Teacher Preparation: Instructional Effectiveness (Pedagogy)

The aim of this paper is to examine a variety of features of research that might account for mixed findings of the relationship between teachers' subject matter knowledge and student achievement based on meta-analytic technique.

The author uses teachers’ ratings on the North Carolina Educator Evaluation System to determine whether teacher preparation programs (TPPs) are associated with the evaluation ratings of their initially prepared teachers. 

This policy brief lays out five components of a vision for the future and identifies opportunities to support teacher education reform. Examples of promising developments are also addressed that involve full-scale program redesign featuring collaboration across general and special education.

In one of the highest selling books on higher/further education to date, Bligh begins by arguing that lectures are most suitable for teaching information, not promoting thought or inspiring changes in attitudes. He goes on to detail the factors that affect the learning of information. The text is formed around a thorough consideration of the techniques of lecturing, including organization, how to make a point, use handouts, and obtain feedback, but it moves beyond lecturing to discuss alternatives when they are appropriate.

This study was conducted to create a reliable and valid low- to medium-inference, multidimensional measure of instructor clarity from seminal work across several academic fields. The five factors were explored in regards to their ability to predict the outcomes. Implications for instructional communication researchers are discussed.

This article discusses Ontario’s Teachers Learning and Leadership Program (TLLP), which aims to support experienced teachers’ professional learning, develop teachers’ leadership skills, and facilitate knowledge exchange to share practices. The author’s research identifies considerable benefits of professional learning led “by, with and for” experienced teachers involving collaborative learning and sharing of practices.

This brief explains how and why Strategic Data Project (SDP) uses value-added measures for our diagnostic work. We also explain how value-added measures relate to other measures of teacher effectiveness and the limitations of value-added measures.

The study separately compares the effectiveness of teachers from each program with the effectiveness of other teachers teaching the same subjects in the same schools.

The purpose of this overview is to provide information about the methods of teacher preparation, the current state of research on teacher preparation, challenges, trends, questions, and recommendations for those working to prepare teachers for success in the classroom. 

This book synthesizes and assesses existing research on teacher education, as well as
providing a rigorous and even-handed analysis of the weight of the evidence about the
impact of teacher education and pre-service education.

This article argues that research on teacher preparation over the last 100 years can be understood in terms of the major questions that researchers examined. The analysis is guided by the framework of “research as historically situated social practice,” which emphasizes that researchers’ interests, commitments, and social experiences guide the research questions they pursue and the theories and perspectives they adopt.

The study compares the effectiveness of different routes to teaching. It finds there is no significant difference in the effectiveness of teachers who were traditionally trained when compared to teachers who obtained training through alternative credential programs.

One flashpoint in the incendiary debate over standardized testing in American public
schools is the area of test preparation. The focus of this chapter is test preparation in achievement testing and it's purportedly harmful effects on students and teachers. 

In this paper, we study how providing improved information to principals about teacher effectiveness and encouraging them to use the information in personnel decisions affects the composition of teacher turnovers.

This study examines the impact of explicit instruction strategies on student mathematic performance.

This article outlines the challenges to creating productive clinical experiences for prospective teachers, and identifies strategies that have been found successful in confronting these challenges

The authors respond to Dan Goldhaber and Dominic Brewer’s article in the Summer 2000 issue of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis that claimed from an analysis of NELS teacher and student data that teacher certification has little bearing on student achievement. Goldhaber and Brewer found strong and consistent evidence that, as compared with students whose teachers are uncertified, students achieve at higher levels in mathematics when they have teachers who hold standard certification in mathematics. 

Recent debates about the utility of teacher education have raised questions about whether certified teachers are, in general, more effective than those who have not met the testing and training requirements for certification, and whether some candidates with strong liberal arts backgrounds might be at least as effective as teacher education graduates.

The Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT) is an authentic tool for evaluating prospective teachers by examining their abilities to plan, teach, assess, and reflect on instruction in actual classroom practice. The PACT seeks both to measure and develop teacher effectiveness, and this study of its predictive and consequential validity provides information on how well it achieves these goals.

Our schools are troubled with a multiplication of studies, each in turn having its own multiplication of materials and principles. Our teachers find their tasks made heavier in that they have come to deal with pupils individually and not merely in mass. Unless these steps in advance are to end in distraction, some clew of unity, some principle that makes for simplification, must be found.

New data and analysis from the National Council on Teacher Quality finds significant progress on the science of reading instruction in teacher preparation. 

Of the five components of scientifically based reading instruction, traditional programs are
most likely to omit the first and most challenging instructional skill teachers need to teach
before children can learn to read: phonemic awareness.

Teachers work in isolation from one another. They view their classrooms as their personal domains, have little access to the ideas or strategies of their colleagues, and prefer to be left alone rather than engage with their colleagues or principals. Their professional practice is shrouded in a veil of privacy and personal autonomy and is not a subject for collective discussion or analysis.

