Understanding science allows students with and without developmental and behavioral-based (DB) disabilities to better appreciate the world around them as well as prepare them for the growing science-related job market. However, students in the United States consistently underperform on science achievement tests compared to students from other…

The Project Citizen Research Program (PCRP) was a three-year research initiative that evaluated the effectiveness of the Center's Project Citizen teacher professional development (PD) program and curriculum intervention for middle and high school students. The program took place over three academic years that were impacted by the COVID-19…

Student achievement disparities in inclusive science classrooms are concerning, as knowledge about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is increasingly important for upward mobility. When students identify with multiple marginalized sociocultural groups, progress becomes more troubling, as the interplay among these factors is…

Social-emotional learning (SEL) and character education are important components of adolescent development. In this study, we evaluated a randomized controlled trial of CharacterStrong, a curriculum that combines SEL and character education that included 1609 students and 242 teachers across 14 schools. This study applied baseline target…

International comparisons suggest that middle school American students compare poorly to their international peers in tasks that require spatial skills. This deficiency in spatial skills is more prominent in females and has been linked to a lack of developmental activities influenced by gender norms. These deficiencies are especially concerning as…

The current study provided voice to nominated exemplar classroom teachers in identifying malleable, discrete aspects of the classroom environment, teacher behavior and practices that define culturally responsive instruction. Interview data from a sample of 13 teachers was analyzed using a consensual qualitative research approach. Results provided…

Scholars and practitioners have called for personalized and widely accessible professional development (PD) for teachers. Yet, a long-standing tension between customizing support and increasing access to such support has hindered the scale-up of high-quality PD for individual teachers. This study addresses this challenge by developing a…

Many middle school students perform below grade-level standards in reading (National Center for Education Statistics, 2019), and recent observation studies demonstrate middle school teachers' limited use of reading comprehension practices within content area instruction (e.g., science and social studies; Greenleaf & Valencia, 2017). In this…

Teacher learning in asynchronous online professional development (PD) is often assessed through self-reported instruments, despite uncertainties regarding teachers' ability to accurately self-assess their learning gains in such settings. This study compared middle school mathematics teachers' self-perceived and observed learning gains in content…

This brief report describes findings from a single case withdrawal design study which explored the impact of training and emailed video prompts to promote a teacher's implementation of a culturally responsive teaching plan in a therapeutic school. Data collectors gathered implementation data as well as observed students' academic engagement and…

The purpose of this research was to investigate the efficacy of professional development in changing two middle school science teachers' questioning to include more questions that require deeper student responses. The professional development was based on ICAP theory which proposes a framework for identifying cognitive engagement based on what is…

The present study reports findings from a school-level randomized controlled trial (RCT) of the Double Check cultural responsivity and student engagement model. Consistent with the focus of this special issue on the conceptual and methodological advances for understanding contextual, identity, and cultural effects in intervention research, we…

Despite the critical role of teachers in the educational process, few advanced learning technologies have been developed to support teacher-instruction or professional development. This lack of support is particularly acute for middle school math teachers, where only 37% felt well prepared to scaffold instruction to address the needs of diverse…

In this paper, we focus on the design of assessments of mathematics teachers' knowledge by emphasizing the importance of identifying the purpose for the assessment, defining the specific construct to be measured, and considering the affordances of particular psychometric models on the development of assessments as well as how they are able to…

A growing body of research documents the positive impacts of teacher coaching, but research contrasting the effectiveness of different coaching approaches is limited. This study contrasted paired coaching -- delivered to two teachers simultaneously -- with traditional coaching for individual in-service teachers. We examined the effects of these…