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Eric.ed.gov – The Right Trajectory: State Teachers of the Year Compare Former and New State Assessments

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: “The Right Trajectory” brings to the forefront an often-overlooked voice in the debate about new state assessments developed in consortia: that of the best teachers in the country. This research suggests, despite challenges still to overcome, that these front-line experts believe that the new consortia tests are an improvement on the former assessments and so represent movement in the right direction for students and for education in their states. What do great teachers think of the new assessments compared to the previous ones? As part of state transitions to college and career ready (CCR) standards, including the Common Core State Standards in more than 40 states (NGA & CCSSO, 2010), states are for the first time administering new summative assessments aligned to those standards and aiming for… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – The Abacus: Instruction by Teachers of Students with Visual Impairments

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Introduction: This article, based on a study of 196 teachers of students with visual impairments, reports on the experiences with and opinions related to their decisions about instructing their students who are blind or have low vision in the abacus. Methods: The participants completed an online survey on how they decide which students should be taught abacus computation skills and which skills they teach. Data were also gathered on those who reported that they did not teach computation with the abacus. Results: The participants resided in the United States and Canada and had various numbers of years of teaching experience. More than two-thirds of those who reported that they taught abacus computation skills indicated that they began instruction when their students were between preschool and the second… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Strategic Staffing? How Performance Pressures Affect the Distribution of Teachers within Schools and Resulting Student Achievement. CEPA Working Paper No. 15-15

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: School performance pressures apply disproportionately to tested grades and subjects. Using longitudinal administrative data and teacher survey data from a large urban school district, we examine schools’ responses to those pressures in assigning teachers to high-stakes and low-stakes classrooms. We find that teachers who produce greater student achievement gains in math and reading are more likely to be placed in a tested grade-subject combination in the following year and that the relationship between prior performance and assignment is stronger in schools where principals have more influence over assignments. This strategic response has the consequence of disadvantaging achievement in early grades, however, concentrating less effective teachers in K-2 classrooms, which in turn produces lower achievement for those students, as measured by low-stakes assessments, that may persist into tested… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Improving Nutrition Education in U.S. Elementary Schools: Challenges and Opportunities

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Poor food choices in childhood are core contributors to obesity and chronic diseases during adolescence and adulthood. Food choices and dietary behaviors develop in childhood and are difficult to change in adulthood. Nutrition education in elementary schools can provide children with the information and skills to develop healthy food choices and dietary behaviors. Current approaches for teaching nutrition and dietary behavior are largely ineffective to change elementary school students’ food choices. Using a cross-sectional, anonymous mail survey, we asked classroom teachers how to improve nutrition education in 17 Oregon elementary schools. Among 106 teachers who responded, most perceived that nutrition education in elementary school is very to somewhat important (97%) and can improve students’ food choices long-term (53%) or at least short-term (16%). Teachers noted multiple barriers… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Code-Switching Explorations in Teaching Early Number Sense

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: New semiotic perspectives about the role of language in mathematics education indicate that teachers have a fundamental role in communicating and teaching the language that carries mathematical meaning. However, little is known about how educators of young children understand and use the language of mathematics. This study addresses this void. Supported by the understanding that mathematics has its own language (Pimm, 1987), the study focuses on code switching–the mixing of words from two languages–by educators as they shift between the language of instruction and the language of mathematics. A qualitative multiple case study approach utilizing discourse analysis was used to explore three early years teachers’ math talk. Findings indicate that these educators code-switched to the mathematics register when they talked about numbers, number words and counting, to… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – An Exploration of Relationships between Teaching Practices in Secondary Agricultural Education Programs and Student Engagement

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This study was designed to explore the relationship between teacher practices and levels of student engagement in secondary agricultural education programs. Most researchers have agreed that student engagement at the secondary level may be measured through three constructs: cognitive engagement, behavioral engagement, and emotional engagement. The intra-curricular components, namely the FFA organization and Supervised Agricultural Experience Program, make secondary agricultural education unique when compared to the foundational classes of math, science, and English. Respondents included a total of 152 agricultural education programs, which were randomly selected within 11 states to participate in the study. One class in each program was surveyed, which totaled 2,106 student respondents. Relationships were identified between specific teaching and advising practices performed by the secondary agricultural educator and their students’ level of engagement… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Impacts of the Retired Mentors for New Teachers Program. REL 2017-225

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This study evaluates the impact of the Retired Mentors for New Teachers program, a two-year mentoring program at the elementary school level developed by Aurora Public Schools in Colorado. Many of the district’s schools serve a large percentage of economically disadvantaged children, experience high teacher turnover, and hire newer, less experienced teachers. The program addresses these challenges using master educators who recently retired from the district to provide tailored one-on-one mentoring to new teachers. The program requires mentees to meet weekly one-on-one with their mentor and monthly in school-level groups over the course of two years. This study was undertaken by Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Central in collaboration with Aurora Public Schools. It used a randomized controlled trial to assess the impacts of the Retired Mentors for… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Exploring the Relationship between Self-Efficacy and Career Commitment among Early Career Agriculture Teachers

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences in career commitment and perceived efficacy among early career agriculture teachers as well as the relationships between early career agriculture teachers’ perceived efficacy and career commitment. Five areas of self-efficacy were investigated among early career agriculture teachers in five western states: classroom management, instructional strategies, leadership of students, science teaching, and math teaching. Only small effects were found on four of the five self-efficacy variables based on years of teaching experience. Using multiple linear regression analysis, a predictive model for early career agriculture teachers’ career commitment was developed. The final model explained a total of 20% of the variance in early career agriculture teachers’ career commitment. Two areas of self-efficacy were identified as significantly related to early… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Mixed Methods Evaluation of Statewide Implementation of Mathematics Education Technology for K-12 Students

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: An extensive body of research has demonstrated that the use in a K-12 classroom of technology, such as the Internet, computers, and software programs, enhances the learning of mathematics (Cheung & Slavin, 2013; Cohen & Hollebrands, 2011). In particular, growing empirical evidence supports that certain types of technology, such as intelligent tutoring systems and adaptive learning systems, have a positive impact on students’ academic achievement in math and their attitudes toward math (Arroyo, Burleson, Tai, Muldner, & Woolf, 2013; Ma, Adesope, Nesbit, & Liu, 2014; Pane, Griffin, McCaffrey, & Karam, 2013; Steenbergen-Hu & Cooper, 2013). These kinds of learning systems yield positive effects by providing students with personalized instruction tailored to “the pace, order, location, and content of a lesson uniquely for each student” (Enyedy, 2014, p.… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Math Academy: Can You See It in Nature? Explorations in Patterns & Functions. Book 2: Supplemental Math Materials for Grades 3-8

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Created by teachers for teachers, the Math Academy tools and activities included in this booklet were designed to create hands-on activities and a fun learning environment for the teaching of mathematics to students. This booklet contains the “Math Academy–Can You See It in Nature? Explorations in Patterns & Functions,” which a teacher can use to enhance his/her math instruction while staying true to the academic rigor required by the state standards framework. It contains all the activities used for the patterns and functions Math Academy. This Math Academy is designed to help students understand the connection between geometric and numerical patterns (younger students) as well as between patterns and functions (older students). One may choose to implement a grade-level or school-wide Math Academy as the author originally… Continue Reading