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Heather C. Hill
Does Increased Agency Improve the Effectiveness of Self-Directed Professional Learning for Educators?
Dorottya Demszky, Heather C. Hill, Eric S. Taylor, Ashlee Kupor, Deepak Varuvel Dennison, Chris Piech.Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentThe role of teacher agency in professional learning has been the subject of several qualitative studies but has not yet been tested in an experimental setting. To provide causal evidence of the impact of teacher agency on the effectiveness of professional learning, we conducted a preregistered… more →
Practice-Based Teacher Education Pedagogies Improve Responsiveness: Evidence from a Lab Experiment
Zid Mancenido, Heather C. Hill, Jeannette Garcia Coppersmith, Hannah Carter, Cynthia Pollard, Chris Monschauer.Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentGiven the limited time available during teacher preparation, teacher educators must make zerosum choices about the pedagogies they choose to prepare pre-service teachers. Yet the field lacks rigorous causal evidence regarding the relative efficacy of different pedagogies to inform teacher… more →
Automated Feedback Improves Teachers’ Questioning Quality in Brick-and-Mortar Classrooms: Opportunities for Further Enhancement
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentAI-powered professional learning tools that provide teachers with individualized feedback on their instruction have proven effective at improving instruction and student engagement in virtual learning contexts. Despite the need for consistent, personalized professional learning in K-12 settings… more →
Same Idea, Shifting Standards: An Experimental Study of Racial-Ethnic Biases in Ambitious Math Teaching
Topics: MethodsTeacher expectations and judgments about student capabilities are predictive of student achievement, yet such judgments may be influenced by salient dimensions of student identity and invite biases. Moreover, ambitious math teaching may also invite teacher biases due to the emphasis on student-… more →
A Quantitative Study of Mathematical Language in Upper Elementary Classrooms
Topics: MethodsThis study provides the first large-scale quantitative exploration of mathematical language use in upper elementary U.S. classrooms. Our approach employs natural language processing techniques to describe variation in teachers’ and students’ use of mathematical language in 1,657 fourth and fifth… more →
A Meta-Analysis of the Experimental Evidence Linking Mathematics and Science Professional Development Interventions to Teacher Knowledge, Classroom Instruction, and Student Achievement
Topics: Student LearningDespite evidence that teacher professional development interventions in mathematics and science can increase student achievement, our understanding of the mechanisms by which this occurs – particularly how these interventions affect teachers themselves, and whether teacher-level changes predict… more →
Structured Reporting Guidelines for Classroom Intervention Research
Tags: Class size, CurriculumInconsistent reporting of critical facets of classroom interventions and their related impact evaluations hinders the field’s ability to describe and synthesize the existing evidence base. In this essay, we present a set of reporting guidelines intended to steer authors of classroom intervention… more →
Can Automated Feedback Improve Teachers’ Uptake of Student Ideas? Evidence From a Randomized Controlled Trial In a Large-Scale Online Course
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentProviding consistent, individualized feedback to teachers is essential for improving instruction but can be prohibitively resource-intensive in most educational contexts. We develop M-Powering Teachers, an automated tool based on natural language processing to give teachers feedback on their… more →
The NCTE Transcripts: A Dataset of Elementary Math Classroom Transcripts
Topics: MethodsClassroom discourse is a core medium of instruction --- analyzing it can provide a window into teaching and learning as well as driving the development of new tools for improving instruction. We introduce the largest dataset of mathematics classroom transcripts available to researchers, and… more →
Computationally Identifying Funneling and Focusing Questions in Classroom Discourse
Topics: Student LearningResponsive teaching is a highly effective strategy that promotes student learning. In math classrooms, teachers might funnel students towards a normative answer or focus students to reflect on their own thinking, deepening their understanding of math concepts. When teachers focus, they treat… more →
U.S. Middle School Mathematics Instruction, 2016
Topics: Student LearningIn recent decades, U.S. education leaders have advocated for more intellectually ambitious mathematics instruction in classrooms. Evidence about whether more ambitious mathematics instruction has filtered into contemporary classrooms, however, is largely anecdotal. To address this issue, we… more →
A Meta-Analysis of the Experimental Evidence Linking STEM Classroom Interventions to Teacher Knowledge, Classroom Instruction, and Student Achievement
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentTags: Instructional practicesDespite growing evidence that classroom interventions in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) can increase student achievement, there is little evidence regarding how these interventions affect teachers themselves and whether these changes predict student learning.
Measuring Conversational Uptake: A Case Study on Student-Teacher Interactions
Dorottya Demszky, Jing Liu, Zid Mancenido, Julie Cohen, Heather C. Hill, Dan Jurafsky, Tatsunori Hashimoto.Topics: MethodsTags: Instructional practicesIn conversation, uptake happens when a speaker builds on the contribution of their interlocutor by, for example, acknowledging, repeating or reformulating what they have said. In education, teachers' uptake of student contributions has been linked to higher student achievement. Yet measuring and… more →
Using Implementation Fidelity to Aid in Interpreting Program Impacts: A Brief Review
Topics: MethodsTags: Assessment, CurriculumPoor program implementation constitutes one explanation for null results in trials of educational interventions. For this reason, researchers often collect data about implementation fidelity when conducting such trials. In this article, we document whether and how researchers report and measure… more →
Effectiveness Research for Teacher Education
Topics: MethodsTags: Professional developmentDespite calls for more evidence regarding the effectiveness of teacher education practices, causal research in the field remains rare. One reason is that we lack designs and measurement approaches that appropriately meet the challenges of causal inference in the context of teacher education… more →
Learning Lessons from Instruction: Descriptive Results from an Observational Study of Urban Elementary Classrooms
Background:
For nearly three decades, policy-makers and researchers in the United States have promoted more intellectually rigorous standards for mathematics teaching and learning. Yet, to date, we have limited descriptive evidence on the extent to which reform-oriented… more →Education Leaders’ Knowledge of Causal Research Design: A Measurement Challenge
Federal policy has both incentivized and supported better use of research evidence by educational leaders. However, the extent to which these leaders are well-positioned to understand foundational principles from research design and statistics, including those that underlie the What Works… more →
Strengthening STEM Instruction in Schools: Learning from Research
Topics: Student LearningMore than half of U.S. children fail to meet proficiency standards in mathematics and science in fourth grade. Teacher professional development and curriculum improvement are two of the primary levers that school leaders and policymakers use to improve children’s science, technology, engineering… more →
STEM Instruction Improvement Programs Improve Student Outcomes
Topics: Student LearningHow should teachers spend their STEM-focused professional learning time? To answer this question, we analyzed a recent wave of rigorous new studies of STEM instructional improvement programs. We found that programs work best when focused on building knowledge teachers can use during instruction… more →
Developing Ambitious Mathematics Instruction Through Web-Based Coaching: A Randomized Field Trial
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentThis paper describes and evaluates a web-based coaching program designed to support teachers in implementing Common Core-aligned math instruction. Web-based coaching programs can be operated at relatively lower costs, are scalable, and make it more feasible to pair teachers with coaches who have… more →