Dr. Candace Walkington: Personalizing Mathematics Instruction to Students’ Interests: Tradeoffs and Design Principles

Personalizing Mathematics Instruction to Students’ Interests: Tradeoffs and Design Principles

Abstract: The idea of personalizing instruction to the interests and experiences of learners has begun to gain traction with the rise of advanced technology systems and initiatives like the Gates Foundation’s funding of “personalized learning” schools. In fact, personalization of learning has been identified as a Grand Challenge for this generation by the U.S. Department of Education (National Education Technology Plan) and the National Academy of Engineering. However, research on the impact of personalized learning, and more importantly on how to implement personalized learning effectively, is not yet established. In this talk, I will explore six recent studies I conducted on personalized learning in middle grades mathematics and interpret the results with respect to four design principles for personalized learning environments. Important tradeoffs emerge as we consider the time, cost, and learning outcomes most valued when personalizing instruction.

Dr. Walkington is currently an Assistant Professor at Southern Methodist University. She was my graduate student while at The University of Texas at Austin.

2015 US News and World Report- Best Graduate Schools of Education

According to US News and World Report, a teacher must first be a student, and graduate education program rankings can help you find the right classroom. With the U.S. News rankings of the top education schools, narrow your search by location, tuition, school size and test scores. The following are the 2015 US News and World Report Rankings for Graduate Programs in Education (see table 1).

I received my Master's from Teachers College, Columbia University (#8), my Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University (#2), my post doctoral studies were done at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (#5 overall, #1 pubic) and I have been a tenured professor at The University of Texas at Austin (#10 overall, #4 public). 

Table 1

Methodology: 2015 Best Education Schools Rankings 

Ranking of The University of Texas at Austin

UT Ranked 30th Worldwide by U.S. News and World Report

In its first ever global university ranking released Wednesday, U.S. News and World Report recognized UT as the 30th-best university in the world. 

The publication previously listed the University as No. 53 in its 2015 national rankings. According to U.S. News, the global rankings are based on different criteria from the national list, including schools’ academic research and overall reputation — not their separate undergraduate or graduate programs. 

For its global rankings, the publication used measures such as faculty publications, academic citations and highly cited papers by drawing on information from Thomson Reuters, an organization that tracks research productivity. 

The overall rankings include 500 universities in 49 countries.

For 2014-2015, the Times Higher Education World rankings ranked UT 28th in the world.

What we have been thinking about for the past year: Terrariums and Pre-Service Teacher Knowledge

"Bay of New York From Hoboken"
John Poppel Sculps- 1850

The following is a presentation that was given on November 21, 2014. The presentation centered on recent research taking place with a graduate student. 

TITLE: What we have been thinking about for the past year: Terrariums and Pre-Service Teacher Knowledge 

Michele Mann and Anthony Petrosino will be talking about 2 ongoing research projects they have been working on for the past few months. The first is an examination of pre-service teachers use of physical, symbolic, and computational models. In the case of their study, 2-tier terrariums. What are the constraints, affordances, and points of leverage for elementary science pre-service teachers and their students. The second project is an assessment of science content knowledge and process skills of pre-service elementary science teachers (non content majors), pre-service secondary teachers (content majors), and college students in general. Issues of teacher training, general science knowledge and preliminary results will be discussed. 

  Petrosino, Mann Talk (2014)

Minutes before the presentation 

Klein ISD brings science to students in new mobile lab- Houston Chronicle (short interview)

I was interviewed in early November by the Houston Chronicle for a story about a mobile lab delivering STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) for school children in the Klein school district in Texas. While the interview with the reporter lasted about a half hour and covered many topics about education in Texas and across the nation (some to be used for a future article), this story contains only a few sentences of the interview.  -Dr. Petrosino 

By Mihir Zaveri

Bailey DePhilippis, 6, a first grader at Bernshausen Elementary, learns about food items from a chart at the nutrition station of the STEAM Express, Klein ISD's new mobile science and technology lab. The trailer is expected to start visiting each of Klein's 40 schools by the end of the year. Photo: Melissa Phillip, Staff

Abel Martinez dips his hand into a beaker of water and carefully dabs a drop onto a small, translucent rock he's examining.
"It doesn't soak into the rock, so that means it's not permeable," the 13-year-old declares, eyeing the bead of water.

Martinez, who is in eighth grade at Ulrich Intermediate School in the Klein Independent School District, then slowly focuses the white microscope-camera onto the jagged surface of a piece of fool's gold.

