Neither holding a college major in education nor acquiring a master's degree is correlated with elementary and middle school teaching effectiveness, regardless of the university at which the degree was earned. Teachers generally do become more effective with a few years of teaching experience, but we also find evidence that teachers may become…

Teach For America (TFA) and the Teaching Fellows programs are an important and growing source of teachers of hard-to-staff subjects in high-poverty schools, but comprehensive evidence of their effectiveness has been limited. This report presents findings from the first large-scale random assignment study of secondary math teachers from these…

In the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), Congress called for the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to conduct a rigorous study of the conditions and practices under which educational technology is effective in increasing student academic achievement. A 2007 report presenting study findings for the 2004-2005 school year, indicated that, after one…

In this article, the author describes his experience teaching a "special needs," or "SPED" class. In this class, he has sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students that have the most difficulty of any students in the school in grasping new concepts. The author explains that these same students, however, are also the ones who best appreciate what you…

The author, a teacher at Roosevelt Junior High/Middle School in Eugene, Oregon, has created and taught a variety of elective classes. Each incorporated reading, writing skills, oral presentations, research reports, and specific educational goals. Of these classes, Storytelling became his favorite, because those who became tellers learn skills they…

In this article, the author talks about guided reading which she incorporated to second-language learners. First, she gives a brief description about guided reading and current myths about second-language learners. Then, she presents her goals whether she could integrate second-language learners into guided reading. She discusses what reading…