicated chatbot that can interface with the Blackboard Managements System. This initial work has been documented in a few presentations and publications.
• A sub-team led by Mitch Lovett, Raffaella Borasi, Keirah Comstock and Zenon Borys was awarded a UR ED IT Innovation mini-grant in January 2025 to pilot the URCourseBot created by the UR Simon School in a few courses across the university. Insights gained from the pilot are informing subsequent projects.
• In July 2025, the team was awarded a $50,000 grant from Google to further explore and support innovative coursebots' innovative uses (as part of a larger &1.3M grant to Empire AI for a collaborative study of uses of AI in the Higher Education institutions that are part of Empire AI). Over the 2025-26 academic year, a group of at least 24 UR and RIT instructors teaching a variety of courses across fields and levels will receive training and on-going support to design and implement innovative uses in their courses of the coursebot developed by their institution (URCourseBot for UR and TutorBot for RIT), with the ultimate goal of creating a publicly accessible set of effective use cases to serve as a resource for instructors using any of the many available coursebots.
• In July 2025 a subset of the team also submitted a proposal to the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) program about exploring the use of three coursebots (URCourseBot, TutorBot and HyTA) more specifically to support students' learning and retention in introductory STEM undergraduate courses, which often act as a gateway to STEM careers.

Links for More Information

• URCourseBot Introductory Video for Students (03:12)
• URCourseBot “Set up” Video for Faculty (3:10)
• URCourseBot “Pedagogical Tips” Video for Faculty (5:20)

Brief Description

How can school districts be supported as they engage in technology-rich innovations, to ensure success and best use of resources? An initial partnership of the UR Warner School of Education with East Irondequoit as they began a district-wide “digital conversion” in 2013 made us aware of the many pitfalls a school can encounter along such a journey, and the value for schools engaging in similar initiatives to network and learn from each other. This realization led to the creation of the K-12 Digital Consortium (originally named Western New York K-12 Digital Conversion Consortium), with the mission to advance efforts towards leveraging technology in K-12 education across local K-12 schools by facilitating the sharing of information, resources and services. The Consortium was originally launched in 2016, with the Warner School, East Irondequoit, and Monroe BOCES 1 and 2 as founding members, and since 2018 it has been “incubated” within the Center for Learning in the Digital Age. Overtime, the mission of facilitating sharing and collaboration around uses of technology in K-12 education has taken on different foci to reflect schools’ highest priorities around technology – as the early focus on adopting 1:1 computing devices shifted to using online technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic, and now on AI implications for K-12 schools.

Key accomplishments to date

• An interactive website (K12Digital.org) has been developed to serve as a clearinghouse for resources, as well as a vehicle for communication and collaboration, for districts within the Consortium.
• A few half-day “retreats” and other professional learning offerings have been organized overtime to address major issues of common interest, with selected recordings being posted on the website – including most notably one focusing on “First steps for district launching 1:1 initiatives” in 2019 and one  on “Implications of AI for K-12 schools” in 2024.
• The Consortium has been instrumental in facilitating collaborations across its members that led to the award of multiple grants from the National Science Foundation Noyce program.

Links for More Information

• Website
• Video featuring this k12-university partnership for the 2019 NSF STEM for All Video Showcase

Brief Description

Nurses, physicians and other health care professionals have been among the first to use online as their preferred means for professional learning, given the constraints of their job. They can also greatly benefit from applications of digital technologies to enhance learning such as simulations involving virtual or augmented reality. To keep up with these new developments in the field, we redesigned the core courses preparing health professional educators at the UR to ensure that our students are prepared to leverage technology in their future teaching.

A collaboration between the Warner School of Education, School of Nursing, and School of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Rochester, supported by the LiDA Center

Collaboration Opportunities

• Welcoming doctoral students interested in studying/ evaluating these experiences

Key accomplishments to date

• Designed an innovative sequence of three hybrid-online courses – EDU580: Foundations of Health Professions Education. EDU497: Teaching & Learning in Higher Education and Health Care Settings, EDU581: Clinical Teaching.
• Since their redesign in Fall 2016, over 50 students have taken these core courses – with consistent student satisfaction, as documented by the course evaluations.
• One of these students is Dr. Ghazi, a UR surgeon who has developed innovative learning experiences for residents taking advantage of 3D printing of real patients’ organs.