While he is surrounded by science apparatus, he is not in a classroom. Instead, he's testing out a 40-foot-long, 8½-foot-wide trailer that houses Klein ISD's new mobile science and tech lab.
The mobile laboratory - filled with dozens of laptops and touch screens, orange-and-white robots and displays on vitamins, architecture and hurricanes - is expected to begin visiting each of Klein's 40 schools by the end of the year. It's been dubbed the STEAM Express for its emphasis on science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.
Klein already implements the state curriculum, which requires math and science education from K-12, and starting in eighth grade, the district has popular career and technical education programs in computer programming, engineering and agriculture.

But administrators hope the STEAM Express, a play on the STEM acronym, will be a more hands-on, career-focused learning vehicle that inspires more students to pursue STEAM careers.

Aiming younger
"We are finding that we have gaps with our younger children learning about the STEAM careers," said Adam Hile, the district's director of curriculum and instruction. "The STEAM Express is going to allow us to bring those ideas down to the younger kids and hopefully spark an interest when they are younger."
The plan for now is to take the turquoise-and-white trailer to each Klein school and potentially to a local library and other locations in the summer for students who have limited access to materials like those in the lab.
The mobile lab currently focuses on careers such as geology, engineering, meteorology, architecture, health, space exploration and robotics. Each area has its own section inside the trailer, designated by large, white letters. Teachers can decide what they want students to learn about when the trailer visits.
The focus on allocating time and resources to these subjects is positive, said Anthony Petrosino, an education professor at University of Texas at Austin who focuses on STEM learning. But he said the challenge would be maintaining an in-depth, consistent education effort.

Irregular meetings
"They're getting exposure, they certainly will be learning things," he said. "But some of those gains and some of the ability to build on things might be hampered by the fact that maybe they're only meeting once a week or on some irregular time frame."
Three-year-old Zachary McLean, who currently attends the district's pre-kindergarten program, rearranges puzzle pieces with his finger on a touch screen laptop as he sits under a sign that reads "health."
"It says veggies!" McLean exclaimed, as he pieced together the letters in a puzzle about nutrition.
Part of the appeal of the lab, Klein officials said, is that it can adapt to all grade levels and the computer programs, which allow students do everything from design roller coasters to create tornadoes, can be updated.
"I want to be on the cutting edge," said Bill Nebeker, the STEAM Express coordinator who will be taking the mobile lab to each school.
Nebeker said about 30 students can use the lab at a time, with half inside at the various stations and half outside, where a pullout 19-foot awning and a drop-down stage can be set up as a makeshift classroom.
"I just want to excite kids for science," he said. "I just want to excite kids about the possibilities."

Inspired by book bus
The STEAM lab builds off of the district's "Reading Express," a summer reading program run out of a retrofitted school bus that keeps kids, particularly those who might have limited access to books, reading even after the school year ends.
Over the last two years, officials from the district's education foundation raised some $300,000 in individual donations and in-kind donations of wiring, laptops and other technology of about $50,000. On Wednesday, the foundation officially donated the whole lab to the district.
So far, the district is allotting about $50,000 for the lab's operation and maintenance each year, Hile said.
He said the school district will evaluate the effectiveness of the mobile lab, eventually tracking students' paths after school.
"We'll be able to see: 'Do more of our students who graduate from Klein pursue more STEAM careers when they go to college or not?'" Hile said.

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Decentralized thinking and understanding of evolution in K-12 evolution education (Petrosino, Lucero, Mann, 2014)

120 year old Coal Ovens
Dom's Bakery Grand- Hoboken, NJ

The following is an article I wrote along with 2 colleagues that will appear in the peer reviewed journal Evolution: Education and Outreach. The article centers on a number of difficult concepts that must be understood before one can really understand the idea of evolution. To be clear, this article is not about beliefs--- it is about knowledge and understanding. I take no formal position on what a person believes or why (or why not) they believe what they believe. Rather, the rationale behind this line of work is rooted much more in cognition and comprehension of complex phenomena. A previous article on this topic was published by a number of graduate students and myself a few years ago and is entitled "Evolution Education: Seeing the Forest for the Trees and Focusing Our Efforts on the Teaching of Evolution" (McVaugh, Birchfield, Lucero, and Petrosino, 2011).

