Last year, Brian Boyd, PhD, director of the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG) launched an initiative that would guide future work at the Institute. Boyd created FPG Next to leverage the Institute’s strengths and grow and expand FPG’s project portfolio. He also wanted to foster even more collaboration throughout the Institute—across and among our research and evaluation, implementation science and technical assistance groups—and across UNC’s campus.

As an integrative framework, FPG Next was set up so that its six planning groups could work individually on their specific strategic initiative or priority (see sidebar) yet also work collaboratively as a larger body to develop strategic directions for the Institute.

In the initial phase, the planning groups conducted a landscape analysis to help identify research and collaboration opportunities and forward-looking trends. Late last summer, they shared their findings with Boyd and, over the next several months, teams led by FPG researchers in collaboration with campus partners worked on new project proposals in pursuit of a pilot grant opportunity. Interim Associate Director for Research Noreen Yazejian, PhD, enlisted the assistance of several FPG Faculty Fellows to help review the proposals; they followed modified NIH guidelines when scoring the proposals.

The FPG Next pilot grant projects are:

• Developing and Testing “STEMIEBot” to Support Inclusive High Quality Early STEM Learning Opportunities
• Enhancing Literacy Assessment Practices for English Language Learners and Multilingual Learners in North Carolina
• Community Strengths in Low Opportunity Communities Associated with Child Flourishing Across North Carolina
• Early Childhood Educator Wellbeing through Mindful Co-Regulation

“These newly funded projects are exciting,” said Yazejian, “not only for the knowledge they will generate in the short term but also for their potential to spark further discovery, improve outcomes for children and families, and bring tangible benefits to North Carolina and beyond through innovative practices.”

Developing and Testing “STEMIEBot”

Through their project, “Developing and Testing “STEMIEBot” to Support Inclusive High Quality Early STEM Learning Opportunities,” FPG Technical Assistance Specialist Jessica Amsbary, PhD, and Janice Anderson, PhD, an associate professor in the School of Education, will use artificial intelligence (AI) to develop and test a chat bot, STEMIEBot, programmed with information and resources developed by the STEM Innovation for Inclusion in Early Education (STEMIE) Center at FPG. The research team, which includes FPG’s Ann Sam, PhD, and Noreen Yazejian, PhD, will work with early childhood educators to use STEMIEBot in their early education settings and obtain feedback to inform the purpose and generated supports from the bot. Information gleaned from teacher experiences and the final STEMIEBot product, along with content expert consultation, will then be used to explore a STEM quality measure for early childhood environments. The proposed project activities have the potential to positively impact STEM learning opportunities for all children ultimately leading to optimal outcomes.

This project aligns well with FPG Next, focusing on innovative technology and data science in education. It introduces three key innovations: leveraging AI for personalized professional development and STEM resources, testing an AI chatbot prototype in real-world early childhood scenarios, and exploring components to create a high-quality STEM measurement tool. Together, these innovations have the potential to transform how early STEM education is supported, measured, and improved.

Enhancing Literacy Assessment Practices

Dual Language Immersion (DLI) programs have been implemented across North Carolina to support multilingual learners and encourage biliteracy. The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) has made mCLASS® Lectura, a K-6 screening tool for students learning to read in Spanish, available to all DLI elementary school programs. However, NCDPI currently does not track data or usage of Lectura.

Through their project, “Enhancing Literacy Assessment Practices for English Language Learners and Multilingual Learners in North Carolina,” FPG Senior Research Scientist Ximena Franco-Jenkins, PhD, FPG Research Scientist Heather Aiken, PhD, and Kristin Papoi, PhD, a clinical associate professor in the School of Education, will conduct a landscape analysis to identify the programs utilizing Lectura and examine potential patterns (e.g., demographic, locale) between programs that do and do not use the program.

The research team will explore the adoption and implementation experiences of teachers and administrators using Lectura as well as the feasibility of using Lectura data to guide instruction. Franco-Jenkins and her colleagues will collect teacher data via surveys and focus groups and interview site-based administrators and district-level personnel. The work being done through this project supports the FPG Next priority focused on language and literacy in early development.

