Tag Archive for 'achievement'

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“Our teachers think they’re all effective.”

Published on 15 August 2010 in Administration, Arithmetic and mathematics, Elementary, Musings, News, Parents, Policy, Reading and The press. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

According to Stannis Steinbeck, principal of Broadus Elementary School in Pacoima (CA, US), this is the view of the members of her faculty. According to data about the teachers’ effects on student achievement, not all teachers are effective. It should come as no surprise that some are more effective than others and some are woefully ineffective.

Jason Felch, Jason Song, and Doug Smith of the Los Angeles Times aggregated achievement test data over seven years and across many students assigned to 6000 teachers to assess which teachers consistently improved and which consistently diminished their students’ outcomes.
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Genetics and teaching effects

Published on 27 April 2010 in News, Primary, Reading, Research and The press. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

Although genetic factors make substantial contributions to reading performance, it is important not to overlook the contribtutions of teaching and the interplay between genetics and teaching, according to Jeannette Taylor and colleagues from Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL, US). Professor Taylor and the research team with which she’s affiliated used the oral reading fluency (ORF; simply words per minute) of twins’ (280 monzygotic and 526 dizygotic) classmates as a proxy for teacher quality, and the found that when twins were in classrooms where their peers were making lots of progress, the effects of genetic factors became more obvious: “Genetic variance in ORF was greater at higher levels of teacher quality.”

The bad news is that the reverse is true, too. Poor teaching, to the extent that it’s measured by gain in ORF, decreased the effects of genetics on reading growth.

Children’s reading achievement is influenced by genetics as well as by family and school environments. The importance of teacher quality as a specific school environmental influence on reading achievement is unknown. We studied first- and second-grade students in Florida from schools representing diverse environments. Comparison of monozygotic and dizygotic twins, differentiating genetic similarities of 100% and 50%, provided an estimate of genetic variance in reading achievement. Teacher quality was measured by how much reading gain the non-twin classmates achieved. The magnitude of genetic variance associated with twins’ oral reading fluency increased as the quality of their teacher increased. In circumstances where the teachers are all excellent, the variability in student reading achievement may appear to be largely due to genetics. However, poor teaching impedes the ability of children to reach their potential.

This is an especially interesting finding in light of the recent report, as noted over on LD Blog, that among twins with high IQs, the genetic contribution to reading is also more salient.

Taylor, J., Roehrig, A. D., Hensler, B. S., & Schatschneider, C. (2010). Teacher quality moderates the genetic effects on early reading. Science, 328, 512-514.

Link to “Teacher quality moderates the genetic effects on early reading.” It appears to me that this article is available to the general public. Note that there is also an interview with Professor Taylor; the narrator puts the point about teacher quality right squarely in front of the listener.

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Children of the Code posts Engelmann 2

Published on 13 April 2010 in Arithmetic and mathematics, Behavior Management, Content learning, Elementary, News, Policy, Primary, Reading, Research, Secondary, Spelling, Teacher education, The press and Written Expression. 5 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Over on Children of the Code, David Boulton and colleagues affiliated with Learning Stewards, a non-profit organization, posted the second segment of an extended video interview entitled “Professor Siegfried Engelmann Part 2: Improving the Quality of Learning.” Here’s a snippet from the the announcement:

Siegfried “Zig” Engelmann is Professor of Education at the University of Oregon, the Director of the National Institute for Direct Instruction, and President of Engelmann-Becker Corporation, which develops instructional materials and provides educational services for students with various educational needs. The creator of “Direct Instruction”, Professor Engelmann is also the author or co-author of more than 100 articles and chapters of professional books, and more than a dozen professional books and monographs.

“It doesn’t matter what your theory of learning is, all you need to do is look at the facts of what you did and the facts of what the kids are doing.”

I like that quote. It captures the raw empiricism that undergirds Professor Engelmann’s approach to teaching and instructional design.

Siegfried Engelmann 2: Improving the Quality of Learning
Read an earlier entry from Teach Effectively that links to the first part of the interview: “Engelmann interview on instructional design.”

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Sorta building a better teacher, maybe

Published on 4 March 2010 in Administration, Musings, News, Research, Teacher education and The press. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

In “Building A Better Teacher,” Elizabeth Green presents cases personifying two perspectives on teaching effectively—one we often hear referred to as “classroom management” and the other regularly called “good content.” She uses Doug Lemov and Deborah Ball, respectively, as her exemplars of the cases.

Professor Ball, dean of the University of Michigan’s school of education, is widely noted for her studies of teachers’ content knowledge in mathematics. Mr. Lemov, a consultant and promoter of charter schools, has a forth-coming book documenting concepts about teaching practices that span content areas.
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Tutoring the right way

Published on 24 February 2010 in Administration, News, Parents and The press. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Over on Facebook Martha Gabler announced the opening a private tutoring center in Silver Spring (MD, US): Kids’ Learning Workshop. The focus is on what she calls “fluent foundation skills” by which she means rapid, accurate performance on such tasks as reading aloud, writing answers for arithmetic facts, and answering questions about academic content.

Readers might wonder why I would post a note about such a private enterprise on Teach Effectively. There are at least three reasons:
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Rating LEAs’ teaching?

Published on 17 February 2010 in Administration, Musings, Policy and Standards. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Today in Washington (DC, US) the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute launch a public service Web site that allows visitors to learn about the healthiness of localities on a county-by-county basis across the US. The news got me thinking—Danger!—about the possibility of creating a similar resource for consumers of education: Providing a scientifically credible metric for the quality of teaching in each local education agency around a country.
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Go for DI and SFA

Published on 21 December 2009 in Administration, Elementary, News, Primary, Reading, Research, Teacher education and The press. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Robert Slavin and colleagues reported that reading programs that provide extensive professional development on instructional strategies which promote student participation, strengthen phonics competence, and explicitly teach comprehension strategies are the best bets for improving reading achievement. The clearest examples of the programs that led to the highest achievement were Direct Instruction and Success for All.

Writing in the December 2009 issue of the Review of Educational Research, Professor Slavin and colleagues reported the results of their examination of 142 studies. They wanted to determine whether curricula, technology, instructional processes, or combinations of curricula and processes produce greater reading achievement. The curriculum group included core reading programs, such as Reading Street and Open Court Reading. The technology group included programs that employ computers or similar methods such as computer-assisted instruction, multimedia (e.g., Reading Reels, or Writing to Read). The instructional process group included approaches that provide teachers effective strategies for teaching reading, such as Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) and Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (CIRC). The combined curriculum-and-instructional-process group included programs that function as core curricula and also provide detailed professional development about using instructional strategies, such as Direct Instruction and Success for All. The researchers separated the studies into two groups: those with outcomes at the (a) beginning reading level vs. upper elementary level.
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Kauffman on ed reform

Published on 9 December 2009 in Administration, Musings, News, Policy and The press. 4 Comments Tags: , , .

My colleague and friend, Jim Kauffman, published an editorial in the Charlottesville (VA, US) Daily Progress over the past weekend. It’s a good one.

In his view, most educational reform proposals miss the mark. They overlook the critical element. Make a note about what element you think is ignored, then read Professor Kauffman’s editorial. I suspect that many readers of Teach Effectively will have notes about the same overlooked factor that he identifies.

I’d point readers to the Daily Progress for a chance to read it, but I can’t find the article on that Web site. However, thanks to the author, I have a PDF of the editorial. Download it by clicking on the accompanying image or by following this link.

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