Some of the initial ideas for both of these papers originated while I was working with teachers to develop a fully inclusive K-12 curriculum in Hoboken, NJ. Others thoughts and ideas came from a series of classes and lectures I gave on the topic from 2010-2013.

  Petrosino, Lucero and Mann (2014)

NARST ACCEPTANCE: Tensions between conceptual and metaconceptual learning with models

The Madison- 13th and Washington St, Hoboken NJ
Circa mid 1970's

NARST (the National Association for Research in Science Teaching) is the premier worldwide organization for improving science teaching and learning through research. Since its inception in 1928, NARST has promoted research in science education and the communication of knowledge generated by the research. The ultimate goal of NARST is to help all learners achieve science literacy. The following is an acceptance letter I received this week to present some of my latest research at the annual NARST meeting. This year it will be held in Chicago, IL. 

Some initial aspects of this work was begun while I was working with teachers in Hoboken, NJ on developing a K-12 inclusive curriculum. Further development of the ideas behind this work came from interactions with Rich Lehrer (Vanderbilt), Michele Mann (U of Texas-Austin), my students and graduate students of my elementary science methods course and children from the Hola Dual Language Charter School in Hoboken, NJ. 

This is the ninth time my research has been accepted to be part of a NARST conference. -Dr. Petrosino 

Dear Anthony,

Congratulations! After a thorough peer review process, the NARST Program Committee has decided to accept your proposal Q-1007211-4189 entitled Tensions between conceptual and metaconceptual learning with models submitted to Strand 1 to be presented as a/an Interactive Poster. For the 2015 NARST Annual International Conference there were approximately 1,100 proposal submissions. Thus, you are invited to the NARST Annual International Conference will be held at the Hyatt Regency Chicago in Chicago, IL, USA from April 11 - 14, 2015. For the purpose of obtaining a visa to the USA or travel grants to support funding to attend the conference, please use this letter to verify that your proposal to present at the conference was peer-reviewed and accepted. Full details of the program (and your session) will be available by early-February at the association's website (www.narst.org). More information about the Conference venue will be available in the Spring 2015 E-NARST News.

You will find the comments and feedback from peer reviewers at the NARST Proposal Submission website: http://www.narst.org/abstracts2015 where you can log in and click on your proposal number(s) for your first author submission(s) to view your reviews. You should find these reviews useful in preparing your final paper for presentation at the Conference.

Please note that every first authors of each accepted paper must register for the Conference by 12:00pm (noon) EST on February 12, 2015. You will be able to register electronically using a credit card. Failure to register for the Conference by 12:00pm (noon) EST on February 12, 2015 may result in your submission and paper being deleted from the program.

The deadline for receipt of your voluntarily submitted manuscript for inclusion in the e-version of the program is 12:00pm (noon) EST February 19, 2015. Please note your submission is not reviewed or edited in any way. Your submission is voluntary. The link for the manuscript will only be live during the conference and for a period of up to 7 days prior to and following the conference. Beginning with the 2015 conference NARST will no longer produce the Conference CD. Directions for the submission of your manuscript for the e-version will be available on the conference page of the NARST website.

Therefore, please put these 2015 dates in your calendar:

• Early-February: Notification of your specific presentation date and time.
• February 12 (12:00pm EST): Conference pre-registration for every first author.
• February 19 (12:00pm EST): Voluntary submission of manuscript for e-version of program.
• April 11 - 14: NARST 2015 Annual International Conference in Chicago, IL.

If you have any questions about the proposal review process or conference scheduling please contact Dr. XXXXX.
Questions about registration, the conference venue, and submitting manuscripts for the e-version of the program should be directed to the NARST management company (info@narst.org).

Once again, congratulations on a successful NARST 2015 proposal. We look forward to seeing you in Chicago.

Sincerely,
NARST 2014-15 Program Committee

Talk Title: From Physical to Computational Models- The Role of Representation, Experimentation, and Content Knowledge in Pre-Service Teacher Education

Graduate student Michele Mann and Professor Anthony Petrosino will be talking about 2 ongoing research projects they have been working on for the past few months. The first is an examination of pre-service teachers use of physical, diagrammatic, and computational models of the same phenomena. In this case an examination of the 2-teir terrarium activity. What are the constraints, affordances, and points of leverage for elementary science pre-service teachers and their students? 

The second project is an assessment of science content knowledge and process skills of pre-service elementary science teachers (non content majors), pre-service secondary teachers (content majors), and college students in general. Issues of teacher training, general science knowledge and preliminary research results will be discussed. 

