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Professional development
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 affects college students’ decisions
Tags: Professional developmentCollege students make job decisions without complete information. As a result, they may rely on misleading heuristics (“interesting jobs pay badly”) and pursue options misaligned with their goals. We test whether highlighting job characteristics changes decision making. We find increasing the… 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 →
The Achievement Effects of Scaling Early Literacy Reforms
Topics: Student LearningWhile legislators have implemented many “science of reading” initiatives in the last two decades, the evidence on the impact of these reforms at scale is limited. In this pre-registered, quasi-experimental study, we examine California’s recent initiative to improve early literacy across the… 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 →
Different methods for assessing pre-service teachers’ instruction: Why measures matter
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentTeacher preparation programs are increasingly expected to use data on pre-service teacher (PST) skills to drive program improvement and provide targeted supports. Observational ratings are especially vital, but also prone to measurement issues. Scores may be influenced by factors unrelated to… more →
“Refining” Our Understanding of Early Career Teacher Skill Development: Evidence From Classroom Observations
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentNovice teachers improve substantially in their first years on the job, but we know remarkably little about the nature of this skill development. Using data from Tennessee, we leverage a feature of the classroom observation protocol that asks school administrators to identify an item on which the… more →
M-Powering Teachers: Natural Language Processing Powered Feedback Improves 1:1 Instruction and Student Outcomes
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentAlthough learners are being connected 1:1 with instructors at an increasing scale, most of these instructors do not receive effective, consistent feedback to help them improved. We deployed M-Powering Teachers, an automated tool based on natural language processing to give instructors feedback… more →
Teachers’ use of class time and student achievement
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentWe study teachers’ choices about how to allocate class time across different instructional activities, for example, lecturing, open discussion, or individual practice. Our data come from secondary schools in England, specifically classes preceding GCSE exams. Students score higher in math when… more →
A Framework for Motivating Teacher-Student Relationships
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentFew question the value of teacher-student relationships (TSRs) for educational outcomes. TSRs are positively associated with students’ achievement and engagement, as well as teachers’ well-being. Building and maintaining these crucial classroom relationships, however, is not easy. Drawing on… more →
Does Teacher Professional Development Improve Student Learning? Evidence from Leading Educators’ Fellowship Model
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentTeachers are the most important school-specific factor in student learning. Yet, little evidence exists linking teacher professional development programs and the strategies or activities that comprise them to student achievement. In this paper, we examine a fellowship model for professional… more →
The Effect of Active Learning Professional Development Training on College Students’ Academic Outcomes
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentGrowing literature documents the promise of active learning instruction in engaging students in college classrooms. Accordingly, faculty professional development (PD) programs on active learning have become increasingly popular in postsecondary institutions; yet, quantitative evidence on the… more →
Impact Evaluations of Teacher Preparation Practices: Challenges and Opportunities for More Rigorous Research
Topics: MethodsTags: Professional developmentMany teacher education researchers have expressed concerns with the lack of rigorous impact evaluations of teacher preparation practices. I summarize these various concerns as they relate to issues of internal validity, external validity, and measurement. I then assess the prevalence of these… more →
Effective teacher professional development: new theory and a meta-analytic test
Sam Sims, Harry Fletcher-Wood, Alison O’Mara-Eves, Sarah Cottingham, Claire Stansfield, Josh Goodrich, Jo Van Herwegen, Jake Anders.Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentTags: Professional developmentMultiple meta-analyses have now documented small positive effects of teacher professional development (PD) on pupil test scores. However, the field lacks any validated explanatory account of what differentiates more from less effective in-service training. As a result, researchers have little in… more →
Paraeducators: Growth, Diversity and a Dearth of Professional Supports
Paraeducators perform multiple roles in U.S. classrooms, including among others preparing classroom activities, working with students individually and in small groups, supporting individualized programming for students with disabilities, managing classroom behavior, and engaging with parents and… more →