By working in conjunction with NCDPI, Franco-Jenkins and her colleagues believe this initial study could serve as the foundation for additional projects focused on supporting the development and design of DLI programs not only in North Carolina, but across the country—ultimately creating resources for teachers, administrators, and parents surrounding the use of early reading screeners in DLI programs, and identifying best practices in DLI assessment.

Child Flourishing

Studies consistently indicate that children in communities with quality schools, safe housing, access to healthy food, parks, clean air, and health care are more likely to be prepared for school and become productive, thriving adults. However, there are communities in North Carolina—with limited or no access to some if not many of these things—where children do thrive.

Through their project, “Community Strengths in Low Opportunity Communities Associated with Child Flourishing Across North Carolina,” FPG Faculty Fellow Iheoma Iruka, PhD, and colleagues want to determine how communities with seemingly limited opportunities are in fact creating pathways for children to flourish. This work fits within the FPG Next priority around cultural resilience and wealth of marginalized and underserved communities.

The research team, which includes FPG Faculty Fellow Simona Goldin, PhD, FPG Senior Research Scientist Diana Fishbein, PhD, FPG Postdoctoral Research Associate Nathan Jorgensen, PhD, and community partner, Rural Opportunity Institute, want to understand what practices, sets of resources, knowledge, and partnerships these communities are drawing upon or have built to create these positive pathways.

After co-creating a definition of child flourishing with communities through an inclusive process, the researchers will identify North Carolina communities deemed as having “low opportunities” where children are flourishing and then conduct an in-depth examination and engagement with three communities that represent the racial, cultural, and geographical diversity of North Carolina.

Finally, by identifying the many ways communities across North Carolina deploy their cultural wealth to ensure child flourishing, these assets can then be used to design and strengthen programs and policies to meaningfully support optimal development so that a greater number of children can flourish, too.

Early Childhood Educator Wellbeing

Early childhood educator (ECE) stress is a growing concern in the U.S., negatively impacting children's social, emotional, and behavioral functioning, and increasing negative teacher-child interactions and exclusionary disciplinary practices. Despite the recognition of systemic and structural stressors like low pay and high workload, research on teacher stress lacks conceptual models and rigorous intervention studies.

Mindfulness, a practice of present-moment awareness, has shown promise in reducing teacher stress through self-awareness and emotion regulation. The Mindful Self in Schools Relationship model and the Developmental Model of Teacher Stress suggest that mindfulness enhances teacher self-awareness, empathy, and compassion, promoting better teacher-student relationships. And the Mindful Co-Regulation model operationalizes how mindfulness translates into supportive teacher-student interactions, fostering children's social-emotional development. These models highlight the importance of understanding biobehavioral aspects of stress for designing effective ECE interventions.

Through their project, “Early Childhood Educator Wellbeing through Mindful Co-Regulation: A Pilot Study,” FGP Senior Research Scientist Ann Sam, PhD, and her Co-PIs, Cathi Propper, PhD, an associate professor in the School of Nursing, and Faculty Fellow Desiree Murray, PhD, a senior research scientist at the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention seek to advance conceptual models of educator stress and evaluate the Mindful Co-Regulation approach for ECE teachers by developing biobehavioral measures of teacher co-regulation actions and stress reactivity.

The research team intends to explore the use of an observational tool (mindful co-regulation) for teachers in preschool classrooms, testing the feasibility and utility of collecting teacher heart rate variability (HRV) during interactions, and examining associations between teacher mindful co-regulation and HRV. Further, they will address the lack of physiological measures of stress in ECE teaching practices and aim to inform new professional development models that enhance both educator and child wellbeing.

This project reflects the FPG Next priority related to developmental disability and mental health committee focused on developmental by focusing on innovative approaches to support caregivers (including educators) mental health and the needs of their students.