Kellar Institute for Human DisAbilities (KIHd) - College of Education and Human Development - George Mason University
About KIHd
About Us

The Kellar Institute for Human DisAbilities (KIHd) is an interdisciplinary campus-based organization focusing on improving the lives and productivity of children and adults with disabilities. KIHd combines the resources of the university with local, state, regional, national, public, and private sector agencies and organizations to develop products, services, and programs for persons with disabilities.

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Licensure, Certificates & Training Grants

The Kellar Institute for Human DisAbilities (KIHd) collaborates with a consortium of Virginia universities to offer training/licensure options for teachers of students with visual impairments and severe disabilities. Distance education makes the programs more accessible and maximizes the number of individuals who can receive the training.

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VDOE Grants

With the support from Virgina Department of Education KIHd serves teachers, parents, therapists, and community service providers by providing a variety of continuing learning experiences via annual workshops, conferences, and project activities. In many cases, KIHd uses distance education to provide teacher training and professional development across the state.

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Project We Got It
Research

The Kellar Institute for Human DisAbilities (KIHd) continues to build and support numerous educational research projects that vary across disciplines spearheaded by the Mason faculty members. Our goal is to increase evidence based instructional and behavioral strategies to improve academic outcomes for all students with disabilities.

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Leadership Grants
DOCTORAL AND MASTERS STUDENTS

The Kellar Institute for Human DisAbilities (KIHd) doctoral and masters students conduct cutting edge research at George Mason University that is aimed to serve persons with disabilities and their families.

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Project VERIFY Details

TITLE:

Project VERIFY Value Added Through E-Coaching, Reflection, Instructional
Technology, Feedback, and You

CENTER:

OSEP

Award YEAR:

2021

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR:

Michael Kennedy
University of Virginia

CO-PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR:

Sarah A. Nagro
George Mason University
snagro@gmu.edu

Peter Youngs, Rachel L. Kunemund, Stephanie Morano, and Colby Hall
University of Virginia

PROGRAM:

Stepping-Up Technology Implementation

AWARD PERIOD:

4 years (07/01/2021 – 06/30/2026)

AWARD AMOUNT:

$2,499,676.00

DESCRIPTION:

Purpose: Project VERIFY (Value Added Through E-Coaching, Reflection, Instructional Technology, Feedback, and You) intends to deliver school leaders (e.g., principals, instructional coaches, and teacher leaders) with responsibility for providing professional development (PD) to teachers of students with disabilities a web-based suite of data-driven tools called COACHED (Capturing Observations and Collaboratively sHaring Educational Data). The goal of Project VERIFY’s technology-based PD is to help school leaders to independently support teachers’ enactment of evidence-based academic vocabulary instruction at the elementary level for students with disabilities. 
The COACHED suite of PD tools integrates five core elements created and maintained by our project team: 1) The Classroom Teaching (CT) Scan observation tool and accompanying data-driven outputs; 2) A Reflection Matrix template to guide teachers’ reflective practice following observations; 3) A feedback template that generates editable coaching notes using observation data from the CT Scan; 4) A library of on-demand multimedia vignettes focused on instructional improvement, and 5) A dashboard that allows stakeholders to access data, coaching reports, and personalized goals.