Title of project: Project SOAR: Strategies for Online Academic Reading

Directors:
Dr. Lynne Anderson-Inman, PI and Director
Dr. Carolyn Knox, Co-PI and Co-Director

Funding agency: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP)

Beginning – Ending Dates: April 1, 2009- March 31, 2011

Description:

Project SOAR is a two-year Phase 1 development and evaluation effort, funded under the Steppingstones of Technology Innovation for Children with Disabilities program. Project SOAR is a collaborative effort by the Center for Advanced Technology in Education at the University of Oregon (directed by Dr. Lynne Anderson-Inman), the New Literacies Research Lab at the University of Connecticut (directed by Dr. Donald Leu), and partnering school districts.  The goal of Project SOAR is to develop and evaluate technology-based reading and learning strategies designed to improve online reading and studying by secondary students with learning disabilities. Project SOAR will also develop and evaluate instructional materials and video-based, interactive, online learning modules designed to teach the strategies for online reading and studying to students with learning disabilities in middle and high schools.

Project SOAR is designed to accomplish the following seven objectives:

1. Develop, test, and refine strategies for online academic reading designed to teach students with learning disabilities to use etext supports embedded in online textbooks;
2. Develop, test, and refine strategies for online academic reading that teach students with learning disabilities to find, read, evaluate, synthesize, and share information on the Internet
3. Determine the ways in which, and the conditions under which, strategies for online academic reading promote engagement with expository and narrative texts online
4. Determine the ways in which, and the conditions under which, strategies for online academic reading enable students to complete classroom assignments that require finding, reading, evaluating, synthesizing, and sharing information on the Internet
5. Identify the factors that affect students with learning disabilities’ use of strategies for online academic reading and learning and whether these factors facilitate or inhibit student ability to benefit from this technology-based instructional approach
6. Explore ways to combine and customize pairs and constellations of strategies for online academic reading and learning to meet the diverse learning needs and literacy skills of students with learning disabilities
7. Develop, test, and refine teacher and student instructional materials and video-based online interactive modules designed to support the adoption

Key people:

Dr. Lynne Anderson-Inman, PI and Director
Dr. Carolyn Knox, Co-PI and Co-Director
Mindy Frisbee, Materials Developer

Collaborators/partners:

Dr. Donald Leu, PI of the New Literacies Research Lab, University of Connecticut

Project Advisors:

Dr. Margo Izzo, Ohio State University
Dr. John Tenny, Willamette University
Mary Ditson, South Eugene High School

Partner School Districts:

Eugene School District, Eugene OR
Springfield School District, Springfield, OR
Monroe School District, Monroe, CT

Contacts:

Dr. Lynne Anderson-Inman, PI and Director
Dr. Carolyn Knox, Co-PI and Co-Director

Website: under development