Projects

Brain Games

In partnership with HopeLab, Daylight Design, and the South Carolina Education Oversight Committee, the project adapted SECURe Brain Games to a standalone version without the SECURe curricula. The was accomplished by created a new version of Brain Games that included a "wrapper" for supporting teachers and students, while adapting and improving content to the format of games. Read more about Brain Games.

CZI Kernels Project

The Kernels project aims to develop and test a set of evidence-based kernels of practice that represent a smaller-scale, personalized approach to SEL, thereby increasing feasibility, sustainability, and impact across settings. Ultimately, our goal is to draw upon the pilots we have completed to date to further develop, refine, and test a set of kernels that can be deployed and effectively integrated into daily practices.

Executive Function Mapping Project

With funding from the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) at the Administration for Children and Families, this project aims to create a visual map and a report describing the multiple terms, measures, and findings in the EF and regulation-related literatures, and to generate a set of translational tools to support accurate interpretation and use of EF-related research in applied contexts.

INEE QELO Mapping Project

The purpose of the INEE QELO Mapping Project is to identify and "map" (code, analyze, describe) existing social emotional learning (SEL) and psychosocial support (PSS) measurement/assessment tools, as well as global guidance documents, being used in the international Education in Emergencies (EiE) sector.

Lebanon SEL Framework Mapping Project

The Lebanon Social and Emotional (SEL) Framework Mapping Project uses the process developed by the Taxonomy Project to conduct an empirical mapping to identify similarities, differences, and gaps in competencies included in SEL-related frameworks used to date in Lebanon.

The Making Caring Common Project

The Making Caring Common Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education seeks to place moral and social development at the center of conversations about raising and educating children, and seeks to strengthen the ability of schools, parents, and communities to support the development of children’s ethical and social capacities, including the ability to take responsibility for others, to think clearly about and pursue justice, and to treat people well day to day.

Program Evaluations

In addition to the above projects, Dr. Jones serves as the Principal Investigator for evaluation studies of social-emotional learning programs designed to assess longitudinal impact of specific programs as well as contribute to body of evidence for SEL programming as a whole. Current evaluations including 4Rs and Liones Quest.

Researching in Community 

This project partners with schools and community-based organizations in the Boston area and New York City to train and support youth-driven research and activism. Drawing on the approach of Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR), the project fosters intergenerational collaborations that empower youth to actively shape their sociopolitical contexts. By centering youth perspectives in educational decision-making, the initiative demonstrates that effective social-emotional learning must integrate questions of power, identity, and voice to create equitable, culturally responsive learning environments that authentically develop core SEL competencies.

SECURe: Social, Emotional, and Cognitive Understanding and Regulation in Education

The SECURe project addresses this issue by developing a school-based intervention that is both horizontally and vertically aligned: in it we develop curricula that targets executive functioning and social, emotional, and cognitive regulation skills (horizontal alignment across developmental domains), while developing benchmarks, teacher training, and school structures and routines that span the Pre-K to school divide (vertical alignment across the Pre-K to school transition).

SECURe Families 2Gen Project

The 2Gen Project developed and piloted a dual-generation program that supports low-income children’s academic and social-emotional development while simultaneously building skills and social capital among low-income parents. Read more about the SECURe Families 2Gen Project.

SEL Analysis Project

The SEL Analysis Project looks inside 25 leading SEL programs to identify key features and attributes of SEL programming for elementary-age children and make general comparisons across varying approaches. The project involves conducting a rigorous content analysis of SEL programs to identify and summarize the skills targeted, instructional methods used, and programmatic features included within each program.

SEL in Schools Across the Nation

This project aims to learn more about the landscape of SEL work across elementary schools in the United States. That is, what do principals, teachers, and school staff do to promote this set of skills and what are their perceptions of this work and its impact.

Taxonomy Project

The Taxonomy Project will create a platform that showcases the points of alignment and divergence across social and emotional learning frameworks and does so in a way that enables those doing the work of the field to both identify common ground and to see what is distinct within any particular framework.

Zaentz Early Childhood Initiative

Supported by a $35.5 million gift from the Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation, the Saul Zaentz Early Childhood Initiative at HGSE will aim to transform early childhood education. The initiative will support the Harvard Early Learning Study, the Saul Zaentz Academy for Professional Learning in Early Childhood, the Saul Zaentz Fellows Program, and two new endowed chairs at HGSE.