0

Eric.ed.gov – Promoting Effective Early Learning: What Every Policymaker and Educator Should Know

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Language and literacy skills are critical to success in school. For low-income preschoolers, increasing early literacy and math skills is vital to closing the achievement gap between them and their more advantaged peers. New research shows that an intentional curriculum and professional development and supports for teachers are important components of effective preschool classrooms and programs. A special focus on these strategies is important because many low-income children in early learning settings fall behind early and remain very much behind their peers in reading and math. This brief provides a blueprint for state and local policymakers, early learning administrators, teachers, families, community leaders, and researchers to use effective preschool curricula and teaching strategies to help low-income young children close the achievement gap in early literacy and math… Continue Reading

0

Eric.ed.gov – Case Studies of Schools Receiving School Improvement Grants. Final Report. NCEE 2016-4002

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The Study of School Turnaround (SST) examines the change process in a diverse, purposive sample of schools receiving federal School Improvement Grants (SIG) from 2010-11 to 2012-13. With the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), the SIG program underwent three major shifts. First, ARRA boosted total SIG funding in fiscal year 2009 to approximately 6.5 times the original 2009 appropriation through Title I, section 1003(g) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). SIG funds were distributed to states by formula based on each state’s Title I share. States then had to competitively make SIG awards to districts with eligible schools. Second, ARRA targeted funds at only the very worst schools–those that were in the bottom 5 percent of performance and had… Continue Reading

0

Eric.ed.gov – Urban Teachers Immersed in Complexity in a Context that Assumes Simplicity

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: PreK-12 teachers in an urban school district enrolled in a course designed to examine the complexities of teaching in urban schools. This course was part of a grant aimed at increasing math and science achievement of their students. Teachers critically examined local and national policies and conditions that added to the complexities of their students’ lives. They examined school and district systemic practices that also created complex environments in which to teach. This qualitative study describes their understandings and the often simplistic view of education that contradicted what they were learning about. (Contains 1 table.) Link til kilde

0

Eric.ed.gov – Strengthening Partnerships: How Communication and Collaboration Contribute to School Improvement

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: For most of the past decade, this author has studied union-management efforts to improve public education, and has witnessed extraordinary examples of teachers, union leaders, and administrators working together to improve teaching and learning. In this article, seven case studies on collaborative partnerships between teachers’ unions and administrators from districts located across the country and a mix of urban, rural, large and small schools are analyzed. He identifies themes and patterns common to all these districts: (1) Motivation for initiating collaboration; (2) Strategic priorities for improvement; (3) Supportive system infrastructures; and (4) Sustaining characteristics. Rubenstein then reports on the partnership attitude and climate survey data from the California Academic Performance Index (API), and social network analysis. The API includes standardized test results in math, English, social studies,… Continue Reading

0

Eric.ed.gov – Teachers at Work with Imaginative Education: Philosopher Pirates–Teaching over Their Heads

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Pirates capture the imagination, span centuries of history, have great clothes, conform to surprising codes of conduct, and invite a wide variety of themes and subjects for teaching. Piracy can be a seductive topic for all ages. In spite of the imaginative appeal of the topic, piracy is insufficient as a starting point for a well-connected social studies, science, math, and English unit until teachers ask challenging questions, like what are the deepest meanings of this theme? How is the topic useful emotionally, spiritually, and academically? In this article, the author describes how she developed a piracy unit and shares her experience teaching the topic to alternate school students. Following a narrative is a complex intellectual task of fitting things together, identifying what is important, constructing emotional… Continue Reading

0

Eric.ed.gov – Moving Teachers: Implementation of Transfer Incentives in Seven Districts. Executive Summary. NCEE 2012-4052

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This report describes the implementation and intermediate impacts of an intervention designed to provide incentives for a school district’s highest-performing teachers to work in its lowest-achieving schools. The report is part of a larger study in which random assignment was used to form two equivalent groups of classrooms organized into teacher “teams” that are composed of teachers in the same grade level and subject (math, reading, or both in the case of an elementary school grade). Teams were assigned to either a treatment group that had the chance to participate in the intervention described below and or a control group that did not. Intermediate outcomes, measured for both the treatment and control teams, include the mix of teachers who make up the team, the climate of collaboration… Continue Reading

0

Eric.ed.gov – New Mexico Higher Education Department Annual Report, 2015

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The New Mexico Higher Education Department (HED) and higher education institutions (HEIs) have set long-term statewide goals to increase 4-year graduation rates, improve transfer and articulation, and improve remedial education outcomes. HED is pursuing these goals through the following initiatives: (1) Statewide common course numbering and alignment of lower division coursework; (2) Developing meta-majors and transfer modules; (3) Reforming the general education core curriculum; (4) Co-requisite remediation and Math pathways; (5) Decreasing the number of hours required for both associate’s and bachelor’s degrees; (6) Incentivizing 4-year graduation; and (7) Implementation of outcomes based funding. This annual report outlines each of the initiatives. Accomplishing these timely and aggressive goals requires remarkable collaboration among all the HEIs and between the HEIs and the HED. With the Governor’s leadership, the… Continue Reading

0

Eric.ed.gov – The Underrepresentation of African American Female Students in STEM Fields: Implications for Classroom Teachers

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: African American women are underrepresented in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields (Catsambis, 1994). The socialization and “under-education” of African American female students engenders ideas of inferiority, while the presence of an inferior race, sex and class, in one body, may produce an ideology of mediocrity. Data findings from NCES (national center for education statistics), College Board, the 2008-2009 Baccalaureate and beyond longitudinal study reaffirm African American girls’ weakness in math and science (NCES, 2009, 2011; College Board, 2011). To prevent African American female students from accepting societal beliefs that blame disparities in math and science on racial or gender inferiorities, recommendations encourage teachers to re-educate this group of girls by employing culturally relevant teaching practices that will undermine gender and racial biases within the classroom.… Continue Reading

0

Eric.ed.gov – Preparing the Future Workforce: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Policy in K-12 Education

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Last December, the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education Coalition–a national organization of more than 600 groups representing knowledge workers, educators, scientists, engineers, and technicians–wrote to President-elect Obama urging him to “not lose sight of the critical role that STEM education plays in enabling the United States to remain the economic and technological leader of the 21st century global marketplace.” While that imperative appears to have resonated in Washington, has it and should it resonate in Madison? This report attempts to answer that question by examining the extent to which STEM skills are a necessity for tomorrow’s Wisconsin workforce, whether schools are preparing students to be STEM-savvy workers, and where STEM falls in the state’s list of educational priorities. The author and his colleagues find that… Continue Reading

0

Eric.ed.gov – From Readers Theater to Math Dances: Bright Ideas to Make Differentiation Happen

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Carol Ann Tomlinson, a professor at the University of Virginia Curry School of Education, has led the push for differentiated instruction and sees a strong commitment by educators to tailoring teaching to student academic levels, learning styles, and personal interests. However, Tomlinson says barriers still stand in the way to making sure every child gets what he or she needs. One hurdle, says Tomlinson, is that teachers have to do something that’s both basic and difficult: forget how they were taught as children. Before attempting to tier a lesson to make it appropriately challenging for individual students, or alter an activity to meet the needs of certain learners, teachers should decide what they want their students to know and do at the end of the instruction. Then,… Continue Reading