Background: The delivery of effective, evidence-based early reading instruction depends partially on teachers' knowledge about reading acquisition, development, and pedagogy. Research shows that teachers often perform poorly on measures of reading-related knowledge, often cited as one explanation for a gap between reading research and classroom…

Investigators often rely on the proportion of correct responses in an assessment when describing the impact of early mathematics interventions on child outcomes. Here, we propose a shift in focus to the relative sophistication of problem-solving strategies and offer methodological guidance to researchers interested in working with strategies. We…

Developing models and using mathematics are two key practices in internationally recognized science education standards such as the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS, 2013). In this paper, we used a virtual performance-based formative assessment to capture students' competencies at both "developing" and "evaluating"…

Extensive literature in artificial intelligence in education focuses on developing automated methods for detecting cases in which students struggle to master content while working with educational software. Such cases have often been called "wheel-spinning," "unproductive persistence," or "unproductive struggle." We…

Intervention research in education is sometimes criticized for the use of experimenter developed assessments, especially when these are over aligned with treatment. At the same time, intervention researchers sometimes prefer locally developed assessments because they appear to be more sensitive to treatment effects even when the test is not…

As the media landscape is increasingly populated by less than reputable sources of information, educators have turned to argument evaluation training as a potential solution. Unfortunately, the bias literature suggests that our ability to objectively evaluate an argument is, to a large extent, determined by the relationship between our own beliefs…

Pedagogical approaches which aim to counteract discrimination and injustice have been identified as potential ways to reduce pervasive and persistent inequities in education outcomes, which emerge as early as preschool Despite this potential, however, empirical research is limited and suggests a disconnect between recommended practices for…

Areas of misalignment between children's experiences in preschool and kindergarten are increasingly viewed as contributing to the fade-out of preschool effects. The current study examined alignment and misalignment of classroom experiences across the transition from public pre-k into kindergarten. As part of a longitudinal cohort study, we…

The Common Core State Standards in Mathematics and Next Generation Science Standards encourage substantial shifts in teaching, but how to enact change is not specified. This mixed-methods exploratory study shows how different implementation supports were related to teachers' use of standards-aligned instructional practices in the Chicago Public…

We are developing the Equitable Screening to Support Youth (ESSY) Whole Child Screener to address concerns prevalent in existing school-based screenings that impede goals to advance educational equity using universal screeners. Traditional assessment development does not include end users in the early development phases, instead relying on a…

We developed assessment tasks aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) that require students to use argumentation and explanation practices along with disciplinary core ideas and crosscutting concepts to make sense of energy-related phenomena. Scoring rubrics were created to evaluate students' ability to make accurate claims, cite…

Research shows that students benefit when they explain their mathematical reasoning (e.g., Booth et al., 2015); however, not all students will do this on their own without being prompted (Berthold, Eysink, & Renkl, 2009). Self-explanation prompts are questions posed to a student that encourage the student to explain what they have learned…

Adoption of online resources to support instruction and student performance has amplified with technological advances and increased standards for mathematics education. Because teachers play a critical role in the adoption of technology, analysis of data pertaining to how and why teachers utilize online resources is needed to optimize the design…

We have developed assessment tasks aligned to NGSS that require students to use practices along with disciplinary core ideas to make sense of energy-related phenomena. In this paper, we present an analysis of field test data and feedback from expert reviewers on the validity and reliability of a set of elementary school tasks. These tasks focused…

Background: The Common Core Standards for Mathematics and Next Generation Science Standards were adopted by states with the goal of preparing students with knowledge and skills needed for college, careers, and citizenry. Adopting these standards necessitated considerable changes in instructional practice. While teacher leadership is known to be…