The present study had two aims. First, we set out to evaluate the structure of processing speed in children by comparing five alternative models: two conceptual models (a unitary model, a complexity model) and three methodological models (a stimulus material model, an output response model, and a timing modality model). Second, we then used the…

Managing classroom behavior is an important prerequisite to effective teaching and a salient need in alternative schools. Unfortunately, students from these schools are often underrepresented in the intervention literature. The primary aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of two different theoretical approaches to classroom…

Writing allows access to venues often limited by poverty, disabilities, and geography. Promoting writing skills can create bridges to overcome the isolation that often keeps communities from engaging with one another. However, most of the students in the nation's schools are not capable writers and find the persuasive genres challenging. In this…

This study examined the effects of family SES on children's mathematics achievement for urban, rural, and migrant families in China. The data comprised 6050 children (44% female, 56% male) in grades 4 and 5 from a national database in China. The results showed that parental education level and family income were directly related to children's…

Background: Education has much in common with professions that are using positive psychology and positive organizational scholarship to transform practice, yet the science behind peak human and group functioning has been slow to displace deficit-based framing of reform policies and improvement strategies in education. Purpose of the Study: This…

This study investigated the effect of different methods of guidance with anchored instruction on students' mathematical problem-solving performance. The purpose of this research was to iteratively design a learning environment to find the optimal level of guidance. Two iterations of the software were compared. The first iteration used explicit…

The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) is a national network of public charter schools whose stated mission is to help underserved students enroll in and graduate from college. As of 2014-2015 the network included 162 elementary, middle, and high schools serving 59,495 students. Questions remain, however, about the ability of charter school…

This study explores the effectiveness of integrating morphological instruction within comprehension strategy instruction. Participants were 203 students (N = 117 fifth-grade; 86 sixth-grade) from four urban schools who were randomly assigned to the intervention (N = 110; morphological problem-solving within comprehension strategy instruction) or…

Evidence that teachers' short-term instructional effects persist over time and predict substantial long-run impacts on students' lives provides much of the impetus for a wide range of educational reforms focused on identifying and responding to differences in teachers' value-added to student learning. However, relatively little research has…

Learning how to give effective feedback can be a difficult task for teacher leaders. This is especially true for what is called "hard feedback"--that is, feedback that challenges the teacher's practice and therefore may cause some level of professional discomfort. Educators at the University of Pittsburgh's Institute for Learning have…

California has the largest share of the English Language Learner (ELL) student population in the U.S., and it continues to grow. English Language Learners are the fastest growing group in the public school population and they are underachieving. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the longitudinal changes in the performance of English…

Prior research suggests that summer learning loss among low-income children contributes to income-based gaps in achievement and educational attainment. We present results from a randomized experiment of a summer mathematics program conducted in a large, high-poverty urban public school district. Children in the third to ninth grade (N = 263) were…

The relative effectiveness of two writing accommodations, word processing (WP) and speech-recognition (SR) technology, was examined relative to the writing skills of four boys with Asperger syndrome. The more effective accommodation was then combined with the Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) writing intervention and compared with SRSD…

The study reviewed in this report examined the effects of Philadelphia's "Renaissance Schools Initiative" on students in K-8 schools after one year of implementation. Schools were selected for participation based on their School Performance Index (SPI) at the start of the 2010-11 school year. The SPI rates every school in Philadelphia…

In this study, we collected and analyzed data to examine the extent to which the achievement gap between urban and suburban children extended to their knowledge of digital literacies. Findings indicated that the suburban children outperformed the urban students in each of the performance areas, and that suburban children reported greater…