Dr. Petrosino and Michele Mann we speak for approximately 40 minutes with 20 minutes allocated for questions and answers. Dr. Petrosino also has a talk scheduled for the spring where he will be presenting data on the critical importance of district and school level leadership and the tenuous nature of district level reform. 

Talk 2

U.S. to Focus on Equity in Assigning of Teachers

Veteran's Day 2014- Hoboken, NJ 

New York Times ^ | November 10, 2014 | MOTOKO RICH 

Posted on November 11, 2014 7:37:40 AM CST by reaganaut1

The Obama administration is directing states to show how they will ensure that all students have equal access to high-quality teachers, with a sharp focus on schools with a high proportion of the poor and racial minorities. 

In a letter to state superintendents released Monday, Deborah S. Delisle, an assistant secretary at the Department of Education, said states must develop plans by next June that make sure that public schools comply with existing federal law requiring that “poor and minority children are not taught at higher rates than other children by inexperienced, unqualified or out-of-field teachers.” 

States last submitted plans to address such inequities in 2006, but data shows that large disparities persist. 

“It is important to remind our states that one step in front of the other is the way to begin to deliver for all our students,” said Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary for civil rights, in a conference call with reporters. “We are all dismayed by the lack of compliance and lack of satisfaction and delivery on this point.” 

The Education Department will send each state data collected by the department’s Office for Civil Rights showing rates of teacher experience, certification, absenteeism and salary by school as well as student access to taxpayer-funded preschool and advanced courses in math and science. 

The administration is also urging states to look at teacher evaluations to determine whether those who receive lower ratings are disproportionately assigned to schools with high proportions of racial minorities and students in poverty. 

But the only requirement of states is that they ensure that teachers are equitably distributed based on experience and credentials. 

Education advocates said such measures could limit improvements in the quality of instruction in struggling schools.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...

Hoboken Board of Education Meeting- November 11, 2014

The following in the agenda for the Hoboken Board of Education Meeting for November 11, 2014.

The remainder of regularly scheduled Board Meetings for 2014 will now be held in the Demarest School (Auditorium), 158 Fourth Street, Hoboken, NJ and will begin at 7:00 PM. Formal action will be taken at each meeting.

  Hoboken Borad of Education Agenda Nov 2014

Hoboken Board of Education Results of November 2014 - A Deeper Look at the Numbers

Election Day 2014
Hoboken, NJ 

For a summary of the 2014 Hoboken Board of Education results, please refer to either the Jersey Journal or the Hoboken Reporter. Each newspaper had fairly good coverage of the issues at stake and the results. There are also a number of Hoboken based blogs that have provided coverage on the election.

You may also wish to look up the final vote results for yourself by pointing your browser to the Office of the County Clerk for Hudson County.

Sharon L. Angley and Monica Stromwall, members of the "Parents for Progress" slate, won two of the three available seats and incumbent Peter Biancamano, a member of the "Education of All Children" candidate and the highest vote getter, won a third seat. In all, eight candidates competed for three, three-year spots on the Hoboken Board of Education. The candidates ran under three slates: Parents for Change, Parents for Progress, and Education for All Children. 

Here are the results of the election using a color coding scheme to represent the various tickets that ran for the Board*: 

Table 1

Brian Murray, Patricia Waiters and Lynn Danzker ran as "Parents for Change"

Antonio Gray, Sharyn Angley, and Monica Stromwell ran as "Parents for Progress" 

Peter Biancamano and Frances Rhodes Kearns ran as "Education for All Children" 

Table 1 indicates that "Parents for Change" candidates received an average of 1907 votes per candidate; "Parents for Progress" candidates received an average of 2167 votes per candidate; and "Education for All Children" received an average of 2279 votes per candidate.

Table 1 also shows how each candidate's individual vote total compared to the average for the members of THEIR particular ticket. For instance, "Parents for Change" candidate Brian Murray (1H) received a total of 2097 votes while the average vote for a "Parents for Change" candidate was 1907, leaving a +190 vote count from the average for Candidate Murray. 

Table 2 

Table 2 shows the general percentage of total votes that each ticket received. Approximately 16,802 individual candidate votes were cast in the Hoboken Board of Education election indicating roughly 5600 voters (assumption: each voter who voted in the BOE election voted for 3 candidates). 

