Castillo, Nathan M
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Publication Supporting Home Language Reading through Technology in Rural South Africa(2018-03-01) Castillo, Nathan M; Wagner, Daniel AThis paper describes a short-term longitudinal study in South Africa, with children in grades 1-3, some of whom received a multimedia technology reading support program in one of three home languages and English (through exisiting computer labs in schools). Findings reveal a positive and significant impact on local language reading acquisition among children with multimedia support. The study shows that effective literacy support can help struggling rural learners make significant gains that will help them complete their schooling. The ability to accomplish a full cycle of primary school with fully developed reading skills has significant implications for life-long learning.Publication Mobiles for Literacy in Developing Countries: An Effectiveness Framework(2014-03-01) Wagner, Daniel A; Castillo, Nathan M; Murphy, Katie M; Crofton, Molly; Zahra, Fatima TIn recent years, the advent of low-cost digital and mobile devices has led to a strong expansion of social interventions, including those that try to improve student learning and literacy outcomes. Many of these are focused on improving reading in low-income countries, and particularly among the most disadvantaged. Some of these early efforts have been called successful, but little credible evidence exists for those claims. Drawing on a robust sample of projects in the domain of mobiles for literacy, this article introduces a design solution framework that combines intervention purposes with devices, end users, and local contexts. In combination with a suggested set of purpose-driven methods for monitoring and evaluation, this new framework provides useful parameters for measuring effectiveness in the domain of mobiles for literacy.Publication MOOCs for Development: Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities(2015-01-01) Castillo, Nathan M; Lee, Jinsol; Wagner, Daniel A; Zahra, Fatima TThe recent rise of massive open online courses (MOOCs) has generated significant media attention for their potential to disrupt the traditional modes of education trough ease of access and free or low-cost content delivery. MOOCs offer the potential to enable access to high-quality education to students, even in the most underserved regions of the world. However, much of the excitement surrounding opportunities for MOOCs in non-OECD contexts remains unproven. Challenges with regard to infrastructure, sustainability, and evaluation have disrupted early attempts to expand inclusion for those least educated. Drawing on proceedings from a recent international conference on MOOCs for Development held at the University of Pennsylvania, this report synthesizes trends, challenges, and opportunities within the growing subfield.Publication Learning at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Constraints, Comparability and Policy in Developing Countries(2014-12-01) Wagner, Daniel A; Castillo, Nathan MUnited Nations development goals have consistently placed a high priority on the quality of education—and of learning. This has led to substantive increases in international development assistance to education, and also to broader attention, worldwide, to the importance of children’s learning. Yet, such goals are mainly normative: they tend to be averages across nations, with relatively limited attention to variations within countries. This review provides an analysis of the scientific tensions in understanding learning among poor and marginalized populations: those at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP). While international agencies such as UNESCO and OECD often invoke these populations as the “target” of their investments and assessments, serious debates continue around the empirical science involved in both research and policy. The present analysis concludes that the UN post-2015 development goals must take into account the critical need to focus on learning among the poor in order to adequately address social and economic inequalities.Publication Technology For Improving Early Reading In Multilingual Settings: Evidence From Rural South Africa(2017-01-01) Castillo, Nathan M.In September 2015, the United Nations ratified 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including a central goal to improve the quality of learning, and attain universal literacy. As part of this effort, the UN and other funding agencies see technology as a major enabling tool for achievement of the SDGs. However, little evidence exists concerning major claims about the success of particular interventions, especially in developing countries. An additional barrier to achieving the SDGs for education is a better understanding of how learning occurs for promoting successful transfer of reading skills in linguistically diverse settings. This research investigates the impact of a computer-based early grade reading intervention for improving literacy outcomes in rural South Africa. Results show that learners in intervention schools performed significantly better on mother tongue reading fluency measures, as well as comprehension. Further, this study identified a pair of values by which mother tongue decoding skills significantly improved the ability to predict transfer of skills to English. The findings indicate that teaching literacy through guided and contextualized digital material can support development of early reading skills. However, more research is needed to enhance sustainability of the treatment effect over time. The results further demonstrate the importance of establishing baseline reading skills in a mother tongue language for improving transfer of literacy skills to English.Publication El Aprendizaje en la Base de la Pirámide: Restricciones, Comparabilidad y Política en Países en Vías de Desarrollo(2017-01-01) Wagner, Daniel A; Castillo, Nathan MLos objetivos para el desarrollo de las Naciones Unidas han asignado, de manera sostenida, una alta prioridad a la calidad educativa —y a la del aprendizaje. Esto ha llevado a avances sustanciales en ayuda para el desarrollo internacional hacia la educación, y también a una mayor atención, a nivel mundial, a la importancia del aprendizaje de los niños. Sin embargo, tales metas son principalmente normativas: tienden a representar promedios entre naciones, brindando limitada atención a las variaciones dentro de dichos países. La presente investigación proporciona un análisis de las tensiones científicas en la comprensión del aprendizaje en poblaciones pobres y marginadas: aquellos en la base de la pirámide (BdP). Si bien agencias internacionales como UNESCO y OCDE a menudo invocan a estas poblaciones como el “objetivo” de sus inversiones y evaluaciones, continúan los debates importantes sobre la ciencia empírica involucrada tanto en la investigación como en las políticas. El presente análisis concluye que los objetivos para el desarrollo post-2015 de las Naciones Unidas tienen que tomar en cuenta la necesidad critica de enfocarse en el aprendizaje de los pobres a fin de abordar adecuadamente las inequidades sociales y económicas.Publication Review of the World Bank World Development Report, Mind, Society, and Behavior(2016-08-01) Wagner, Daniel A; Buek, Katharine W; Adler, Alejandro; Castillo, Nathan M; Zahra, Fatima T; Lee, Jinsol; Chittamuru, Deepti; Lee, Selene SThe World Development Report is an annual World Bank publication that highlights the latest research and trends in international development programming. This major review carries substantial weight in setting the policy and program agenda for donor and recipient agencies around the world. The 2015 Mind, Society, and Behavior report is remarkable in that, in a field typically driven by economic principles and interventions, it focuses on the human cognitive processes that underlie social and economic decision making. This important, but often neglected, perspective is a substantial contribution to the development discussion. The report represents a noteworthy effort in identifying and compiling rigorous and up-to-date psychological research on human needs, motivations, and biases to inform key recommendations for development policy and programming investments.Publication Gold Standard? The Use of Randomized Controlled Trials for International Educational Policy. Review of Abhijit V. Bannerjee and Esther Duflo, Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty; Barbara Bruns, Deon Filmer, and Harry A. Patrinos, Making Schools Work: New Evidence on Accountability Reforms; Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel, More Than Good Intentions: How a New Economics is Helping to Solve Global Poverty(2014-02-01) Castillo, Nathan M; Wagner, Daniel AEdward Miguel and Michael Kremer Pioneered a new kind of development research in their 2004 study of a school deworming program in Kenya. Their experimental design incorporated the random assignment of primary school students to either a treatment or a control group for receiving medicine to eliminate intestinal parasites. Findings revealed significant benefits to the treatment group in not only improved health but also lowered school absences (Miguel and Kremer 2004). One policy consequence was an increased awareness for more evidence-based decision making under the banner of accountability reform in international development.1 The driving focus for such reform is rigorous scientific investigation — what some call the "gold standard" of methodology — that uses randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to establish a credible link between an intervention and a set of outcomes.