The Navigate Project
Evidence on students’ college acceptance and graduation rates suggest that college access programs support students with the planning, decision-making, and goal-setting that helps them succeed in college. Evidence also suggests that learning mindsets—students’ beliefs about themselves as learners and the learning environment—are crucial for success in high school, college, careers, and overall well-being. Learning mindsets can be developed through supportive practices, many of which college access programs may already be implementing.
Our goal is to highlight practices that improve students’ learning mindsets and outcomes; determine how they can be optimized, adapted, and scaled; and develop systems for sharing learnings widely among college access programs.
What is the Navigate Project?
A 3-year effort to understand how to support students’ learning mindsets before, during, and after the transition to college.
Our goal is to examine practices that improve outcomes for students, determine how they can be optimized and adapted, and develop a system for sharing these widely among college access programs and leading charter schools.
We will recruit the second cohort of programs to join the network in Summer 2021. Programs will learn from each other through in-person convenings, an online collection of resources, and ongoing conversations.
We collaborated with our first cohort of programs to co-create and prototype evidence-based resources for addressing students’ most pressing learning mindset challenges.
THE NAVIGATE
PROJECT:
SECOND
CONVENING
FALL 2021 More information coming soon
What do I do next?
Applications to join the second cohort will open in February 2021. We are currently recruiting for the second cohort. Please use this link to indicate your interest in joining the second cohort of the Navigate Project! Please note that filling out the interest form does not guarantee you will receive an application or an invite to be apart of the second cohort. If you have any questions regarding the project, interest form, or the application, please do not hesitate to reach out to our Postsecondary Pathways Director Monique Calderon Dotson (monique.dotson@virginia.edu)
What are the benefits?
Strengthen your program by documenting practices you’re already implementing and understanding how future practices (from other programs and the research literature) can be incorporated into your program.
Collaborate with leading learning mindset researchers with expertise in both K-12 and higher education, who can help you understand how to best support your students.
Interact with other innovative college access programs, charter schools, and K-12 systems across the country to share practices and accelerate learning for all students.
Access all tools developed during the project, including:
Conceptual framework for understanding learning mindsets in college access programs.
Assessment rubric for identifying existing practices that support learning mindsets.
Online collection of resources with practices, rated to the extent that they are evidence-based and suitable for college access programs.
Attend annual virtual/in-person convenings to learn about the field’s most promising learning mindset research and how it can be applied to your program (all expenses covered).
Receive an annual stipend to participate in the network.
“It’s nice to be part of something external that allows our organization to zoom out of our day to day work and think about planning, mindset, and tools. Having an external partner to think about student mindsets and ways to support them, while our organization pilots tools and resource and provide feedback has been satisfying. We enjoy meeting with other organizations that are asking the same questions and piloting the same things. We have formed many new relationships while having a stake in research. ”
What is the time commitment?
Approximately 2-3 hours per month, including:
Information gathering meetings and/or interviews with researchers.
Sharing data and program materials.
Annual in-person convenings (all expenses paid).
School/district approval to access data on student success.
Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Learn more
what are learning mindsets?
Learning mindsets are individuals’ beliefs about learning that shape how they interpret difficulty .
what is the evidence for learning mindsets?
A growing body of research suggests that learning mindsets are crucial for success in high school and college. Importantly, learning mindset-supportive practices are effective at reducing equity and opportunity gaps for students from traditionally underrepresented groups.
how will we execute this work?
By combining psychological science with design thinking and leveraging strategic researcher-practitioner partnerships, we seek to instigate positive change in organizations, from the individual to the policy level.
Who is the Navigate Project team?
Stephanie is the Manager of Global Strategic Research at the Center for Creative Leadership, with a background in educational and developmental psychology. Her work has focused on helping students and professionals navigate key life transitions and identifying contextual barriers to success at the individual, group, organizational, and societal levels. Stephanie’s current work centers around global youth empowerment; teams and network science; and culture change related to equity, diversity, and inclusion. She partners with leaders in education, policy, nonprofit, and for-profit spaces to understand problems of practice and identify actionable strategies. She received her Ph.D. in educational psychology and educational technology from Michigan State University, M.A. in developmental psychology from Duke University, and B.A. in psychology from Reed College.
Yoi Tibbetts is Assistant Director of the Motivate Lab and an assistant professor at the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. He researches motivation and achievement with a focus on understanding how to help underrepresented students excel in higher education.
Eric Jones serves as the Class Dean for the Class of 2020 at Central College in Iowa. aIn that role, he serves as a resource, mentor, and secondary advisor to students in the cohort. He is also director of the Central College First-Year Experience program and the offensive line coach for the Central College Dutch.
Eric Jones
Monique Calderon Dotson is the Postsecondary Pathways Director for The Navigate Project at Motivate Lab. She is a first-generation college graduate and a longtime educator and postsecondary access practicioner. Her career has spanned a variety of settings including traditional K-12 school districts, public charter systems, and education non-profits.
MONIQUE CALDERON DOTSON
Chris Hulleman is Director of the Motivate Lab and an associate professor at the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. He is also a fellow at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and codirector of the Motivation Research Institute at James Madison University. His research explores how motivation and mindsets impact human development and growth, particularly in education.
Sasha is a Research Coordinator at Motivate Lab. She served as a special education teacher at a public school in Brooklyn, NY before joining the Motivate Lab team. Sasha’s teaching career began through her affiliation with Teach for America in which she devoted five years fighting educational inequity and opportunity gaps in the Public-School System. She is interested in studying the student-teacher relationship and examining the cultural affirmation that may or may not be accounted for in social emotional learning curriculums.
SASHA MILLER-MARSHALL
Donald Kamentz is currently an independent education consultant. Prior to this role, he served as executive director of Character Lab, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the science and practice of character development. Before Character Lab, Donald spent over 20yearsin K-12 public education, including serving as managing director of college and career initiativesat YES Prep Public Schools in Houston, Texas.
Donald Kamentz
Teresa Hulleman is a former middle school and high school social studies teacher and coach. She has spent the last seven years as a part-time editor and reviewer of educational research, including translating motivation interventions into teaching materials for Character Lab.
Teresa Hulleman
Who is A part of the inaugural Cohort?