Collective teacher efficacy is an emergent school level variable reflecting a faculty’s collective belief in its ability to positively affect students. It has been linked in the literature to school achievement. The research questions addressed the distribution of effect sizes for the relationship and the moderator variables that could explain any variance found among the studies.

We offer a comparative investigation of the compensation and benefits afforded to cooperating teachers (CTs) by teacher education programs (TEPs) in 1957-1958 and 2012-2013. This investigation replicates and extends a description of the compensation practices of 20 US TEPs published by VanWinkle in 1959.

This paper explain a three-stage process of Pilot Research, Formal Evaluation, and Scaling Up. Finally, we discuss several misconceptions about empirical research and researchers.

Research begun in the 1960s provided the impetus for teacher educators to urge classroom teachers to establish classroom rules, deliver high rates of verbal/nonverbal praise, and, whenever possible, to ignore minor student provocations. In that there have been significant advances in the knowledge of what constitutes effective classroom management, a review of past-to-present literature was conducted to determine whether it is time to alter the thinking about one or more of these basic behavioral strategies.

Geneva Gay is renowned for her contributions to multicultural education, particularly as it
relates to curriculum design, professional learning, and classroom instruction. Gay has
made many important revisions to keep her foundational, award-winning text relevant for
today's diverse student population, including: new research on culturally responsive
teaching, a focus on a broader range of racial and ethnic groups, and consideration of
additional issues related to early childhood education.

This study compared two approaches for teaching a history unit on the Civil Rights Movement (1954–1965) to middle school students with learning disabilities (LD) in general education settings.

These papers provide up-to-date, informative summaries of current knowledge and a base from which further venture into the critical area of instructional intervention in special education can occur.

Discusses the uses and abuses of intelligence testing in our educational systems. Dr. Goslin
examines teachers' opinions and practices with regard to tests and finds considerable
discrepancies between attitude and behavior.

Recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers is essential for student learning. As a 2019 Learning Policy Institute analysis found, “Investments in instruction, especially high-quality teachers, appear to leverage the largest marginal gains in [student] performance.” Research has shown that teacher cuts during the last recession disproportionately impacted districts and schools serving students of color and students from low-income families. 

A research synthesis confirms the difficulty of translating professional development into student achievement gains despite the intuitive and logical connection. Those responsible for planning and implementing professional development must learn how to critically assess and evaluate the effectiveness of what they do.

Policymakers and school administrators have embraced value-added models of teacher effectiveness as tools for educational improvement. Teacher value-added estimates may be viewed as complicated scores. This Paper examines the use of value-added modeling as a tool to identify effective teachers from ineffective instructors.

This new research addresses a number of critical questions:  Are a teacher’s cognitive skills a good predictor of teacher quality? This study examines the student achievement of 36 developed countries in the context of teacher cognitive skills. This study finds substantial differences in teacher cognitive skills across countries that are strongly related to student performance.

Contemporary educational theory holds that one of the pivotal causes of inadequate student
achievement, especially in disadvantaged schools, is the inability of schools to adequately
staff classrooms with qualified teachers. Deficits in the quantity of teachers produced and in
the quality of preparation prospective teachers receive have long been singled out as
primary explanations for underqualified teaching.

Collectively, IES-funded research should yield outcomes and products that are meaningful, inform stakeholders about the cost and practical benefits and effects of interventions (programs, policies, practices) on relevant outcomes for learners, and contribute to scientific knowledge and theory of teaching, learning, and organizing education systems. NCER expects researchers receiving funding through this program to disseminate evidence in a way that is useful to and accessible by educators, parents, policymakers, researchers, and the public.

This book provides research as well as case studies of successful professional development strategies and practices for educators.

This paper highlights the importance of making the preparation of teachers as scientific as possible by basing instruction on scientific evidence and making teaching an applied science.

This article shared information about the Wing Institute and demographics of the Summit participants. It introduced the Summit topic, sharing performance data on past efforts of school reform that focused on structural changes rather than teaching improvement. The conclusion is that the system has spent enormous resources with virtually no positive results. The focus needs to be on teaching improvement.

The goal of this paper is to provide researchers and policymakers with a comprehensive and timely review of this body of work.

The Teacher Education Committee at Northwestern Oklahoma State University approved the development of a competency-based teacher education program. A subcommittee identified and wrote professional education competencies which students should master prior to program completion.

This report is based on efforts by the National Center for Education Statistics to collect data on teacher preparation and qualifications using a nationally representative survey of full-time public school teachers whose main teaching assignment is in English/language arts, social studies/social sciences, foreign language, mathematics, or science (or who teach a self-contained classroom).

Teacher educators are under increasing pressure to show that preparation programs meaningfully impact instruction among pre-service teachers, who are then influential in student learning. This external pressure is challenging for teacher educators. We present an early field-based course and applied teaching project to examine teaching practices and pupil outcomes.