"Education for All"'s two candidates received about 27% of the votes 

"Parents for Change"'s three candidates received about 34% of the votes 

"Parents for Progress"'s three candidates received about 39% of the votes

Table 3 

In statistics and probability theory, the standard deviation (SD) measures the amount of variation or dispersion from the average. A low standard deviation indicates the data points tend to be very close to the mean (or "expected value"); a high high standard deviation indicates that the data points are spread out over a large range of values. 

Table 3 shows that the "Parents for Progress" candidates experienced fairly low variability- meaning if a voter voted for one member of "Parents for Progress", they voted for all three. When voters deviated from voting for the entire ticket, evidence seems to indicate they voted for someone other than Antonio Gray (-87 votes from average, see Table 1). 

Table 3 also shows that the "Parents for Change" candidates experienced low to moderate variability- meaning if a voter voted for one member of "Parents for Change", they probably voted for all three. When voters deviated from voting for the entire ticket, evidence seems to indicate they voted for someone other than Lynn Danzker (-289 votes from average, see Table 1).

Finally, Table 3 indicates that the "Education for All Children" candidates experienced moderate variability. However the story seems to be a little more complicated with "Education for All Children." The fairly high variability likely came from Peter Biancamano (+243 votes from average, see Table 1 and Table 4) picking up votes from both "Parents for Change" and "Parents for Progress" voters. If a voter voted for one member of "Education for All Children", they likely voted for both but when an "Education for All" candidate received a vote from a non-"Education for All" voter, it likely came from a "Parents for Change" voter with some additional voters being "Parents for Progress" voters.

Table 4- Click to enlarge

Table 4 groups the candidates by ticket via a color coded bar graph. The standard deviation for the votes received by all 8 candidates was 253.5 and the average vote count for each candidate was 2097 (see Table 5).  

Table 5

Further analysis indicates just how decisive Biancamano's victory was on Election Day. Table 6  is a table of candidates ranked by standard deviation units (calculated by subtracting the average vote total for the group from the individual candidate's vote total and then dividing by the standard deviation of votes for all candidates). In this election, a standard deviation unit was approximately 253 votes. Table 7 is a graphical representation of candidates color coded by slate on standard deviation units to help inform and model a normal distribution curve (Table 8).

Table 6

Table 7- Click to Enlarge

Table 8 (below) shows the fairly close grouping of Murray (1H), Waiters (6H),  Rhodes-Kearns (8H), Gray (2H), Angley (3H), and Stromwell (5H). The two obvious outliers from the candidate pool were Biancamano (4H) and Danzker (7H)- especially easy to see when plotted on a normal distribution curve (see Table 1 for triangulation of this conjecture with supporting data from Table 6, Table 7, and Table 8).

Table 8- Click to Enlarge 

Speculation and questions remain about this election. Would results have been different if there was a two slate race instead of three? Would results have been different if "Education for All Children" had a third candidate? Is "Parents for Change" a superficial re-branding of the toxic and failed Kids First group (who still hold a board majority) or will "Parents for Change" emerge as a legitimate force for unity, reform, and quality? Will this election solidify divisions or force compromise among different political factions in town? For the time being, we will leave the speculation and punditry for others to explore.

A Board of Education member is an unpaid elected official with no health or retirement benefits. Each candidate is to be  acknowledged for their willingness to volunteer their time in order to serve the community. The November 2014 Board of Education election will be remembered for being a generally positive campaign where "Parents for Change", "Parents for Progress", and "Education for All Children" articulated primarily pro-active visions and "positive" messaging for moving forward in the school district and in healing certain fractures in the community. Congratulations to all. 

"Parents for Change"

"Parents for Progress"

"Education for All Children"

* I would like to thank a number of regular readers for suggesting some helpful ideas for reframing some of the tables and data analysis to my original post. 

State Shutting Down Jersey City Charter School By Jessica Calefati/The Star-Ledger

"Stevens Castle", Harold Knickerbocker Faye, - circa 1939

The following article appeared recently and discusses the shutting down of a charter schools in nearby Jersey City, NJ. When does the State of New Jersey decide to close down a charter school? According to the article and the NJDOE accountability website, charter schools answer directly to the New Jersey Department of Education and not to a local school district. According to the NJDOE website, 

"If a school does not meet academic, fiscal and organizational standards that are outlined in its initial charter application and Performance Framework, the NJDOE will make the decision to close the school. When this does happen, the top priority is ensuring that students are not disrupted by this closure. The NJDOE works with local public schools, both district and charter, to find a school that meets the needs of each individual student."

