Teach Effectively!

I’m assembling a list of sites that either advocate evidence-based practice or catalog evidence-based practices (E-bP) related to teaching, special education, and related concerns. (Many sites are likely to do both, so I may have to recast the types of sources after assembling a list.) I’m not planning to catalog sites from medicine, though psychiatry or other disciplines that would address the needs of atypical students would be included. There is a broader effort at “Netting the Evidence” from the UK University of Sheffield School of Health and Related Research and the health sciences folks at my own place of employ have helpful directions for those seeking information about evidence-based practice in clinical medicine, Navigating the Maze.

Here are a few examples of what I hope to assemble:

• The Report of the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy on “Bringing Evidence-Driven Progress To Education” is available as a PDF file.
• US Department of Education resources:
  • Evidence-Based Education (October 2002): Russ Whitehurst’s presentation on evidence-based education in HTML, PowerPoint, or PDF.
  • Identifying and Implementing Educational Practices Supported by Rigorous Evidence (December 2003): A user-friendly guide to help educators distinguish practices supported by rigorous evidence from those that are not .
  • Scientifically Based Research (February 2002): This is a transcript of experts discussin the meaning of “scientifically based research.”
• The US-supported What Works Clearinghouse provides reports about effectiveness of educational methods, practices, and policies, which I’ve mentioned (in chornological order) here, here, here, and here; it’s been slow starting, but it is still promising.
• The Center for Evidence-Based Practice: Young Children with Challenging Behavior aims to raise the awareness and implementation of positive, evidence-based practices and to build an enhanced and more accessible database to support those practices
• The Promising Practices Network (PPN) is a group of individuals and organizations who are dedicated to providing quality evidence-based information about what works to improve the lives of children, families, and communities.
• The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry maintains an index of articles from its publication, the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, that describe E-bP.
• Bob Slavin’s notes on E-bP for children at risk of later problems in schools (PDF of full comments linked there).
• New Zealand’s “Enhancing Effective Practice in Special Education” (EEPiSE) project is part of an initiative to support and develop teachers’ ability to support learners who require significant adaptations to curricula.