Engineering design is being increasingly included in elementary education, typically to provide students with opportunities to apply science and mathematics concepts while developing their engineering practices. An important question is how to prepare teachers who can help students develop more informed engineering practices during classroom…

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to determine if there was a correlation between the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) rating of teachers and the frequency of technology use in the classroom. Furthermore, the study identified the types of Internet-based applications used in primary classrooms and teachers' perception…

An increasing number of parents are opting-out their children from high-stakes. Accountability systems in education have used students' test scores to measure student learning, teacher effectiveness, and school district performance. Students who are opted-out of high-stakes tests are not being evaluated by the state tests, making their level of…

Student assessment nonparticipation (or opt out) has increased substantially in K-12 schools in states across the country. This increase in opt out has the potential to impact achievement and growth (or value-added) measures used for educator and institutional accountability. In this simulation study, we investigated the extent to which…

Value-added assessment methods have been criticized by researchers and policy makers for a number of reasons. One issue includes the sensitivity of model results across different outcome measures. This study examined the utility of incorporating multivariate latent variable approaches within a traditional value-added framework. We evaluated the…

The increased emphasis on using student growth measures in teacher evaluation has raised questions about how to treat test scores from students with disabilities. This study explores the consequences of three common approaches for treating scores from students with disabilities in statistical approaches to estimating teacher effectiveness: (1)…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the TVAAS growth score given by the Tennessee Department of Education and the overall Tennessee Educator Assessment Model (TEAM) observation rating for teachers in grades 3 through 8. The participating county public school system for this study is located in Northeast Tennessee.…

The purpose of the research is to evaluate pre-­service preschool teachers' knowledge about environment by analyzing their drawings about it. 70 first grade, 99 second grade, 56 third grade and 44 fourth grade, with a total of 269 students have been evaluated in this research. This qualitative research was made with social structuralism vision.…

During the late 1990s and 2000s, the State of Florida enacted a set of education reforms spearheaded by Governor Jeb Bush. These policies, which emphasize test-based accountability, competition, and choice, have since become known as the "Florida Formula for education success," or, simply, the "Florida Formula." In recent…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate the effect of prekindergarten attendance on boys' and girls' standardized reading achievement scores in third and fifth grade. The thrust for more emphasis on increased information regarding the impact that prekindergarten has on standardized test results, both short-term and long-term, is…

This study is part of the core research agenda of the five-year, Goal 3 grant funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, U. S. Department of Education "Improving the Teaching and Learning of English Language Learners: The Instructional Conversation Model." In video review of teaching, bias in evaluation or rating is evident in many…

Early childhood professional organizations support teachers as the best assessors of students' academic, social, emotional, and physical development. This study investigates the predictive nature of teacher ratings of first-grade students' performance on a standards-based curriculum-embedded performance assessment within the context of a state…

The quality of education and the teachers' effectiveness impact students' lives beyond classroom performance (Chetty, Friedman, & Rockoff, 2012) and achievement on standardized tests. However, some claim there is a prevalent failure to recognize teacher's effectiveness, to effectively document poor teacher performance and to provide teachers…

In 2010, the federal government increased accountability expectations by placing more emphasis on monitoring teacher performance. Using a model that focuses on the New York State teacher evaluation system, that is comprised of a rubric for observation, local student assessment scores, and student state assessment scores, this…

Teams of educators conducted lesson study independently, supported by a resource kit that included mathematical tasks, curriculum materials, lesson videos and plans, and research articles, as well as protocols to support lesson study. The mathematical resources focused on linear measurement interpretation of fractions. This report examines the…