Donald Morrison

Dr. Donald M. “Chip” Morrison is a Research Assistant Professor at the Institute for Intelligent Systems. A graduate of Dartmouth College (Theater), Dr. Morrison holds an M.A. (Language Studies) from the University of Hong Kong and an Ed.D. (Human Development) from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Dr. Morrison has spent his entire career (nearly 50 years) in education and educational research, including stints teaching English as a Second Language in Hong Kong, as an educational software developer, and as a museum exhibit developer (for the Boston Computer Museum). As a Senior Scientist at Bolt, Beranek, and Newman in the 1990s, Dr. Morrison helped found Co-nect, a comprehensive school reform model funded by the New American Schools Development Corporation. At Co-nect he served in a number of leadership roles including Director of Assessment, Director of Operations Research, and Senior Director, Product Development. He also founded and directed the Co-nect Critical Friends Program, a peer-review process used by hundreds of schools nationwide. After leaving Co-nect, he joined the Tripod Project, a joint venture between Cambridge Education and Dr. Ron Ferguson, Director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He also spent a year as a lead School Quality Reviewer in the New York City Public Schools. Since coming to the University in 2008, Morrison has initiated a number of funded research projects including program evaluations for the Memphis and Milwaukee City Schools, a large-scale study of a science curriculum produced by The Smithsonian Institution, and a study of online human tutoring, using a large corpus of transcripts supplied by Tutor.com. His recent book, The Coevolution of Language, Teaching, and Civil Discourse Among Humans is forthcoming from Palgrave Macmillan.