eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Turning around chronically low-performing schools requires a multifaceted school-wide, systematic effort that includes strong leadership and data-based decision making. School-wide efforts to turn-around low-performing schools should address the academic, social, and behavioral needs of all students. One evidence-based, systematic school-wide approach for addressing social and behavioral concerns in schools and, distally, increasing students’ access to academic instruction, is school-wide positive behavior interventions and supports (SWPBIS). SWPBIS is associated with increased positive school climate, increased teacher self-efficacy, decreased problem behaviors for the whole school, and potentially, increased academic achievement. The underlying assumption is that by improving social behavior, schools have more time and ability to deliver effective curriculum and instruction. However, to-date, this assumption has not been fully investigated. The goal of this paper is to explicitly examine… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Within a school curriculum featuring English as a second language, classes such as History for English as a Second Language and Math for English as a Second Language can play an important role. In these classes, the teacher can present content-subject matter, keeping in mind the linguistic capabilities of the students. Principles are not watered down; rather, they are presented in terms of the linguistic achievement of the student. In math, individual mathematical knowledge determines the placement of the student. Such classes are best taught by the English as a second language teacher, because he knows and understands the linguistic problems of the students and he has more experience with adapting materials for the foreign-born student. When the student’s linguistic ability makes competing in English feasible, such… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The foundation of school choice is offering families a variety of schools and letting them choose one they believe is most suitable for their child. For school choice to matter, schools need to have different features that parents are seeking. The District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarship Program was created by Congress to provide tuition vouchers to low-income parents who want their child to attend a private school. This brief provides a snapshot of features of traditional public schools, charter schools, and those private schools that participate in the Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP), in Washington, DC, in order to describe the landscape facing students and parents who are considering applying to the OSP. It first looks at the number of each type of school and enrollment changes in… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The gap among ethnicities and gender in mathematics achievement is a well-known problem. While the gap has been shrinking over the past three decades, it has not completely diminished (Jencks & Phillips, 1998; McGraw, Lubienski, & Strutchens, 2006). The ALEKS, Assessment and LEarning in Knowledge Spaces, tutoring system is one promising example of a technology that can target this problem. ALEKS is a Web-based intelligent tutoring system (ITS) that instructs students on the mathematical topics that they are most ready to learn, assesses students’ current knowledge, and evaluates student performance on problems related to those topics. In order to better understand the role that technology can play in decreasing achievement gaps for gender and ethnicity, the authors examined the effect of interacting with ALEKS in a 6th… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: With issues of teacher quality in the spotlight, it has been suggested that teachers of mathematics and science too often lack content knowledge in the subjects they teach. Accordingly, research is needed to determine whether teacher ineffectiveness in these subjects is more frequently caused by deficiencies in content knowledge or in pedagogical knowledge, and whether teachers of mathematics and science are more often content-deficient relative to other teachers. Research as such requires that teacher performance be assessed, but this assessment has proven contentious. Use of principals’ evaluations to assess teacher performance, while hardly foolproof, has the advantage of providing school-level managers’ perspective on whether content knowledge or pedagogical knowledge constitutes the more frequent perceived cause of teacher ineffectiveness in secondary schools, especially in mathematics and science. Research… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: In this article, author Jennifer Dubin offers a look into the innovations taking place in the Toledo Technology Academy (TTA), a career-tech school within the public school system in Toledo, Ohio. TTA teaches students in grades 7 through 12 using a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) curriculum, in addition to the traditional academic subjects of English, history, science, and math. When graduates from TTA leave, they have a career portfolio, which can include certifications attesting to technical expertise as well as letters of recommendation from teachers and companies that had hired them for school-sponsored internships. The student’s portfolio showcases knowledge and skills to a prospective employer, or can be submitted to a college admissions office along with the standard application. Dubin notes that the school’s emphasis… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Specialized secondary schools in the United States focusing on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) are becoming commonplace in the United States. Such schools are generally referred to by U.S. teachers as Academies. In a purposeful effort to provide a resource to educators building new STEM Academies, this study provides both a review of scholarly literature and the interview results from five successful STEM Academy educators from across the United States. This research addresses two overarching questions, (a) what are the best practices of STEM Academies, and (b) what are the key learning objectives of STEM Academies? Subject integration, in-house engineering curriculum design, student cohorts, community involvement, and internships were all revealed as being consistently reflective of best practices used in successful STEM Academies. Key learning objectives… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This summary highlights the findings of a study that examined the survey responses of teachers from 75 Idaho schools working on school improvement. Results of the study showed schools with higher teacher reports of the presence of the goals, processes, and supports essential for student success did not have higher rates of reading proficiency, math proficiency, or attendance. A few significant relationships were found in subsamples of schools. A significant positive relationship was also found between school attendance in elementary schools in 2012 and teacher ratings of five of nine other essential goals, supports, and processes. The findings suggest that Idaho educators and others using teacher perception surveys should proceed cautiously in making decisions based on perception surveys. They might also consider using data from other sources… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Policymakers and practitioners frequently use teacher surveys to inform decisions on school improvement efforts in low-achieving schools. There is little empirical evidence on how the results of these surveys relate to student outcomes. This study provides information on how perception data from a teacher survey in Idaho is correlated with three student outcomes: reading proficiency, math proficiency, and attendance. The Idaho State Department of Education uses the Educational Effectiveness Survey (EES), an annual teacher survey developed and administered by the Center on Educational Effectiveness, to gather information on school qualities believed to be the goals, processes, and supports essential for school success. Used widely in the Northwest Region, the survey is similar to teacher perception surveys used nationally. This study covers the 75 low-achieving Idaho schools that… Continue Reading →
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eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are a relatively new, low-cost resource that hold potential for improving learning in developing nations where resources are constrained and teacher expertise can be limited. However, little information currently exists about the effectiveness of leveraging MOOCs as a vehicle for teacher training. The aim of this study is to learn more about the awareness, interest and ability to access MOOCs among junior high and high school teachers in rural Ghana. Specifically, the author addresses the following questions: (1) What is the take-up following a light informational intervention nudging math teachers to enroll in a MOOC related to math education?; (2) What is the demand among school leaders, specifically headmasters, for MOOCs as a vehicle for teacher training?; (3) Can headmasters influence the… Continue Reading →
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