Links for More Information

• UR Health Professions Education Programs
• EDU497 syllabus
• Ghazi’s Virtual Surgery video

Brief Description

Digital technologies have the potential to create new learning opportunities for K-12 students, and as such can further enhance other reform initiative and lead to increasing achievement for all. However, realizing this potential will depend on what K-12 teachers actually do with these technologies. How can we effectively prepare K-12 teachers to leverage digital technologies in their classrooms? To meet this need, Warner developed courses as well as an Advanced Certificate that pre-service and in-service K-12 teachers can take as non-matriculated students or as part of another Warner degree program – and is continuing to enhance these offerings.

Key accomplishments to date

• Designed and continues to offer an innovative graduate course and accompanying practicum – EDE484A: Digitally-Rich Teaching & Learning in K-12 School (hybrid-online) and EDF490: Practicum in Digitally-rich Teaching.
• Developed and got approval in 2016 for an Advanced Certificate in K-12 Digitally-Rich Teaching, the first of its kind registered with New York State Education Department.
• A $1.2M Noyce Scholarship grant was awarded by the National Science Foundation in 2017 to support full scholarships for 26 math and science pre-service teachers who will add the Advanced Certificate in K-12 Digitally-Rich Teaching to their teacher preparation program; all of these scholarships have been awarded and all the students completed the Advanced Certificate.
• A new $1.2M Noyce Scholarship grant was awarded by the National Science Foundation in 2024 to support another group of 21 pre-service teachers who will also complete the Advanced Certificate in K-12 Digitally-Rich Teaching, as well as a new course on implementing the 2020 NYS Computer Science and Digital Fluency standards in their teaching.

Links for More Information

• Warner programs preparing digitally-rich K-12 teachers
• EDE484A syllabus
• Brief description of Noyce Scholarship grant (2017)

Brief Description

Learning in online courses depends highly on the quality of the course design and implementation – and yet this quality varies significantly across online courses.  How can we prepare instructors to design and facilitate engaging and effective learning experiences? Recognizing this unmet need, in 2013 Warner developed a sequence of courses to learn how to teach online, as well as an Advanced Certificate and a Master’s degree in Online Teaching – and is continuing to offer and enhance these programs and courses. These programs are among a handful of online teacher preparation programs registered with New York State Education Department.

Key accomplishments to date

• In 2013, we designed and launched an innovative sequence of three courses – EDE484: Online Teaching & Learning (hybrid-online/fully online), EDE486: Designing Online Courses (fully-online), EDE488: Practicum in Online Teaching (hybrid-online) – as core to the new Advanced Certificate and M.S. programs.
• Several of the students who completed the Advanced Certificate also designed and implemented new online courses for Warner, and as such were instrumental to the rapid growth of our “online start-up”.
• A 2019 dissertation study by Farzana Sultana Hafsa on the first course in the sequence has shown its effectiveness in engaging participants in valuable identity work; case-studies of all but one of the 8 students enrolled in the course have been conducted, articulating the “kind of online teacher” each aspired to be by the end of the course, and the impact key design elements of the course had on them.
• An adaptation of the sequence was created specifically for UR faculty, and offered multiple times throughout 2020 following the campus closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic, contributing greatly to preparing UR faculty across disciplines to be able to offer high quality online courses at short notice.

Links for More Information

• Warner programs preparing online teachers
• EDE484 syllabus
• Dissertation (Hafsa, 2019)

Brief Description

This study explored an emerging practice, online video coaching, which built on the affordances of digital technology to allow coaches to work with geographically distant teachers. Coaching, as a form of one-to-one professional development, is expensive for school districts to maintain and is limited to the expertise of local mathematics coaches. This study followed nine mathematics coaches for three years in an online content-focused coaching project aimed at middle school mathematics teachers in rural contexts.

Key accomplishments to date

• Key findings: Coaches engaged in specific practices to prepare themselves for the coaching cycle with the teacher; coaches leveraged videos of instruction to support teachers to reflect on their goals; productive coaching practices and discussions with the teacher centered on goals for student learning; coaches struggle to balance the tension in their dual role as a content expert and thinking partner; coaching is highly variable because it is responsive to individual teacher needs.
• Multiple publications.

