Categories for Implementation
July 6, 2020
The story of professional development is illustrative of problems common to educational interventions. The American education system values in-service training, spending range from $18,000 annually per teacher. Like many promising practices found effective in controlled conditions, in-service training fails in the field. Ample evidence points to new teachers being insufficiently prepared, and in-service training is used to fill the gap. Schools invest extensively in teacher induction in the early years of a teacher and supplement this with continuous development over a career. Unfortunately, training is delivered in the least productive ways, such as emphasizing theory and demonstrating skills in simulated exercises rather than on real students. These efforts produce poor results—not surprising since they ignore the research, which shows the value of giving teachers opportunities to practice in real-world settings, tying training to existing procedures, and following up with monitoring and feedback. Only a fraction of the money is directed toward coaching, the method that research shows produces long-lasting results.
Citation: Cleaver, S., Detrich, R., States, J. & Keyworth, R. (2020). Overview Teacher Professional Development. Oakland, CA: The Wing Institute. quality-teachers-in-service.
Link: https://www.winginstitute.org/quality-teachers-in-service
June 30, 2020
Remote forms of K-12 instruction have become increasingly prevalent as schools expand their use of educational technologies to allow for learning beyond that which takes place in brick and mortar classrooms. Remote instruction may offer a number of benefits, including reduced costs and increased student access to courses and instruction that would not be available otherwise. However, while research is limited, evidence to date suggests that fully remote instruction and virtual schools are not as effective as the face-to-face instruction that takes place in traditional schools, particularly for struggling students. Blended instructional models have shown more promise, particularly those that enable differentiated instruction through technologies such as intelligent tutoring. The success of remote instruction likely in part depends on a number of implementation factors, such as the degree to which equitable access to digital tools and resources is provided, whether and how students’ metacognitive skills that are essential for more independent, self-regulated learning are developed, the capacity of preparation and professional development to foster teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge, and the extent to which parents can engage in ways that allow them to effectively support their children’s learning at home.
Citation: 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
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.
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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
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 : Rasinski, T. (2006). Reading fluency instruction: Moving beyond accuracy, automaticity, and prosody. The Reading Teacher, 59(7), 704-706.
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 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 4, 2020
Does Peer Assessment Promote Student Learning? A Meta-Analysis. Peer assessment has become a popular education intervention. In a peer assessment, student’s work is evaluated by a peer as opposed to the teacher. Extensive research is available on the reliability and validity of peer assessment results. A review of the literature finds few studies on the impact of Peer Review on student outcomes. This meta-analysis examines the effect sizes found in 58 studies. The paper finds a positive relationship for peer assessment on student outcomes. The study went on to identify the specific practice elements that comprise the practice of Peer Assessment to identify those elements that have the most significant impact on student performance. The study identified five components rater training, rating format, rating criteria, and frequency of peer assessment. The most critical factor of those examined is rater training.
Citation: Li, H., Xiong, Y., Hunter, C. V., Guo, X., & Tywoniw, R. (2020). Does peer assessment promote student learning? A meta-analysis. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 45(2), 193-211.
Link: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Hongli_Li4/publication/333571244_Does_peer_assessment_promote_student_learning_A_meta-analysis/links/5d276f9d92851cf4407a70c2/Does-peer-assessment-promote-student-learning-A-meta-analysis
March 3, 2020
Teacher Preparation: Overview. Because research has shown that, of all school factors, teachers have the greatest influence on student achievement it is not surprising the United States invests significant time and money in the preparation of new teachers. The available research highlights the importance of preparation programs recruiting and selecting the highest quality candidates, training prospective teachers in evidence-based practices, and employing pedagogical practices including extensive time in actual classrooms teaching students as necessary to developing exemplary teachers. Research comparing traditional 4-year teacher schools of education, graduate degree credential models, and alternative routes suggest that current approaches to credentialing are falling far short of expectations. Efforts to hold preparation programs accountable to higher standards by making better use of program evaluation and holding institutions accountable by linking graduates to student achievement are hopeful signs and offer viable options for improving existing models and replacing outdated training methods so prevalent in many of todays pre-service programs.
Citation: Cleaver, S., Detrich, R. & States, J. (2020). Overview of Teacher Preparation. Oakland, CA: The Wing Institute.https://www.winginstitute.org/quality-teachers-pre-service.
Link: https://www.winginstitute.org/quality-teachers-pre-service
