WordFarmers Associates’ leadership combined has over 100 years of teaching, evaluation, research, writing, and federal and state project-management experience (for details see “About Us” or simply Google Aimee or Craig).
WFA’s Capacities
WFA has substantial capacity in program evaluation, curriculum development, instructional design, and research.
Program evaluation is WordFarmers’ core work. For multi-year state- and federally funded projects, WFA typically helps design the evaluation with the client, often during proposal development. As third-party evaluators, we serve as critical friends throughout planning, implementation, reporting, and redesign. Our emphasis is formative: gathering evidence and providing ongoing feedback to improve operations and outcomes. Evaluation work may also support product development through pilot testing, focus groups, and content analysis.
Curriculum development includes web-based and print products created for instructional purposes. WFA most often develops professional learning materials, including online modules, books, webinars, and podcasts, though we have also adapted materials for K–12 students.
Instructional design makes curriculum products accessible and usable. WFA integrates video, audio, graphics, and text on web platforms and learning management systems, with attention to accessibility for diverse audiences, including people with disabilities. Research addresses questions of policy and educational practice and is often designed with peer-reviewed publication in view. WFA brings long experience in study conceptualization, data collection and analysis, and scholarly writing. Research cannot guarantee findings that advance a client’s objectives, but it can be designed to provide credible evidence about important questions.
Evaluation Research
WordFarmers views evaluation as a specialized form of applied research. Evaluation is systematically skeptical. That’s the research part. The evaluation part is the rendering of judgments about worth—what seems to be working or not, and why or why not. And in WFA’s preferred style of evaluation the findings are communicated in person, from the vantage of critical friend.
Simultaneously, a wider communication can be planned in advance depending on the nature of the work: going public with evidence-based information about the project. This planning includes the protection of human subjects and related approvals as needed.
And we have often realized such plans. The publications listed below are a selection of recent publicly accessible products arising from our evaluation work. All appeared in peer-reviewed research journals.
Showalter, D., Shin, J., Ottley, J. R., Pae, H., Howley, C. B., Portolese, A., & Kotler, J. (2026). Scaffolding Multilingual Teaching Practices: Development and Validation of the SCOPE-ML Observation Instrument. TESOL Journal, 17(1). (EJ1498406). https://doi.org/10.1002/tesj.70092
Howley, A., Howley, C. B., & Dudek, M. (2025). An Instrument for Measuring the Improvement Work of Professional Learning Communities. Journal of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, 9(1). (EJ1477343). https://research.ebsco.com/plink/79438b6f-b3fe-34e2-82d0-3b8c4381e355
Howley, A., Allan, D. M., Howley, N. L., & Furst, T. (2023). ’All Means All’…Maybe: MTSS Policy and Practice across States in the United States. Mid-Western Educational Researcher, 35(1), 4–32. https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/mwer/vol35/iss1/4/
Howley, C. B., & Howley, A. (2021). Supply and Demand for Education Personnel Serving Students with Low Incidence Sensory Disabilities in Ohio: A Report to the Ohio Deans Compact (Online Submission). (ED614743). https://research.ebsco.com/plink/4d87c648-f8ee-31ae-9598-fc924dc7d775
Howley, C., Howley, A., Farley, A., Dudek, M., & Gilday, C. (2021). Fairness, Voice, Dialogue: Measuring Collective Social Justice Practice in Schools. Mid-Western Educational Researcher, 33(3), 196–229. https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/mwer/vol33/iss3/3/
Howley, C., Howley, A., & Yahn, J., VanHorn, P., & Telfer, D. (2019). Inclusive instructional leadership: A quasi-experimental study of a professional development program for principals. Mid-Western Educational Researcher, 31(1), 3-19.
Craft, E., & Howley, A. (2018). African American students’ experiences in special education programs. Teachers College Record, 120(10), 1–35. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811812001001
Howley, C., Howley, A., & Telfer, D. (2017). National provisions for certification and professional preparation in low-incidence sensory disabilities: A 50-state study. American Annals of the Deaf, 162(3), 277-294.
Howley, C., Howley, A., & Telfer, D. (2017). Special education paraprofessionals in district context. Mid-Western Educational Researcher, 29(2), 136-165.
Telfer, D., Howley, A., & Howley, C. (2017). How the other half teaches. School Administrator, 74(2), 43-45