Current Grant-Funded Programs
Institute for Research and Policy on Acceleration (IRPA)
The purpose of IRPA is to provide research and information on acceleration as a curricular intervention for gifted students. IRPA’s staff engages in research and acts as a clearinghouse for information on acceleration. Also, IRPA provides consultation to schools on policy issues. IRPA provides competitive grants for scholars who are doing research on acceleration. Currently, IRPA is conducting a national study of attitudes and practices concerning acceleration. IRPA was established by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.
Contact: David F. Lohman, Ph.D. and Maureen A. Marron, Ph.D.
Iowa Online AP Academy
A federal grant supporting IOAPA makes it possible for students from every high school in Iowa, especially those in rural areas, to take AP courses online. IOAPA also provides training and support to educators across the state who are teaching, or who want to teach AP courses. The federal funding helps cover tuition costs for students taking AP courses and for teachers trained through the academy.
Contact: Clar Baldus, Ph.D.
The Templeton International Fellowship Program
The Templeton International Fellowship Program provides full-travel fellowships for 50 international educators to attend the Wallace National Research Symposium on May 18-20, 2008. The fellowship covers travel, room and registration costs. The Fellows are also expected to use the knowledge they gain at the Wallace Research Symposium to enhance gifted education in their home countries. The fellowship program is made possible by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.
Contact: Nicholas Colangelo, Ph.D., Susan Assouline, Ph.D. and Laurie Croft, Ph.D.
Davidson Institute Research and Evaluation Program (DITD)
A grant from the Davidson Institute for Talent Development (DITD) provides a comprehensive research and evaluation program administered by the Belin-Blank Center. The research focuses on profoundly gifted students identified by the Davidson Institute. In addition, the Belin-Blank Center will conduct evaluations of the new Davidson Academy and other Davidson programs.
Contact: Maureen Marron, Ph.D.
Invent Iowa
The Invent Iowa program provides opportunities for Iowa students K-12 to participate in inventiveness curriculum as well as local and regional inventiveness contest. The top inventions from the local and regional competitions are selected for the State Invention Convention, co-hosted by the College of Engineering of The University of Iowa and Iowa State University. Funding for the program has been made possible by Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa).
Contact: Clar Baldus, Ph.D.
Recently Completed Grant-Funded Programs
Javits Grant for Twice-Exceptional Project
The "Twice-Exceptional" project is funded with a three-year (2005-2008), $904,772 federal Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Program grant to the Iowa Department of Education, which is teaming with the UI’s Connie Belin and Jacqueline N. Blank International Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development and Iowa’s Area Education Agencies. The project’s main goal is to learn more about gifted students who have a learning disability or an autism spectrum disorder.
Contact: Susan Assouline, Ph.D. and Megan Foley Nicpon, Ph.D.
Autism and Giftedness
The Belin-Blank Center is involved in assessment and intervention of gifted students who have been diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. A focus of this grant is in helping such students attend and succeed in summer and special programs offered by the Belin-Blank Center, as well as other gifted centers. The project is made possible by grant from the Messengers of Healing Winds Foundation.
Contact: Susan Assouline, Ph.D. and Megan Foley-Nicpon, Ph.D.
Advanced Placement Incentive Program
The Advanced Placement Incentive Program: Enhancing AP Opportunities for Low-Income Students in Iowa Project is led by the Iowa Department of Education (DE) and The University of Iowa Belin-Blank Center. This project serves teachers and low-income students in Iowa’s high-poverty public school districts (districts with 40% or more free/reduced lunch enrollment). The grant provides support to schools to encourage low-income students in Iowa to participate in AP and pre-AP activities.
Contact: Clar Baldus, Ph.D.
Iowa Alternative Schools Project
The Belin-Blank Center, in partnership with the Iowa Department of Education, the Iowa Association of
Alternative Education and seven Iowa alternative high schools, worked on a three-year (2003-2006)
federal grant from the Javits Gifted and Talented Student Education Program to create the Iowa Alternative
Schools Project. This project aimed to identify, better understand, and help meet the needs of academically
gifted alternative high school students and their teachers.
Contact: Nicholas Colangelo, Ph.D.
English Language Learners
The Belin-Blank Center, in partnership with the Iowa Department of Education, led a project to
identify gifted, English Language Learners (ELL) in the state of Iowa. This initiative is recognized as
a special project of the Iowa Department of Education’s federal grant, “Our Kids,” which focused on
enhancing the education of all students who are ELL.
The goal of the project was to develop procedures and guidelines for teachers and administrators to use
in the discovery of students who are both gifted and ELL. Nine districts participated in this
initiative: Lamoni, Marshalltown, Muscatine, Ottumwa, Postville, Sioux City, West Des Moines, Washington,
and Waterloo. Information gathered from interviewing students, teachers, and administrators were
included in a manual designed for Iowa educators to use in identifying these students.
Contact: Nicholas Colangelo, Ph.D.
Teaching American History
In 2003, Area Education Agency (AEA) 267 (with offices as widely apart as Cedar Falls, Marshalltown, and
Clear Lake, serving 18 counties) and the Belin-Blank Center received a three-year Teaching American
History grant from U.S. Department of Education Office of Innovation and Improvement. AEA 267 and the
Center joined with The University of Iowa College of Education, the University’s Department of History,
the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum, and the Grout Museum of History and Science to promote
and support the effective teaching of American History at the elementary and secondary levels.
Contact: Laurie Croft, Ph.D.
Iowa and Israel Partners in Excellence
The purpose of the Iowa and Israel Partners in Excellence Program, established in 2003, was to enrich
mathematics and science curriculum for rural, high-ability middle school students in the state of Iowa.
This program was informally titled Iowa Excellence. Iowa Excellence served more than 100 high-ability
students middle-school students. These students received opportunities for academic challenge to prepare
them for advanced course work in high school and college. Iowa schools that participated were Shenandoah,
Mediapolis, Winterset, Williamsburg, and St. Ansgar.
The program’s funding came from the United States Department of Education Fund for the Improvement of
Education.
Contact: Catherine Blando, Ed.S.