Links for More Information

• Dissertation

Brief Description

In May 2023, NSF issued a special call for 1-year $200K RAPID grant proposals to support time-sensitive studies around the applications of AI for K-12 Education. Our team submitted a proposal (awarded in September 2023) focusing on understanding and supporting K-12 leaders’ decision-making about how AI could be used in their schools – recognizing that K-12 leaders can act as powerful gatekeepers or promoters of any technology innovation in their schools. The project included both interviews and a survey of K-12 leaders to better understand their uses and perceptions about AI, and the creation of an online resource that could be used by K-12 leaders to inform their decision-making about AI.

Key accomplishments to date

• Interviews were conducted with a total of 42 K-12 leaders holding a variety of positions in over 20 districts across Western New York.
• A survey was sent to all the principals, superintendents, directors of technology and other district administrators in charge of curriculum/instruction across most counties within Western New York. A total of 160 responses were received in the period April-July 2024.
• Findings were shared in several presentations at both local and national conferences, as well as in the following publications:
  • Borasi, R., Miller, D.E., Vaughan-Brogan, P., DeAngelis, K., Han, Y.J., & Mason, S. (2024). An AI wishlist from school leaders. Phi Delta Kappan
  • Vaughan-Brogan, P., & Miller, D.E. (2024). Do we need AI policies in K-12 Schools?”, Vanguard, Spring 2024, 35-37.
  • Mason, S., Borasi, R., Miller, D.E., Vaughan-Brogan, P., Han, J.Y., & DeAngelis, K. (2024). Avoiding ‘sinking the boat’ while not ‘missing the boat’: K-12 School leaders’ perceptions of AI risks and benefits. 2024 FIE Conference Proceedings.
  • Miller, D.E., DeAngelis, K., Mason, S., Vaughan-Brogan, P., Borasi, R., Han, Y.J. (2025, January). Understanding and supporting K-12 school leaders’ AI-related decision-making. Stelar: Stem Learning and Research Center. https://stelar.edc.org/submission/1075
  • Borasi, R., DeAngelis, K., Miller, D.E., Vaughan-Brogan, P., Han, J.Y., Mason, S. (2025). Will AI exacerbate or help remedy inequities in K-12 education? Proceedings of the 2025 Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association.
  • Borasi, R., DeAngelis, K., Mason, S., Miller, D.E., Va Vaughan-Brogan, P., and Han, J.Y. (forthcoming). K-12 Leaders’ Perspective on AI’s Risks and Benefits: Findings from a Follow Up Survey Study. 2025 FIE Conference Proceedings.
• An online resource to inform K-12 leaders’ decision-making about AI (“AI Primer”) was created and has been posted on the LiDa website.

Links for More Information

• 1-page summary
• Key project findings
• AI primer for K-12 leaders
• 2024 Kappan’s article
• 2024 AI policies article

Brief Description

In Spring 2024, the UR Provost Office issued a call for proposals for 1-year planning grants to prepare a full proposal for a 5-year $5M Transdisciplinary Research Institute. One of the ten funded planning grants was the one that centered on “AI Horizons” – that is, working at the frontiers of AI developments and applications, with a focus on healthcare and education. The leadership team for this interdisciplinary project, led by Christopher Kanan, included 8 co-PIs spanning disciplines from computer science, psychology, philosophy, healthcare, and education. LiDA played a major role in this planning grant, as *Borasi was the co-PI in charge of organizing all the project-wide event as well as co-chair the Working Group on AI for Education, *Han was the post-doc assigned to support the project, and most of the LiDA staff and affiliated faculty participated in this initiative..

Key accomplishments to date

• A Cross-Disciplinary Learning Series, consisting of 8 1-hour Zoom presentations by each of the project’s PIs to share relevant perspectives and scholarship from their respective fields, was offered. Each presentation was recorded and is publicly available on the AI Horizons website.
• Four working groups (each comprising over 20 faculty from diverse disciplines) were formed to investigate research opportunities within Neuro- & Developmental-Inspired GenAI; Ethical & Societal Implications of AI; AI for Healthcare; and AI for Education, respectively, and each produced a “white paper” that is publicly available on the AI Horizons website.
• A full proposal for a Transdisciplinary Institute on AI Horizons was submitted in March 2025.
• Although this proposal was not awarded, it generated invaluable interdisciplinary connections across the University of Rochester, which have already led to four grant proposals - a $25M AI Institution proposal to NSF led by Chris Kanan and involving multiple universities (declined), a $1.8M proposal to NSF “Advancing Informal Science Education” (AISL) program involving a collaboration between Warner, the Memorial Art Gallery and the Computer Science department to promote AI Literacy museums visits (declined), a $700K proposal to NSF “Innovations in Undergraduate STEM Education” (IUSE) program involving Warner, Simon and Computer Science within UR in collaboration with RIT (pending), and a proposal to explore the use of “coursebots” across the University as part of a $1.3M Google grant to Empire AI (awarded).

