Categories for Education Outcomes
June 30, 2020
Research suggests that starting each year by teaching rules and procedures results in increased appropriate conduct and higher academic achievement. Both rules and procedures are proactive strategies that set expectations and instruct students on both appropriate and unacceptable ways to interact with peers and adults. Clearly stated, they define and operationalize acceptable behavior necessary to maintain an orderly and well-functioning school or classroom. To be effective, each precept must specify consequences, describing what happens when it are followed or is broken. Rules and procedures must be enforced consistently if they are to produce best results. When expectations are clearly stated and supported, they lend credibility to a teacher’s authority, reduce disruptive behavior that impedes learning, and enhance job satisfaction. Rules are constructed around broad classes of behavior (be safe, be responsible, be respectful) and apply in all settings. Procedures are guidance about what to do in a specific context. For example, elementary schools have procedures to guide students in how to enter the class in the morning (put backpack away, take a book, and read silently at desk).
Citation: Guinness, K., Detrich, R., Keyworth, R. & States, J. (2020). Overview of Rules and Procedures. Oakland, CA: The Wing Institute. https://www.winginstitute.org/classroom-rules-procedures.
Link: http://Guinness, K., Detrich, R., Keyworth, R. & States, J. (2020). Overview of Rules and Procedures. Oakland, CA: The Wing Institute. https://www.winginstitute.org/classroom-rules-procedures.
June 8, 2020
The Global Implementation Society (GIS) promotes implementation practice, science, and policy through the development and integration of practical implementation, improvement, and scaling practices in human service settings to improve outcomes for children, families, individuals, and communities worldwide.
The Covid-19 outbreak has highlighted the significance and value of implementation knowledge and implementation capacity. To assist you during this difficult time, GIS has gathered some potential resources to help schools weather these challenging times.
The resources include;
Link: Global Implementation Society
June 8, 2020
WestEd is a nonprofit organization tasked with promoting excellence, achieve equity, and improve learning for children, youth, and adults. WestEd offers consulting and technical assistance, evaluation, policy, professional development, and research and development to support and improve education outcomes.
As the world rallies to respond to the current public health crisis, schools across the globe have closed their doors to stop the spread of the new coronavirus and its associated disease, COVID-19. Wested has developed and compiled resources to assist schools in responding to this crisis.
The resources include;
Distance & At-Home Learning
Early Childhood
English Learners
Health, Safety, & Well-Being
Online Professional Development
Resource Planning & Management
Science & Mathematics
Special Education
Link: Wested
May 29, 2020
The 2020 pandemic is unprecedented in living memory. This event necessitates schools adopting new technologies and teachers mastering new ways of delivering instruction. Education is engaged in a grand experiment, implementing new practices in fifty states with over 13,000 school districts. Change on this magnitude would be daunting even in normal times, and is particularly difficult in a decentralized system such as in the United States. What we know is there are bound to be many failures. Fortunately, the past 15 years have seen remarkable progress in the creation of a science of implementation to address such hurdles. This paper offers examples of failed practices in guiding schools to avoid making similar mistakes over the coming year.
|
Citation: States, J., & Keyworth, R. (2020). Why Practices Fail. Oakland, CA: The Wing Institute. https://www.winginstitute.org/roadmap-overview
Link: https://www.winginstitute.org/roadmap-overview
May 29, 2020
The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in school closings for the remainder of the year in 48 of 50 states and a sharp turn toward remote instruction in order to finish the year as best as possible. Issues and concerns previously in the background, such as inequitable access to technology including internet access for online learning at home, are now front and center. Districts and states have been exploring creative ways to bridge the digital divide, such as delivering Wi-Fi hotspots and devices to children without technology and internet access, using public television, creating printed packets, and making creative use of the mobile and smartphones that most families in the United States now have.
Citations: Donley, J., Detrich, R., States, J., & Keyworth, (2020). Remote Learning Overview. Oakland, CA: The Wing Institute. https://www.winginstitute.org/effective-instruction-computers.
