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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

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Eric.ed.gov – Planning Science Instruction for Critical Thinking: Two Urban Elementary Teachers’ Responses to a State Science Assessment

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Science education reform standards have shifted focus from exploration and experimentation to evidence-based explanation and argumentation to prepare students with knowledge for a changing workforce and critical thinking skills to evaluate issues requiring increasing scientific literacy. However, in urban schools serving poor, diverse populations, where the priority is on students’ assessment results in reading and math, students may not receive reform-based science. The rationale for this qualitative study was to examine how two elementary teachers from high-poverty urban schools planned for reform-based science in response to a quality state science assessment in conjunction with their training and resources. Their state assessment included an inquiry task requiring students to construct responses to questions based on their investigation data. From evaluating evidence using Zembal-Saul’s continuum for teaching science as… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Mentoring Early Career Teachers in Urban Alaska: Impact Findings from the Investing in Innovation (i3) Evaluation of the Alaska Statewide Mentor Project Urban Growth Opportunity

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: In 2011, the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) received an Investing in Innovation (i3) Grant through the U.S. Department of Education. UAF applied for the grant to expand the predominantly rural-serving Alaska Statewide Mentor Project (ASMP) to urban settings. ASMP is a professional development initiative that supplies fully released, highly trained mentors to early career teachers (ECTs). UAF’s i3 grant, The Urban Growth Opportunity (UGO), included five districts: Anchorage, Fairbanks North Star Borough, Kenai Peninsula Borough, Matanuska-Susitna Borough, and Sitka. This is the final report for the grant conducted over four years (2011 2012 to 2014 2015). The research team randomly assigned 556 ECTs to treatment (UGO) and business as usual (BAU) groups. UGO ECTs received an ASMP mentor for two years; BAU ECTs received their districts’… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – How Do Teachers from Alternative Pathways Contribute to the Teaching Workforce in Urban Areas? Evidence from Kansas City. Working Paper No. 243-0920

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: We examine how teachers from two alternative preparation programs–Teach for America (TFA) and Kansas City Teacher Residency (KCTR)–contribute to the teacher labor market in and around Kansas City, Missouri. We show that TFA and KCTR teachers are more likely than other teachers to work in charter schools, and more broadly, in schools with high concentrations of low-income, low-performing, and underrepresented minority (Black and Hispanic) students. TFA and KCTR teachers are themselves more racial/ethnically diverse than the larger local-area teaching workforce, but only KCTR teachers are more diverse than teachers in the same districts in which they work. In math in grades 4-8 we find sizeable, positive impacts of TFA and KCTR teachers on test-score growth relative to non-program teachers. We also estimate positive impacts on test-score growth… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Accuracy of the Teacher Insight Online Perceiver Tool in Determining the Effectiveness of High Rated and Low Rated Math and Science New Hire Teachers following One Year and Three Years of Single School District Employment

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The combined goals of recruiting and retaining effective teachers are often difficult to realize due to fluctuating student enrollments and class-size targets, teaching-load norms or requirements, and budgetary and resource constraints. While schools and districts market and recruit bright new teachers to the field, they too, struggle to maintain enticing career development standards that would retain the most effective teachers in the district. With the high turnover in schools, student achievement suffers. Teacher attrition has grown by 50% over the past fifteen years. The national teacher turnover rate has risen to 16.8%. In urban schools, it is over 20% and, in some schools and districts, the teacher dropout rate is actually higher than the student dropout rate. School districts fall into a chronic cycle of hiring and… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Inspiring Minds through a Professional Alliance of Community Teachers (IMPACT): Evaluation Results of the Cohort 1 Math and Science Apprentice Teachers. CRESST Report 826

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This evaluation reports findings from a study of a UCLA teacher education program called IMPACT, Inspiring Minds through a Professional Alliance of Community Teachers. To measure program quality and goal attainment, the evaluation team used a comprehensive, multiple measures approach which included instructional artifacts, classroom logs, measures of pedagogical content knowledge, performance assessments, and teaching attitudes and beliefs. The evaluation team found that math and science teacher apprentices who completed the IMPACT program generally had a positive opinion of the program and applied what they learned in the classroom to their teaching. However, the team also found that the program did not significantly increase the pedagogical content knowledge of teachers nor contribute to substantial changes in teacher instructional strategies across lessons. Differences found in the experience and… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – From ‘Training Wheels for Teaching’ to ‘Cooking in Your Mother-in-Law’s Kitchen’: Highlights and Challenges of Co-Teaching among Math, Science, and Special Education Teacher Candidates and Mentors in an Urban Teacher Residency Program

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Urban teacher residencies (UTRs) have emerged as an innovative alternative to recruiting and preparing high quality teachers for traditionally underserved, urban schools. UTRs offer opportunities for teacher candidates and mentors to use co-teaching models to differentiate instruction, particularly as schools adopt more inclusive practices emphasizing collaboration and co-teaching among educators. Co-teaching in residencies is an area that remains largely unexplored. This study describes experiences of 37 residents and 35 mentors in three cohorts of a yearlong urban residency program as they engaged in co-teaching together in secondary math, science, and special education classrooms. Data included surveys on co-teaching and collaboration from residents and mentors, along with reflections on highlights and challenges of their co-teaching in the residency. Findings indicate that both residents and mentors had positive perceptions… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Revisiting the Influence of Math Links: Building Learning Communities in Urban Settings

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: It has been a decade since the article “Math Links: Building Learning Communities in Urban Settings” (referenced throughout as Math Links) was published in the inaugural issue of the “Journal of Urban Mathematics Education” (“JUME”; Leonard & Evans, 2008). The Math Links study, as reported in that article, investigated teacher interns’ attitudes and beliefs about their interactions with urban students in a community-based setting. In that article, it was acknowledged that changing teacher attitudes and beliefs can be challenging, but nonetheless accomplished. The goal for the teacher interns was to transform attitudes and beliefs about teaching mathematics to urban students from routine and decontextualized ways to classroom practices in which culturally based and social justice oriented methods framed instruction. Here, we reflect on that work for the… Continue Reading