Dr. Robert Pianta, a 2025-26 Hagler Fellow, has built his career around understanding how teachers and students interact in the classroom and why those interactions matter. Through the Hagler Institute for Advanced Study at Texas A&M University, Pianta is bringing that work to the College of Education and Human Development’s Department of Educational Psychology.

His research examines how to measure classroom interactions, understand their effects and help teachers connect more effectively with young people. The fellowship comes as Pianta reflects on his research and looks at new directions for the field. The environment at Texas A&M, he noted, has supported that kind of work well.

“I have had terrific conversations with many faculty in the College and I have been struck by the collegial and collaborative tone that runs through those opportunities,” Pianta said. “The work here is really forward-looking in the ways in which education and human development are integrated in people’s thinking, research, and academic programs.”

Robert Pianta speaks at the University of Virginia School of Education and Human Development.

Pianta is the Batten Bicentennial Professor of Early Childhood Education at the University of Virginia and the founding director of the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning. He developed the Classroom Assessment Scoring System, or CLASS, a tool for analyzing teacher-student interactions that has been used in classrooms and programs across the United States and internationally.

Pianta visited campus earlier in the fall semester and spent a month at Texas A&M across October and November. He plans to continue building connections by working with research teams, sharing data sets and engaging students on projects. He also hopes to connect Texas A&M colleagues with state policymakers he has worked with previously.

Pianta believes the need for strong teacher-student relationships has grown. An overemphasis on academic standards and testing, along with the rise of social media and the disruptions of the pandemic, have pulled students away from school and the adults who support them.

“Perhaps the most important for today’s challenges, I think, is strengthening human connections and their role in learning,” Pianta said.

He is now developing a series of papers aimed at building a research and policy agenda that treats teacher-student dynamics as a central part of learning. His goal is to contribute to the college and help grow scholarship and programming around relationships in education.

For media inquiries, contact Ruben Hidalgo.