Links for More Information

• AI Horizons website

Brief Description

Digitally-rich teaching requires a radical transformation of teaching practices and expectations, which is very challenging for K-12 schools. Teacher leaders can play a key role in this process – by modelling best practices in their classrooms, mentoring colleagues, facilitating high-quality professional learning, and spearheading innovation. How can we prepare teachers to play this new important leadership role? Combining the Center for Professional Development and Education Reform’s expertise in preparing teacher leaders, and the LiDA Center’s expertise in digitally-rich teaching, we applied for and were awarded two Noyce Master Teaching Fellowship grant from the National Science Foundation (#1758243 in 2018, and #2150922 in 2022). These 5-year $3M grants supported the development of 21 and 19 STEM digitally-rich teacher leaders, respectively, across ten high-need districts that are part of the K-12 Digital Consortium.

Key accomplishments to date

• All 21 fellows who started the program in 2018 completed the 5-year program and all 19 fellows who started the program in 2022 completed the first 3 years of their program (before the grant was terminated by NSF because of changes in national priorities).
• Lessons learned from this project have already been disseminated through the following venues:
  • Two video presentations at the 2020 and 2021 STEM for All Video Conference (each including a 3-minute video plus accompanying online materials):
    • Borasi, R., Borys, Z., Callard, C., Daley, M., Occhino, M. Miller, D.E., and Han, Y.J. (2020). Preparing Master Teachers for Digitally-Rich Teaching. 2020 STEM for All Video Showcase  (*award winning video*)
    • Borys, Z., Borasi, R., Callard, C., Daley, M., Occhino, M. Miller, D.E., and Han, Y.J. (2021). STEM Master Teachers Emerging as Leaders from the Pandemic. 2021 STEM for All Video Showcase
  • A published book chapter: Miller, D.E., Borasi, R., Borys, Z., Callard, C., Carson, C., Occhino, M. (2022). Teacher Leaders’ Roles, Preparation, and Impact in a District-wide Digital Conversion. In Bond, N. (Ed.), The Power of Teacher Leaders: Their Roles, Influence and Impact (pp.66-80). New York:
• Although grant funding has ended, the team is currently working on an ebook to document

Links for More Information

• MTF program
• 2020 STEM for ALL Video Showcase
• 2021 STEM for ALL Video Showcase

Brief Description

What kind of online teacher you aspire to be and how you perceive yourself as an online teacher – that is, your online teacher identity – can have a significant impact on what, how, when and why you choose to teach online.   Yet most programs preparing online teachers ignore this important aspect.  How can we design online teacher preparation programs and courses that support identity development so as to purposefully prepare a certain kind of online teacher?  This project started with a dissertation study involving the in-depth study of a section of an introductory course preparing to teach online, whose design had been informed by identity theory.  Building on the data collected in this study, and continuing to expand it, we aim to shed further light on how one’s professional identity affects the aspirations and choices of novice online teachers, and what kind of professional learning experiences may impact those aspirations and choices.

Key accomplishments to date

• Farzana Sultana Hafsa completed a dissertation study titled Investigating Teachers’ Identity Development in a Hybrid Course to Prepare Online Teachers, producing 7 individual case-studies of course participants (all but one of those enrolled in the course) as well as a cross-case analysis that document the significant impact the course had on the participants’ views of the kind of online teacher they aspired to be.
• The dissertation study documented the value of engaging participants in a variety of experiences as online learners to illustrate affordances and limitations of online spaces as well as of specific online teaching practices.
• The dissertation study also documented the value of having participants, as part of an introductory course, engage in experiences as online teachers, scaffolded in a number of complementary ways to ensure their success; this especially highlighted the value of an early Group Project, where students designed and delivered an online module on topics related to online teaching and learning to the rest of the class.
• The team conducted a follow-up study with a participant to document the impact of the course on the design of a specific online course; this led to the publication of a 2025 book chapter (Borasi, R., Sultana, S.F., Morris, A., and Miller, D.E. (2025). Preparing Educational Psychology Instructors to Teach Online: The Role of Identity Development. In Thompson, P. and Roseth, C. (Eds.), Theory to Practice: Educational Psychology for Teachers and Teaching, Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.)

