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The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.
Select a category below to narrow the list of publications about complementary learning. Click on a column heading to sort, and then select a title to view the publication. If you are looking for a specific document, topic, or author, visit our Publications & Resources section to conduct an advanced search.
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Field experience in evaluation inquiry is a promising approach to preparing the next generation of evaluators. Learn what one group of student consultants and organizations did to make a field experience in evaluative inquiry a positive one.
Afterschool programs are a powerful influence in the lives of young people, but their benefits can only be realized if youth are engaged. This commentary explores the different dimensions of youth engagement in afterschool programs and offers promising practices for those seeking to promote and foster youth engagement.
Examine how effective family-strengthening interventions can positively impact families and children in this practitioner-friendly brief from Harvard Family Research Project. Lessons From Family-Strengthening Interventions: Learning From Evidence-Based Practice is based on our review of interventions that have been rigorously evaluated through experimental and quasi-experimental studies. We offer educators, service providers, and evaluators recommendations for creating successful programs and evaluations.
Culture expert Marsha L. Semmel notes that museums and libraries are increasing their offerings for families in support of such vital 21st-century learning skills as problem solving, digital media literacy, and creativity. Learn how these institutions play important roles in addressing our children’s digital learning needs.
This article in the Spring 2004 edition of Afterschool Matters (pp. 15–23) uses information in our Out-of-School Time Program Research and Evaluation Database to examine how community-based organizations and schools can work together to build and leverage resources in creating successful after school programming.
Public Library Association (PLA) president Felton Thomas Jr. writes about the importance of public libraries in engaging families, and how PLA and Harvard Family Research Project have begun a journey together to support libraries in this work.
Through innovative and engaging family activities, the Maryland Library Partnership is playing a crucial community role by promoting learning anywhere, anytime and reaching out to parents to help them with their children’s learning, improve literacy, and close the vocabulary gap between low-income learners and their peers.
Jane Werner and Lisa Brahms, from the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, discuss the Museum’s innovative MAKESHOP studio space, which invites children and families to co-create projects and transforms the traditional museum visit experience.
This workshop is part of the Concept to Classroom series of multimedia workshops for teacher professional development. In this workshop, Heather Weiss and Joyce Epstein provide expert insights on creating partnerships among schools, parents, and members of the local community.
Learning mathematics starts in infancy and happens anywhere, anytime. In this commentary, Taniesha Woods explores what young children need to know about math, what environments rich in mathematics learning look like, and how families can support children’s math development.
In this paper, we draw on the experiences of national organizations and a set of community schools that have built learning partnerships, and examine seven key elements that we find to be essential in building them. Our paper serves as a guide to school districts and their partners as they consider whether and how to implement a partnerships for learning model. It also informs those who have already established these partnerships and wish to reflect on how to maximize partnership—and student—success.
Three experts reflect on their work in engaging families in a digital learning environment. We asked them to address the question, How can institutions offer relevant and useful guidance to parents and families about scaffolding their children’s digital media use?
Incorporating the use of HFRP research-based teaching cases and theoretical perspectives, this revised book looks at family engagement issues from the early years through pre-adolescence.
Harvard Family Research Project and the Public Library Association call for libraries to join together with schools and community organizations to establish a system of family engagement that extends throughout a child’s life, supports children and families, and prepares children for success.
Creating high-quality early childhood systems necessitates a strong focus on family engagement. Check out how Oregon is adopting an equity lens and building a strong foundation to engage families by leveraging federal funds, community leadership, and philanthropic investments.
In this Q & A, the developers of Comienza en Casa │“It Starts at Home,” talk about supporting migrant families to ensure their children have smooth transitions to school through the use of real-world and digital activities.
In this Q & A with Laura Overdeck, learn how Bedtime Math is giving families and children comfort in talking about numbers in their daily lives, and helping families and afterschool programs get children excited about math in the world around them.
How can you turn daily bedtime and mealtime routines into learning opportunities for young children? How can commuting, shopping, and other everyday activities offer vibrant learning moments for children? Read about the Let’s Play app to learn how!
In this Q & A, S. Craig Watkins discusses the family’s role in the connected learning model, and how students can link what they learn in schools, afterschool programs, and their communities using digital technology.
Maryland is embedding a new family engagement definition statewide as a foundation of policy and infrastructure. Through comprehensive partnerships, the state brings to scale family engagement approaches and launches new initiatives.
Samantha Grant, a program evaluator at the University of Minnesota Extension Center for Youth Development, and a parent, offers guidance to families looking to make good decisions about their children’s out-of-school time activities.
Researchers from Teachers College, Columbia University, explore how a relatively new type of book– interactive math storybooks – can help parents appreciate and foster their child’s mathematical thinking.
Five community-based education organizing groups use various strategies to build trust and commitment among parents and teachers.
Because early social performance and academic achievement are predictors of later school success, ensuring that children get off to a good start in kindergarten is critical. This brief, by Harvard Family Research Project's Christine Patton and Justina Wang, examines important elements of high-quality kindergarten transition strategies and profiles promising practices from six states that take an integrated and collaborative approach to helping kindergartners enter school ready for success.
This research review, part of the Equity Matters research initiative at the Campaign for Educational Equity at Teachers College, Columbia University, argues that family involvement in education is a powerful but neglected tool to support children’s learning and development. Disadvantaged children are both more likely to benefit from increased family involvement and to come from families who face the greatest barriers to such involvement. To reframe public understanding of the benefits of family involvement in children’s education, this paper lays out a research-based definition and more equitable approach to family involvement and positions it as a key cross-cutting component of broader comprehensive or complementary learning systems.