UMN/CEHD partners with the Tools Competition: Abstracts accepted through October 25

The University of Minnesota and College of Education and Human Development is partnering with the Tools Competition, a multi-million dollar grant initiative designed to foster innovation in education technology (edtech). This partnership aims to spread the word about the Tools Competition’s 2025 grant opportunities, offering more than $2 million in awards to the most innovative edtech tools and technologies serving learners from K-12 through post-secondary education.

Competitors worldwide from all backgrounds and phases of development are eligible for prizes ranging from $50k-$300k. Whether you’re an undergraduate or graduate student, researcher, educator, or edtech innovator, make sure you submit your abstract by October 25, 2024. The 2025 competition cycle is offering awards for the tracks Accelerating K-12 Learning Track, Post-Secondary Learning Track, and Dataset Prize. 

The Department of Educational Psychology has a history of success in the Tools Competition, with two winners in recent years. Caitlin Mills, assistant professor and program coordinator in the psychological foundations of education program, was part of a team that won in the Learning Science Research track 2021-2022 with Understanding Mind Wandering During Learning. More recently, Alisha Wackerle-Hollman, associate research professor in the Department of Educational Psychology, and Erin Lease, department researcher, were also part of a team that won in the Instructional Coaching for Early Childhood Education track 2023-2024 cycle with the IGDILab's AI-BRIDGE.

Mills is also serving as an advisor in the Tools Competition this year, where she will advise on competition design, evaluation, and research objectives. She will also support competitors to align their proposals with learning engineering principals and leverage their tools as instruments for research, working with all winners in evaluating the impact of their tools. 

For more information about the competition and how to apply, visit the Tools Competition website.