This paper investigates the long-term impact of teachers' value-added effects on student learning over multiple years and across subject areas. The study finds that the durable effects of English Language Arts (ELA) teachers are more likely to generalizable across subjects than the instructional effects of math teachers.

This study documents the implementation of research-based strategies to minimize the occurrence of reading difficulties in a first-grade population. Three strategies were implemented. 

The aim of this study is to examine difference in the effect of instructional methods (lecture-discussion versus group discussion) and teaching talent on teacher trainees student learning outcomes. It was conducted by a quasi-experimental design using the factorialized (2 x 2) version of the nonequivalent control group design. 

The National Center for Education Evaluation, a division of the Institute of Education Sciences has released a new research brief that evaluated two strategies for improving educator effectiveness as measured by improvements in student outcomes.  

This study follows 305 preservice teachers (PSTs) who student taught in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) in 2014-15 and were subsequently hired in CPS in 2015-16. 

The authors use data from a four-year experiment in which teachers and students were randomly assigned to classes to estimate teacher effects on student achievement. Teacher effects are estimated as between-teacher (but within-school) variance components of achievement status and residualized achievement gains.

Flipped classrooms are by design highly interactive. As a result, formative assessment is a necessary component of the flipped classroom. Professors need to be able to assess students' in the class, use this assessment information to inform classroom activities in real time and personalize learning for their students.

Much of teaching is about helping students master new knowledge and skills and then helping students not to forget what they have learned. The recommendations in this practice guide are intended to provide teachers with specific strategies for organizing both instruction and students' studying of material to facilitate learning and remembering information, and to enable students to use what they have learned in new situations.

Effects of a 1-semester professional development (PD) intervention that included expert coaching with Head Start teachers were investigated in a randomized controlled trial with 88 teachers and 759 children. 

This article provides an analysis of how collaborative teacher education has developed in terms of practice, discourse, and the relationship between general and special education across three historical stages. It explores how collaborative teacher education between general and special education has been positioned over time in relationship to larger national reform efforts in teacher education.

Student teaching has long been considered a cornerstone of teacher preparation. One dimension thought to affect student teacher learning is the kinds of schools in which these experiences occur. Results suggest that better functioning school organizations with positive work environments make desirable settings for teacher learning and that preparation programs, and the districts they supply, would benefit from more strategically using these kinds of schools to prepare future teachers.

Increasingly, states and teacher education programs are establishing minimum requirements for cooperating teachers’ (CTs’) years of experience or tenure. Undergirding these policies is an assumption that to effectively mentor preservice teachers (PSTs), CTs must themselves be instructional effective. The authors test this assumption using statewide administrative data on nearly 2,900 PSTs mentored by over 3,200 CTs.

Formative assessment has the potential to support teaching and learning in the classroom. This study reviewed the literature on formative assessment to identify prerequisites for effective use of formative assessment by teachers. The review sought to address the following research question: What teacher prerequisites need to be in place for using formative assessment in their classroom practice?

This paper is part of a bigger research project and focuses on issues related to soft skills and teaching professional training. The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent of soft skills that has been integrated in teaching professional training from the novice teachers’ perspectives.

"The Mirage" describes the widely held perception among education leaders that they already know how to help teachers improve, and that they could achieve their goal of great teaching in far more classrooms if they just applied what they knew more widely.

While most educators believe working in teams is valuable, not all team efforts lead to instructional improvement. Through richly detailed case studies The Power of Teacher Teams demonstrates how schools can transform their teams into more effective learning communities that foster teacher leadership.

For many years, differential reinforcement has been a prevalent and preferred treatment procedure for the reduction of behavior disorders. This paper reviews the procedural variations of differential reinforcement and discusses their functional properties.

This meta-analysis of single case designed studies examines the effect of academic interventions on student behavior. The academic interventions examined included modifying task difficulty, instruction in reading, mathematics, or writing and contingent reinforcement for academic performance. The study concluded that these interventions produced positive effects on student behavior issues observed in the classroom. The effects were observed to have a moderate effect size ranging from 0.42 to 0.64. The effects were stronger for increasing student time on task than for reducing disruptive behavior, but both showed positive impacts. This research strengthens the available evidence that well-designed instruction is effective component in creating an effective classroom climate.

This Considerations Packet is designed to support school leadership teams as they guide school improvement efforts. Topics include the rationale for using a team approach, team composition, and necessary skills and responsibilities of the leadership team.

This study examines the extent that subject matter knowledge contributes to teacher effectiveness; the extent to which pedagogical, learning theory, or child development contribute to teacher effectiveness; how high quality field experience impacts teacher effectiveness; and other factors that contribute to effective teacher preparation.

The purpose of this study is to examine research to answer the question, What is the impact of teacher professional development on student achievement.