Linda Darling-Hammond receives 2022 Yidan Prize for Educational Research
This story was adapted from a press release issued by the Yidan Prize Foundation.
Linda Darling-Hammond, professor emeritus at the Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE), received the 2022 Yidan Prize for Research in Education.
Linda Darling Hammond (Image credit: Rod Searcey)
Now president and CEO of the Learning Policy Institute (LPI), a nonprofit organization focused on educational research, Darling-Hammond is the Charles E. Ducommun Professor Emeritus at Stanford University, where she launched the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education and worked with colleagues. to redesign the Stanford Teacher Education Program (STEP).
The award recognizes Darling-Hammond’s work in shaping educational policy and practice around the most equitable and effective ways to teach and learn. His research uncovers the diverse ways children learn and how best to teach them, feeding this knowledge into strong educator development programs.
The Yidan Prize was founded by Charles Chen Yidan, a philanthropist and lead founder of Tencent, a technology company. Each year, the Yidan Prize Foundation awards two prizes: one in educational research and another in educational development.
Alongside Darling-Hammond, Yongxin Zhu, founder of the New Education Initiative (NEI) and professor at Soochow University School of Education, received the 2022 Education Development Award. The winners were announced at the 2022 Stanford Accelerator for Learning Summit on September 28.
Darling-Hammond and Zhu “play an important role in giving our teachers and young people the skills to thrive in the 21st century,” said Edward Ma, Secretary General of the Yidan Prize Foundation. “Their work clearly shows the transformative impact teachers can have on learners. And when students have good teachers, they have great opportunities.
Driving scalable change in education
Darling-Hammond has spent decades studying teacher education curriculum and practice and is widely considered one of the most important voices in the field. She is currently the chair of the California State Board of Education and led President Joe Biden’s 2020 Education Policy Transition Team.
The Yidan Prize is the world’s largest prize in the field of education. Darling-Hammond will receive approximately $4 million in recognition of her work.
With funds from the Yidan Prize, Darling-Hammond will scale up her critical work at the Educator Preparation Lab (EdPrepLab), a network focused on supporting student-centered, equity-focused teacher preparation programs grounded in the science of learning and development.
She will expand the reach of EdPrepLab, adding new programs, investing in new research on effective programs, and creating a space where educators, researchers, and policy makers can easily share and learn from each other.
“Linda has spent her life creating research tools that support policy and practice to create better and fairer educational opportunities,” said Andreas Schleicher, Jury Leader of the Yidan Prize for Educational Research and Director of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Directorate for Education and Skills. “His influence on public policy has helped political architects shape positive change for children on a large scale.”
Zhu, who has been recognized for his work in improving teaching quality and transforming learning outcomes in China, plans to use Yidan Prize funds to expand NEI’s reach in rural areas remote areas of China and develop a cloud-based learning center.
“The Yidan Prize champions the most innovative ideas in education and helps spread them so that as many people as possible can benefit from them,” said Koichiro Matsuura, Chairman of the Yidan Prize Evaluation Committee and former Director General of UNESCO. “Our winners are essential to our goal of transforming education around the world – and through that, unlocking a brighter future for all learners.”
The Yidan Prize winners each receive a total of $3.9 million, half of which is cash prize while the other half is project funding for educational initiatives.
Since the Yidan Prize was first awarded in 2017, six of the 13 winners have been Stanford faculty or alumni. The 2022 awards will be presented at a ceremony in Hong Kong on December 4.