Zoo U’s Roll Out in Sacramento Featured in Education Innovation Publication

Zoo U’s recent roll out in the Sacramento City Unified School District is featured in Bright—a publication dedicated to covering innovation in education, with funding by the New Venture Fund and support by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

In the feature-length article, Journalist Ellen Lee writes:

Last month, with the help of educational game marketer Personal Learning Games, Zoo U started making its way to schools across the country, and expects to be in about 15 pilot programs by the end of the year. One of them is the Sacramento City Unified School District in Northern California, a district of nearly 48,000 students, 71 percent of them classified as economically disadvantaged. It received a grant three years ago to roll out a dedicated social and emotional learning curriculum in its schools and is part of a nationwide movement to incorporate such skills as part of core classroom teaching. The school district has started to introduce Zoo U into select classrooms. Mai Xi Lee, who directs social and emotional learning in the school district hopes it will not only help students build new skills, but also capture data on how much they’re learning.

The article includes interviews with Dr. Melissa DeRosier, 3C Institute CEO, and Jessica Berlinski, chief impact officer of 3C Institute partner Personalized Learning Games, on Zoo U’s proven results and ability to be used with in-person social and emotional learning (SEL) programs.

The journalist also chronicles her daughter’s positive experience in playing Zoo U and notes that SEL games are critical for anyone growing up in the digital age:

It may seem ironic to battle technology consumption with more technology consumption. But the ease that kids have with technology can also work in their favor. Games can engage and motivate students who might otherwise resist classroom instruction, and they can be customized to a student’s level. They also offer a virtual space for children to experiment and try new behaviors.

Zoo us is available for purchase through Personalized Learning Games.

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    DEB CHILDRESS, PHD

    Chief of Research and Learning Content

    BIOGRAPHY

    Dr. Childress obtained her PhD in psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to coming to 3C Institute, she served as a research associate and a postdoctoral fellow in the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill working on a longitudinal imaging study aimed at identifying the early markers of autism through behavioral and imaging methodologies. She has 19 years of autism research experience, during which she has examined the behavioral, personality, and cognitive characteristics of individuals with autism and their family members. Dr. Childress also has experience developing behavioral and parent report measurement tools, coordinating multi-site research studies, and collecting data from children and families. She has taught courses and seminars in general child development, autism, and cognitive development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

    Expertise

    • autism
    • early development
    • behavioral measurement
    • integrating behavioral and biological measurement

    Education

    • Postdoctoral fellowship, Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities (Institutional NRSA-NICHD), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    • PhD, developmental psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    • BS, psychology (minor in sociology), University of Iowa

    Selected Publications

    • Elison, J. T., Wolff, J. J., Heimer, D. C., Paterson, S. J., Gu, H., Hazlett, H. C., Styner, M, Gerig, G., & Piven, J. (in press). Frontolimbic neural circuitry at 6 months predicts individual differences in joint attention at 9 months. Developmental Science.
    • Wassink, T. H., Vieland, V. J., Sheffield, V. C., Bartlett, C. W., Goedken, R., Childress, D. & Piven, J. (2008). Posterior probability of linkage analysis of autism dataset identifies linkage to chromosome 16. Psychiatric Genetics,18(2),85-91.
    • Losh, M., Childress, D., Lam K. & Piven, J. (2008). Defining key features of the broad autism phenotype: A comparison across parents of multiple- and single-incidence autism families. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 147B(4):424-33.
    • Wassink, T. H., Piven, J., Vieland, V. J., Jenkins, L., Frantz R., Bartlett, C. W., Goedken, R., … Sheffield, V.C. (2005). Evaluation of the chromosome 2q37.3 gene CENTG2 as an autism susceptibility gene. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 136, 36-44.
    • Barrett, S., Beck, J., Bernier, R., Bisson, E., Braun, T., Casavant, T., Childress, D., … Vieland, V. (1999). An autosomal genomic screen for autism. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 88, 609-615. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1096-8628(19991215)88:63.0.CO;2-L
    • Piven, J., Palmer, P., Landa, R., Santangelo, S., Jacobi, D. & Childress, D. (1997). Personality and language characteristics in parents from multiple-incidence autism families. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 74, 398-411.
    • Piven, J., Palmer, P., Jacobi, D., Childress, D. & Arndt, S. (1997). Broader autism phenotype: Evidence from a family history study of multiple-incidence autism families. American Journal of Psychiatry, 154, 185-190.