Search and Filter
Professional development
Does in-service training in special education increase the effectiveness of general classroom teachers? Evidence from the large-scale “Special Education Pedagogy for Learning” program in Sweden
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentThis study evaluates the impact of a large-scale professional development program for general classroom teachers in Sweden, the “Special Education Pedagogy for Learning” (SFL) program. Linking program administrative data to national full population register data, we apply a dynamic difference-in… more →
Practitioner Voices Summit: How Teachers Evaluate AI Tools through Deliberative Sensemaking
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentTags: Generative artificial intelligence (AI) in education, Instructional technology, Professional developmentTeachers face growing pressure to integrate AI tools into their classrooms, yet are rarely positioned as agentic decision-makers in this process. Understanding the criteria teachers use to evaluate AI tools, and the conditions that support such reasoning, is essential for responsible AI… more →
Practice-Based, Online Modules for Expediting Teacher Skill Development
Julie Cohen, Nathan Jones, Vivian C. Wong, Alexa Quinn, Steffen Erickson, Hallie Parten, Marissa Pilger Suhr.Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentThe time available for preservice teacher education is increasingly limited. Teacher preparation programs must find innovative ways to develop teachers’ skills within contracted timeframes. One approach is to cover content with online modules. However, most modules teach about skills but do not… more →
A randomized controlled trial of HighScope’s teacher professional learning on preschoolers' executive function skills
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentTeacher professional learning has been shown to promote children’s language, literacy, and social-emotional functioning - however, less is known about its impact on children’s executive function. In the present study, we employed a randomized controlled trial to understand whether HighScope’s… more →
Classroom Composition Affects Teacher Performance Ratings
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentTeacher evaluations should reflect teaching performance rather than the characteristics of the students assigned to a teacher. Exploiting naturally occurring year-to-year variation in classroom composition within teachers, this paper examines whether teacher performance ratings assigned by… more →
Improving Student-Teacher Relationships Through Feedback: The Development and Evaluation of the Stanford/Leading Educators Wise Feedback Professional Development Learning Series
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentHigh-quality academic feedback, especially feedback that highlights errors, mistakes, misunderstandings and shortcomings, is one of the most valuable tools teachers have for promoting student growth and learning. It is how teachers help students go beyond what they could accomplish on their own… more →
Facilitating Evidence-Based Instructional Coaching With Automated Feedback on Teacher Discourse
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentInstructional coaching often aims to ground teacher professional learning in classroom evidence, yet it is labor-intensive for coaches to obtain and curate such evidence. This study explores possibilities for utilizing an automated feedback tool to support evidence-based reasoning in coaching.… more →
Measuring Elementary School Teachers' Knowledge of Teaching Vocabulary
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentTeacher Knowledge in the field of literacy has become a priority across the United States, with many states passing legislation requiring that all teachers receive adequate training on the Science of Reading. One essential component of literacy development and text comprehension is vocabulary… more →
From Funds to Frameworks: How States Operationalize Title II Education Funding
This study employs a document analysis of Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plans from 2017 to 2022 to examine Title II, Part A, implementation across all states. We analyzed state-level fund allocation, leadership development activities, and discrepancies between planned and actual spending.… more →
A Degree of Choice: Educational Decision-Making after College
Despite the growing share of college-educated adults returning to higher education, we know little about how individuals weigh the consequential decision to go to graduate school. In this paper, we ask how individuals decide to pursue a particular graduate program within a field of study. We… more →
Using Large Language Models to Analyze Preservice Teacher Feedback and Reflections During Clinical Teaching
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentClinical teaching is vital for preservice teacher (PST) development, yet field supervisors’ roles are understudied. This study analyzes over 11,000 supervisor evaluations and PST reflections from a Texas teacher preparation program using large language models to extract measures of feedback… more →
Expanding Access to Highly Effective Educators for All Students: A Review of Recent Evidence
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentWe have long known that some teachers are much more effective than others. Highly effective teachers and their students thrive in ways that have been hard to replicate on a large and consistent scale. In this paper, we read across studies to identify actionable lessons about what it will take to… more →
SEEDS of Early Learning: A Randomized Controlled Trial of an Early Literacy Teacher Professional Development Program
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentNORC at the University of Chicago designed and implemented an impact evaluation of the SEEDS of Learning (SEEDS) professional development (PD) program on behalf of the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, in collaboration with Kidango. SEEDS of Learning is an evidence-based PD program that prepares early… more →
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 →
Measuring the Affective Language of Principals' Evaluation Feedback and Investigating Differences by Principal Gender and Race
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentOver the past decade, reforms to principal evaluation systems have sought to incorporate formal feedback structures as a lever for principal improvement. However, we know little about the feedback that principals receive. Using statewide administrative data from Tennessee, including principals’… more →
Teaching Teachers to Use Computer Assisted Learning Effectively: Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Evidence
Topics: Student LearningMastery learning – the process by which students must demonstrate proficiency with a single topic before moving on – is well recognized as one of the best ways to learn, yet many teachers struggle or remain unsure about how to implement it into a classroom setting. This study leverages two field… more →
Untapped Potential? Understanding the Paraeducator-to-Teacher Pipeline and its Potential for Diversifying the Teacher Workforce
Paraeducators are among the largest categories of public education employees and are increasingly seen as a pool of potential teachers. However, little is known about paraeducator-to-teacher transitions. Using statewide administrative data, we show that while paraeducators may be more racially/… more →
Answering the call: How changes to the salience of job characteristics affect college students’ decisions
Tags: Professional developmentCollege students often make employment decisions with incomplete information, particularly about compensation. As a result, they may rely on misleading heuristics (such as assuming that interesting or prosocial jobs pay badly) and overlook campus positions that would support both their financial… more →
What matters and for whom? Exploring characteristics of teacher residency programs and their relationship to participant perceptions
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentThis concurrent mixed methods study descriptively explores teacher residency programs (TRPs) across the nation. We examine program and participant survey data from the National Center for Teacher Residencies (NCTR) to identify important TRP structures for resident support.
Clinical teaching learning trajectory: Exploring field supervisor written feedback on clinical teacher pedagogy
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentTags: Professional developmentField supervisors are central to clinical teaching, but little is known about how their feedback informs preservice teachers (PSTs) development. This sequential mixed methods study examines over 3,000 supervisor observation evaluations. We qualitatively code supervisor written feedback, which… more →