In this case, the school had failed in terms of budget, declining enrollment, and in poor academic performance. 

It is worth noting that the Hola Dual Language Charter School has a stable budget with no major issues, a well publicized waiting list indicating full enrollment, and outstanding academic performance….and is currently fighting a lawsuit (despite former Superintendent Dr. Mark Toback saying there is no lawsuit) initiated by the Hoboken Board of Education and the Superintendent's Office requesting revocation of Hola's approved renewal and expansion to 8th grade as well as its very  existence as a charter school (should the renewal be rescinded), 

Excerpt from HBOE lawsuit 

One can only imagine what the situation would be if charter schools were required to be accountable to local public school districts rather than the Office of the Commissioner of Education. Issues of "segregation" and "funding" as well as subjective ideas of quality would cause havoc around the state and country. That doesn't mean some charter schools should not be closed as the following article points out. Simply that local school districts and local boards of education can never become the entity that does the evaluation in my opinion.   -Dr. Petrosino 

The state Department of Education will shut down Schomburg Charter School in Jersey City at the end of this school year — a move that signifies the Christie administration’s increasingly firm stance against low-performing charters.

The K-8 school has been open since 2000 and is one of New Jersey’s oldest charter schools, but it has been beset in recent years by budget woes, declining enrollment and dismal academic performance, Assistant Education Commissioner Bari Erlichson said in a letter to the school’s board of trustees.

"The decision to close a school is one of the hardest decisions we make, and not one we take lightly," Erlichson said. "We cannot conclude that Schomburg Charter School is a viable school alternative for the students of Jersey City beyond this school year."

A representative from the school could not be reached for comment.

Last month, state education officials announced plans to close Emily Fisher Charter School in Trenton and Pleasant Tech Academy Charter School in Pleasantville. Supporters of both groups have been fighting the decisions in court.

Like Emily Fisher and Pleasant Tech, Schomburg is one of the lowest-performing schools in the state. It underperforms every other public school in Jersey City, where proficiency rates for elementary grades range from 30 percent to 70 percent. Nearly 90 percent of Schomburg’s third- and fifth-grade students failed last year’s state test in language arts.

The school’s academic performance has improved marginally since 2008, but the meager gains are not good enough to keep the school open, Erlichson said in the letter.

Because the school’s enrollment has declined by 50 percent since 2005 — it had 173 students in the 20011-12 school year — it no longer collected enough state aid to finance basic operations. The budget submitted to state officials for the next academic year was in the black by only $600, Erlichson said.

"Over the past school year, the Department expressed serious concerns about Schomburg’s fiscal viability and long-term sustainability," according to the letter. "With decreasing revenue and enrollment, the school does not have a viable budget."

UT Austin Again Named One of Top Universities in the World

The University of Texas at Austin has again been recognized as one of the best universities in the world, earning the No. 28 slot in the 2014-15 Times Higher Education World University rankings, which is considered one of the most authoritative assessments of universities.

Among public universities in the U.S., UT Austin ranked sixth on the list.

“I’m proud Times Higher Education has recognized UT as one of the world’s top 29 universities for the fourth consecutive year,” said President Bill Powers. “It’s a testament to the hard work of our faculty and staff. All Texans should take great pride that UT Austin keeps company with the world’s very best universities.”

Times Higher Education is the latest in a series of 2014 rankings recognizing excellence at the flagship university. UT Austin has also been named:

• No. 29 in the world by the Center for World University Rankings, based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
• No. 39 in the world by the Academic Ranking of World Universities, which is compiled by the Center for World-Class Universities at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
• No. 53 in the nation by U.S. News and World Report.

UT Austin has maintained these levels of excellence even as it receives less state funding and charges lower tuition than most of its peer public research universities in the United States.

The London-based Times Higher Education examines 13 factors in five separate areas to determine excellence — teaching, research, influence of research, innovation and international outlook.

UT Austin’s highest marks were in its influence of research, as measured by the number of times faculty members’ studies are cited by peers; overall research, which includes funding, number of articles published and quality; and teaching, which is based largely on the university’s reputation among scholars.

“These rankings confirm what UT students already know — that we are learning from some of the best professors on the planet and receiving a world-class education,” said Student Government president Kori Rady. “This foundation will absolutely help us change the world.”