Links for More Information

• Dissertation – key findings
• Dissertation – full text
• Syllabus of the introductory course informed by identity theory

Brief Description

What does it take to successfully launch high-quality online offerings?  How can this process be supported?  As Warner began offering its first online courses in 2013, we grappled with these questions as we worked toward developing a robust set of very high-quality online offerings with limited human resources and funding – in true “start-up” fashion.  Recognizing that other institutions would face similar challenges, we systematically monitored and documented our experience to conduct a case study of our “online start-up,” as a way to share lessons learned.

Key accomplishments to date

• Over just the first wo years since launching this initiative, Warner was able to offer a total of 60 online courses.
• This initiative made it possible to offer our K-12 school leadership preparation program to students living in underserved areas across the Southern Tier and other rural areas.
• This initiative was instrumental to enable Warner and the UR to quickly ramp-up and offer fully-online course when the campus closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Findings from our “online start-up” case-study have been disseminated in presentations as well as in a book chapter published in the 2016 Handbook on Research on Building, Growing and Sustaining Quality E-Learning Programs.

Links for More Information

• Abstract of “0 to 60” book chapter

Brief Description

As the internet becomes more integrated into daily life, young people spend increasingly more time learning, interacting, and communicating in online spaces. Contrary to popular media reports that youth are reading and writing less as a result of digital distractions, research shows that teens spend a great deal of time writing online – as they maintain a blog or Tumblr account, create “fanfiction” (writing stories around popular characters such as Harry Potter or The Sims), or participate in a range of interest-driven pursuits in online communities. What can we learn from these youth digital literacy practices “in the wild”? What are potential implications for literacy learning in schools? Former Warner faculty Jayne Lammers’ research helps us better understand what motivates youth to engage in these practices and how these practices may affect learning, suggesting concrete implications for schools.

Key accomplishments to date

• In keeping with the goal of this research to inform classroom practice, findings from these studies have been shared at professional conferences (such as the New York State Reading Association conference and the European Conference on Literacy), as well as on the International Literacy Association’s Literacy Daily blog:
• Navigating tensions when connecting classrooms to online communities
• Considerations of privacy in connecting youth to digital literacy spaces
• Connecting classrooms with online fanfiction communities
• Leveraging participation in online fanfiction spaces to collaborate in writing
• Guiding youth to write for and with online audiences
• Online fan fiction spaces as literacy tools
• Adolescent writing in online fan fiction spaces
• In July 2019, Lammers co-facilitated“Writing in the Wild: Fanfiction as a Classroom Practice” - a week-long professional learning opportunity for teachers as part of the University of New Hampshire’s Literacy Institutes.
• Key Publications resulting from the project to date:
• Lammers, J. C., & Van Alstyne, J. H. (2019). Building bridges from classrooms to networked publics: Helping students write for the audience they want. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 62 (6), 653-662. DOI: 10.1002/jaal.93
• Magnifico, A. M., Lammers, J. C., & Fields, D. (2018). Affinity spaces, literacies, and classrooms: Tensions and opportunities. Literacy, 52(3), 145-152. DOI: 10.1111/lit.12133
• Lammers, J. C. & Marsh, V. L. (2018). “A writer more than…a child”: A longitudinal study examining adolescent writer identity. Written Communication, 35(1), 89-114.
• Abrams, S. S., & Lammers, J. C. (2017). Belonging in a videogame space: Bridging affinity spaces and communities of practice. Teachers College Record, 119(11), 1-34
• Lammers, J. C. (2016). “The Hangout was serious business”: Leveraging participation in an online space to Design Sims fanfiction. Research in the Teaching of English, 50, 309-332.
• Lammers, J. C., & Marsh, V. L. (2015). Going public: An adolescent’s networked writing on Fanfiction.net. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 59, 277-285. DOI: 10.1002/jaal.416.
• Lammers, J. C. (2013). Fangirls as teachers: Examining pedagogic discourse in an online fan site. Learning, Media and Technology, 38, 368-386. DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2013.764895.

Links for More Information

• Lammers’ Fulbright project