Link: https://www.winginstitute.org/effective-instruction-computers
May 12, 2020
Active Supervision Overview: Active supervision is a behavior management practice designed to teach and reinforce appropriate behavior and to prevent and reduce misconduct. To maximize situational awareness, the practice emphasizes constant scanning and moving around the classroom and other potential trouble spots for disruptive behavior, such as hallways, playground, and field trips. Active supervision enables teachers to more effectively deliver feedback to students. By frequently interacting with students, they increase opportunities to build positive relationships, provide encouraging feedback for appropriate behavior, and more swiftly and consistently respond to inappropriate behavior. Teachers should constantly scan the entire area looking for appropriate behavior, problem behavior, and dangerous activities, paying special attention to areas, activities, and groups where problems have occurred in the past. They can use this time to reinforce expectations by reminding students of rules and routines, prompt appropriate behavior, and deliver corrective consequences as needed.
Citation: Guinness, K., Detrich, R., Keyworth, R. & States, J. (2020). Overview of Supporting Appropriate Behavior. Oakland, CA: The Wing Institute. https://www.winginstitute.org/classroom-active-supervision
Link: https://www.winginstitute.org/classroom-active-supervision
April 21, 2020
Fluency in education. Being fluent in something taught is essential if learning is readily accessible to the learner at a later date. How teachers measure student progress and define mastery rarely receives the attention it deserves. The distinguishing characteristic of mastery learning lies in both quick and accurate performance of a skill. The fluid combination of accuracy plus speed characterizes competent performance. To provide all students with retention, endurance, and application of instructional content, teachers must monitor performance with clear and universal measures and make decisions using standard data displays. The use of standard units of measurement and a standard graphical display are essential features of effective instruction. One such discovery, performance standards, has demonstrated that students can retain skills over significant amounts of time, perform at high rates with little performance decrement, and apply “element” skills to more sophisticated “compound” skills. It is essential teachers build fluency through providing students with adequate opportunities to practice lessons before moving on to the next topic. To sustain learning over time, instructors must monitor performance days, weeks, and even months after completion of a lesson. Unless continuous monitoring of past experiences occurs, prerequisite skills will be lost and unavailable to the student when needed in future lessons.
Citation: Kubina, R. M., & Morrison, R. S. (2000). Fluency in education. Behavior and Social Issues, 10(1), 83-99.
Link: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.5210/bsi.v10i0.133.pdf
Additional Fluency Research: Datchuk, S. M., & Hier, B. O. (2019). Fluency Practice: Techniques for Building Automaticity in Foundational Knowledge and Skills. TEACHING Exceptional Children, 51(6), 424-435.
Reading Fluency :
Samuels, S. J. (2006). Toward a Model of Reading Fluency.
Rasinski, T. V., Blachowicz, C. L., & Lems, K. (Eds.). (2012). Fluency instruction: Research-based best practices. Guilford Press.
Mathematics Fluency: Burns, M. K., Codding, R. S., Boice, C. H., & Lukito, G. (2010). Meta-analysis of acquisition and fluency math interventions with instructional and frustration level skills: Evidence for a skill-by-treatment interaction. School Psychology Review, 39(1), 69-83.
Singer-Dudek, J., & Greer, R. D. (2005). A long-term analysis of the relationship between fluency and the training and maintenance of complex math skills. The Psychological Record, 55(3), 361-376
Language Fluency: Housen, A., & Kuiken, F. (2009). Complexity, accuracy, and fluency in second language acquisition. Applied linguistics, 30(4), 461-473.
