Jonathan Schuster

Jonathan Schuster, PhD, has research interests in the cognitive processes underlying reading comprehension and writing in students with and without disabilities, as well as psycholinguistics, with a focus on reading and writing development. His past research examined how reading goals, working memory span, and other related cognitive processes influence reading comprehension; how readers resolve the meaning of lexically ambiguous words; how they perceive emotionally sensitive words; and how text complexity affects reading comprehension. He earned his PhD in cognitive psychology from the University of Kansas.

Schuster is the English language arts (ELA) research lead at Accessible Teaching, Learning, and Assessment Systems (ATLAS), a research center at the University of Kansas with more than 150 staff and more than $20M in annual revenues.

He recently led a project investigating the characteristics of text-dependent analysis (TDA) instruction in middle and high school, which will inform a grant proposal to develop an intervention to improve student TDA performance. Hee helped create a bridge linking the grades 6-12 ELA Essential Elements (EE) to the relevant knowledge, skills, abilities, and detailed work activities associated with specific postsecondary opportunities for students with complex support needs, which will help teachers prepare students for these opportunities. Schuster also contributed to a project that developed learning map neighborhoods representing the acquisition of the critical knowledge, skills, and understandings associated with literacy development for grades K-2. These neighborhoods could form the basis for instructional resources and assessments aimed at preparing students with complex support needs for alternate assessments starting in grade 3.

Since 2011, he has been developing ELA learning maps for ATLAS. He leads a team focused on developing learning map neighborhoods for several projects. Some recent projects to which he has contributed include the Dynamic Learning Maps® (DLM®) Alternate Assessment System Writing Neighborhood project, the Shared Writing Instructional Model (SWIM) project, the Learning Map Collaboration project with the National Center on Deafblindness (NCDB), the Writing and Revising Interventions to Excel (WRITE) project, and the K–2 Pathways project.

For the DLM Writing Neighborhood and SWIM projects, Schuster helped develop learning map neighborhoods that represent the acquisition of the critical knowledge, skills, and understandings involved in writing development for students with complex support needs and intellectual disabilities.

He investigated how early communication topics (e.g., intentional communication, attention to words, and understanding events) contribute to later ELA and math content learning for students who are deafblind and have complex needs through the Learning Map Collaboration project with NCDB.

For the WRITE project, Schuster contributed to developing learning map neighborhoods depicting the critical knowledge, skills, and understandings needed to produce compelling written arguments within a career technical education context.

Schuster is developing learning map neighborhoods representing the learning of K–2 ELA Essential Elements for students with disabilities in the K–2 Pathways project to design and develop map-based K–2 instruction and assessment products.