Giving Compass' Take:

• The Chan Zuckerburg Initiative (CZI) announced a $1.5 million grant to  Learning by Scientific Design Network and Deans for Impact, a coalition of deans and education leaders will decide which programs will best fit into the network. 

• What other philanthropists are heavily involved in the science of learning?

• Read more about how the state of education philanthropy. 

Deans for Impact, a coalition of college deans and leaders from traditional and alternative teacher preparation programs across the country, will choose five to seven of those programs for a new initiative focused on better preparing future teachers to incorporate cognitive science into their practice.

Last week, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) announced a $1.5 million grant to the organization to support the development of a Learning by Scientific Design Network. Over the next few weeks, Deans for Impact will review applications and choose a cohort of programs. Design work will begin in the summer and the teams of faculty members will start this fall.

It’s unclear how many future teachers the new initiative will reach, but Benjamin Riley, executive director of Deans for Impact, said the size of the programs will be a factor in determining which ones are selected. “We do want to do this at scale,” he said in an interview.

Over the next couple of years, leaders will aim to measure the extent to which beginning teachers are incorporating the science of learning into their practices, as well as how teacher preparation programs themselves are changing to provide candidates with experiences focused on the principles of how students learn.

The CZI grant is part of the foundation’s continuing emphasis on making science about how students learn more accessible to educators. In November, the foundation announced a $1 million, two-year effort to bring Neuroteach Global, a professional development app, to 1,500 teachers in Colorado, Iowa and Maryland.

Read the full article about deans for impact by Linda Jacobson at Education Dive