Writing Fluency: Alvis, A. V. (2019). Predictors of Elementary-aged Students’ Writing Fluency Growth in Response to a Performance Feedback Writing Intervention
March 25, 2020
School Principal Retention Overview. Principals are critical to determining teaching quality, and in turn, student learning and achievement; retaining effective principals therefore is paramount, particularly in schools striving for rapid improvement. Principal turnover is higher in public charter than traditional public schools, in part because many charter schools are located in economically disadvantaged areas which have higher turnover rates generally. Less effective principals are more likely to leave their schools, which may imply the chance for improved school outcomes if they are replaced by more effective principals; however, research has yet to explore the extent to which this occurs. Working conditions found to influence principal turnover include negative disciplinary environments, lack of autonomy in decision-making regarding personnel and finances, and salary, whose impact is moderated by job benefits and other nonmonetary working conditions. District and policy characteristics such as tenure/union membership and policies intended to reduce teacher turnover also reduce the likelihood of principal turnover, as do high-quality professional development and support programs. Principal turnover incurs significant financial costs, and often leads to increased teacher turnover and decreased student achievement, unless a ready supply of more effective principals is available to replace low-performing ones. Evidence-based strategies to improve principal retention include coaching, mentoring and leadership supports tailored to a principal’s school context, and pipeline initiatives designed to increase the supply of high-quality candidates through recruitment, preparation, and ongoing development and support. Targeted financial incentives to work in high-needs schools coupled with improvements to principals’ working conditions can enhance retention, as can principal accountability systems that given principals increased autonomy but that also focus on ensuring they can build teacher capacity for the use of evidence-based instructional strategies.
Citation: Donley, J., Detrich, R., States, J., & Keyworth, (2020). Principal Retention Overview. Oakland, CA: The Wing Institute. https://www.winginstitute.org/quality-leadership-principal-retention.
Link: https://www.winginstitute.org/quality-leadership-principal-retention
March 23, 2020
The Adoption of Curricula in K-12 Schools: An Exploratory Qualitative Analysis. This exploratory qualitative study investigated how school districts engage in the process of adopting curricula for use in grades K-12 and what factors influence administrators when making adoption decisions. The author and a graduate student used a semi-structured interview protocol to interview 21 building- and district-level administrators employed by an economically and geographically diverse sample of school districts in the United States. After completing the interviews, the author and four researchers employed thematic analysis to analyze the data. Results suggest that the curriculum adoption process varies between school districts and, for some, from one curriculum adoption to the next. Most respondents reported engaging in at least one of the following activities during the adoption process: gathering information, initial screening, engaging committees, reviewing potential programs, piloting, and obtaining approval. The factors that influence administrators’ adoption decisions fall into four categories: alignment, need, evidence, and aspects of programs. Based on the data obtained in this study, the author proposes a sequence of activities to follow during a curriculum adoption.
Citation: Rolf, K. (2020). The Adoption of Curricula in K-12 Schools: An Exploratory Qualitative Analysis. Utah State University. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O_rvmZKGE8rCf_nVTdOwgy4AVk-Gw6hH/view
Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O_rvmZKGE8rCf_nVTdOwgy4AVk-Gw6hH/view
March 12, 2020
What Works Clearinghouse: Procedures Handbook, Version 4.1. The WWC systematic review process offers educators and policy-makers a mechanism to assure consistent, objective, and transparent standards and procedures for assessing the impact of practices and interventions. The review procedures handbook includes the following changes: (1) Removal of the “substantively important” designation; (2) Addition of standard error calculations for all effect sizes; (3) Addition of single-case design (SCD) procedures for synthesizing SCD study findings using design-comparable effect sizes; (4) Addition of methods to estimate effects from regression discontinuity designs (RDDs); (5) Clarification of decision rules determining the use of difference-in-difference effect sizes; (6) Synthesis of studies within intervention reports using a fixed-effects model; (7) Modification of the intervention report effectiveness rating; and (8) Levels of evidence in practice guides.
Citation: What Works Clearinghouse: Procedures Handbook, Version 4.1. Princeton, NJ: What Works Clearinghouse https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED602035.pdf
Link: https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED602035.pdf
