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Eric.ed.gov – Establishing a Strong Foundation: District and School Supports for Classroom Implementation of the MDC Framework

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has invested in the development and dissemination of high-quality formative assessment tools to support teachers’ incorporation of the Core Common State Standards (CCSS) into their classroom instruction. Lessons from the first generation of standards-based reforms suggest that intense attention to high quality instructional tasks, use of formative assessments embedded in those tasks, and professional development (PD) that attends to both content knowledge and instruction are essential considerations if teachers are to meet the demands of the CCSS. Experts from the Shell Centre have developed a set of formative assessment lessons (FALs) for high school mathematics teachers to facilitate CCSS-based student mathematics learning and provide teachers with feedback about student understanding and mastery. The tools are designed to target the “instructional core”… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Mathematics: Essential Research, Essential Practice. Volumes 1 and 2. Proceedings of the 30th Annual Conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This is a record of the proceedings of the 30th annual conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia (MERGA). The theme of the conference is “Mathematics: Essential research, essential practice.” The theme draws attention to the importance of developing and maintaining links between research and practice and ties in with the joint day of presentations with the 21st biennial conference of the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers (AAMT). This special feature highlights the benefits of collaboration between researchers, practicing classroom teachers, and curriculum developers. Volume 1 contains the following papers: (1) The Beginnings of MERGA (Ken Clements); (2) Teaching and Learning by Example: The Annual Clements/Foyster Lecture (Helen L. Chick); (3) Introducing Students to Data Representation and Statistics (Richard Lehrer); (4) Studies in the Zone… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Race to the Top. Massachusetts Report. Year 4: School Year 2013-2014. [State-Specific Summary Report]

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The State-specific summary report serves as an assessment of Massachusetts’ annual Race to the Top implementation. The Year 4 report for Phase 2 grantees highlights successes and accomplishments, identifies challenges, and provides lessons learned from implementation from approximately September 2013 through September 2014. In Year 4, Massachusetts continued to refine its use of the Delivery process to track project implementation within the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE), gather data on progress, and share updates with senior leadership. The State’s college- and career-readiness initiatives included multiple strategies for supporting educators in meeting the demands of new standards and raising standards for students. In school year (SY) 2013-2014, the State developed and made available a variety of instructional resources, standards-aligned assessments, and curriculum documents to support… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Enacting Common Core Instruction: How Intermediate Unit 13 Leveraged Its Position as an Educational Service Agency to Implement and Scale the LDC Initiative

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) and Math Design Collaborative (MDC) offer a set of instructional and formative assessment tools in literacy and math, which were developed to help educators better prepare all students to meet the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and succeed beyond high school. Following three years of extensive data collection in LDC study sites throughout the country, Research for Action (RFA) has produced three case studies to illustrate how the LDC and MDC tools have been adopted in different settings and contexts, and which approaches and supports have contributed to the successful adoption and use of the tools. The case studies provide a set of “road maps” for other sites that will be adopting or scaling… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act: Toward a Coherent, Aligned Assessment System

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: In December 2015, President Barack Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which replaced No Child Left Behind (NCLB), as the nation’s major law governing public schools. ESSA retains the requirement that states test all students in reading and math in grades three through eight and once in high school, as well as the requirement that states ensure those tests align with states’ college- and career-ready standards. However, the law makes significant changes to the role of tests in state education systems. For example, ESSA requires states to include a broader set of factors in school accountability systems rather than just test scores; provides funding for states and districts to audit and streamline their testing regimes; and allows states to cap the amount of instructional time… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Establishing a Strong Foundation: District and School-Level Supports for Classroom Implementation of the LDC and MDC Frameworks. Executive Summary

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has invested in the development and dissemination of high-quality instructional and formative assessment tools to support teachers’ incorporation of the Core Common State Standards (CCSS) into their classroom instruction. Literacy experts have developed a framework and a set of templates that teachers can use to develop content area modules focused on high quality writing tasks closely tied to subject area texts. Math experts have developed formative assessment lessons (FALs) that teachers can incorporate throughout the year’s curriculum. Across both content areas, the tools target the “instructional core” by raising the level of content; enhancing teachers’ skill and knowledge about instruction, content and formative assessment; and catalyzing student engagement in their learning so that they will achieve at high levels. These tools… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Self-Report and Academic Factors in Relation to High School Students’ Success in an Innovative Biotechnology Program

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Biotechnology constitutes one of the most challenging, cutting-edge, and rapidly growing fields in science today. Both the practical implications and the hands-on nature of this “modern science” make the topic of biotechnology an attractive addition to the high school science curriculum. The current study is the first of its kind to explore how student characteristics and biotechnology course outcomes relate to one another. Results indicated that students’ general attitudes about science and their overall math skills predicted success across a number of measures, including both self-reported skill ratings as well as the more traditional measures of course grade and exam score. The results also demonstrated the association between skill, as measured through self-reported proficiency ratings, and achievement on an articulation exam. It documented the relation between skills… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Using a Scientific Process for Curriculum Development and Formative Evaluation: Project FUSION

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Given the vital importance of using a scientific approach for curriculum development, the authors employed a design experiment methodology (Brown, 1992; Shavelson et al., 2003) to develop and evaluate, FUSION, a first grade mathematics intervention intended for students with or at-risk for mathematics disabilities. FUSION, funded through IES (Baker, Clarke, & Fien, 2008), targets students’ understanding of whole number concepts and skills and is being designed as a Tier 2 intervention for schools that use a multi-tiered service delivery model, such as Response to Intervention (RtI). In developing this intervention, the authors have drawn extensively from the converging knowledge base of effective math instruction (Gersten et al., 2009; National Math Advisory Panel, [NMAP] 2008) and the critical content areas of first grade mathematics recognized by national bodies… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Conditions for Scale and Sustainability. Brief Four

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Math experts developed Formative Assessment Lessons that teachers can incorporate throughout the year’s curriculum. Both tools target the “instructional core.” A study by Research for Action (RFA) examining the first year of piloting the Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) and Math Design Collaborative (MDC) tools (2010-11) found evidence of initial success in tool use indicated by teachers’ perceptions that the tools positively influenced teacher practice. In the second year of the Initiative (2011-12), tool use grew within and across sites. The focus of the research has expanded accordingly to include an analysis of how the tools are being introduced to additional classrooms, schools and districts, and what strategies are most effective in sustaining and strengthening tool use. This brief focuses on efforts to scale up and sustain broader… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Formative Evaluation in the Development of a Math Anxiety Reduction Program.

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The Teacher Education and Mathematics project, funded by the Women’s Educational Equity Act, developed curriculum materials to increase mathematical knowledge and confidence, increase the perception of mathematics as a female domain, reduce math anxiety, and develop skills in identifying and counteracting sex bias in mathematics instruction. To develop effective materials, a formative evaluation was to document materials’ use at each stage of development, to assess student responses to materials, to collect judgment of external experts, and to collect reactions and suggestions of instructors who used the materials. Evaluation issues explored in this paper are: reliance on observer descriptions and participant ratings, effects on students and instructional staff of intensive observations, effects on students of frequent requests for feedback and evaluative reactions, and the extent to which professionals… Continue Reading