Franklin Regional partners with IUP on $250,000 research grant for digital storytelling in 11th-grade English
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Summary
Indiana University of Pennsylvania will co-lead a two-year Digital Storytelling Project with Franklin Regional’s 11th-grade English program, backed by a $250,000 grant that will fund evaluation (anonymized, IRB-reviewed) of integrated decision-education and digital-story units.
Franklin Regional School District presented a two-year research partnership with Indiana University of Pennsylvania to embed digital storytelling and decision-education into 11th-grade English, supported by a $250,000 grant to measure outcomes.
Dr. Mike Sell, a professor at IUP and co-director of the Digital Storytelling Project, described a pilot and measurement plan that integrates decision-making concepts, literary analysis and digital design using open-source software Twine. "We have been provided a grant of $250,000 to measure what we've been doing," Sell said, adding that the pilot year will gather anonymized student artifacts and pre/post questionnaires for internal evaluation.
Presenters emphasized student confidentiality and research oversight: the project will anonymize data, require parental consent where applicable, and is under review by the IUP Institutional Review Board. Sell said this year’s data are for internal district assessment and will be discarded after use; next year the effort would expand to collect research-grade data if approved by IRB.
Board members asked how the project will evaluate success; Sell said the team will measure changes in students’ understanding of decision-making vocabulary and look for amplified learning across decision education, literary analysis and digital design. The board indicated support for the pilot and the district cast this as an instructional innovation building on an 11-year local partnership.