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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 – Research Mathematicians’ Participation in the MSP Program

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The purpose of this study was to examine the involvement of higher education STEM faculty in disciplinary departments with pre-K-12 public schools. In particular, the study focused on 15 nationally funded awards, targeted at education in mathematics, in the National Science Foundation’s Math and Science Partnership (NSF MSP) Program. One important goal of the MSP Program is to further cultural change in the STEM departments. Other studies have analyzed the effectiveness of efforts to engage STEM faculty in education activities; however, the groups studied previously included those faculty whose primary research field was STEM education. Taking the view that achieving cultural change in disciplinary departments may require an attitudinal shift among disciplinary research faculty, this analysis selected only the faculty group self-identified as “mathematics researchers” for study.… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Scale-Up and Sustainability Study of the LDC and MDC Initiatives

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 Common Core 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 Classroom Challenges that teachers can incorporate throughout the year’s curriculum. These tools were introduced and revised in multiple settings throughout the 2010-2011 co-development year; during the 2011-2012 pilot year additional sites came on board and most existing sites saw expansion. The initiatives, the Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) and the Mathematics Design Collaborative (MDC), have continued… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – A Comparison of the Effects of Tactile and Auditory Stimulation and Choice on the Problem Solving of Students with Attention Problems

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Using a single-subject alternating treatments reversal design, the effects of three conditions, tactile stimulation, auditory stimulation, and choice of the two, were compared on the math story problem solving of elementary students with attention problems. Students attempted and solved slightly more problems and engaged in fewer off-task behaviors in the stimulation conditions than in baseline. Effects were very modest. Students chose stimulation conditions that were related to their behavior more than their accuracy. Link til kilde

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Eric.ed.gov – Multiple Languages and the School Curriculum: Experiences from Tanzania

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This is a research report on children’s use of multiple languages and the school curriculum. The study explored factors that trigger use of, and fluency in, multiple languages; and how fluency in multiple languages relates to thought processes and school performance. Advantages and disadvantages of using only one of the languages spoken were explored. Data were collected in five schools in three regions in Tanzania. This context provided multilingual children for the study. Data included faculty and parent questionnaires, parent interview notes, teacher observation notes on children&’s interactions, and performance scores as secondary data. The data were processed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS 15.0) as well as content analysis. Results revealed school related and family related factors that trigger and support childhood multilingualism,… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – A Final Case Study of SCALE Activities at California State University, Northridge: How Institutional Context Influenced a K-20 STEM Education Change Initiative. WCER Working Paper No. 2009-5

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This qualitative case study reports on processes and outcomes of the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded System-Wide Change for All Learners and Educators (SCALE) project at the California State University, Northridge (CSUN). It addresses a critical challenge in studying systemic reform in complex organizations: the lack of methodologies that incorporate technical, social, cultural, and cognitive elements. Guiding questions include (a) how the institutional context influenced the project, (b) whether project activities affected science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) instruction, interdisciplinary collaboration on preservice programs, and inter-institutional collaboration on in-service programs, and (c) if and how change initiatives are accepted and incorporated. In-depth interviews (N = 34), relevant documents, and observation data were collected in 2006 and 2007. Findings identified several factors that supported and several that inhibited achievement… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – The OECD, PISA and the Impacts on Educational Policy

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Large-scale assessment regularly takes place in most jurisdictions across Canada, a fact not lost on the Fraser Institute and other right wing think tanks such as AIMS (Atlantic Institute for Market Studies) which use the test results as the primary basis for compiling school rankings at both the elementary and secondary level (see Gutstein, 2010). The frequency of external testing at different levels (provincial/territorial, national, international)–coupled with the high visibility accorded by the mainstream media to the results, usually in the form of league tables, and the imperatives of short term political mandates–have all contributed to a focus on improving one’s position within the list of rankings, as well as to a narrow focus on the tested subjects–math, science, reading. In this era of accountability-by-numbers, the elevated… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Effects of the Connected Mathematics Project 2 (CMP2) on the Mathematics Achievement of Grade 6 Students in the Mid-Atlantic Region. Final Report. NCEE 2012-4017

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This study examines the effects of Connected Mathematics Project 2 (CMP2) on grade 6 student mathematics achievement and engagement using a cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT) design. It responds to a need to improve mathematics learning in the Mid-Atlantic Region (Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC). Findings reveal that the type of instructional activity taking place in intervention schools differed from that in control schools, and the activity observed in intervention schools was the type expected when implementing CMP2. Sixty-four percent of intervention teachers reported implementing the curriculum at a level consistent with the publishers’ recommendations on the number of units completed per school year (six), and 68 percent of them reported implementing the curriculum consistent with the recommended amount of class time per week.… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Mathematics Mastery: Secondary Evaluation Report

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The Mathematics Mastery programme is a whole-school approach to teaching mathematics that aims to raise attainment for all pupils and close the attainment gap between pupils from low income families and their peers. The programme aims to deepen pupils’ conceptual understanding of key mathematical concepts. This clustered Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) investigated whether implementing the Mathematics Mastery programme led to improvement in Year 7 pupils’ maths test scores. It was intended that schools would also begin to use the programme in Year 8 in the second year of implementation, and continue until the approach was in place across the school. 44 schools from London and the South East participated in the trial, with a total sample of 5,938 pupils. Participating schools received training and resources to support… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Instructional Interactions of Kindergarten Mathematics Classrooms: Validating a Direct Observation Instrument

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: In this paper, the authors report research focused directly on the validation of the Coding of Academic Teacher-Student interactions (CATS) direct observation instrument. They use classroom information gathered by the CATS instrument to better understand the potential mediating variables hypothesized to influence student achievement. Their study’s purpose is to gather the kinds of validity evidences that match the proposed interpretations and uses of the CATS instrument (Kane, 2008; Messick, 1995). Therefore, they first explore the content aspect of construct validity by collecting information about the content relevance and representativeness of the observation instrument (Messick, 1995). Second, concerned about the consistency of the observation data collected across a number of independent observers, they measure inter-observer agreement. Finally, they focus on the criterion-predictive aspect of construct validity and investigate… Continue Reading