The LASER (Leadership and Assistance for Science Education Reform) model, developed by the SSEC, is a systemic approach to transforming science education consisting of five elements: a research-based, inquiry-driven science curriculum; differentiated professional development; administrative and community support; materials support; and assessment.…

The LASER (Leadership and Assistance for Science Education Reform) model, developed by the SSEC, is a systemic approach to transforming science education consisting of five elements: a research-based, inquiry-driven science curriculum; differentiated professional development; administrative and community support; materials support; and assessment.…

The Leadership and Assistance for Science Education Reform (LASER) Model is a systemic approach to science learning and teaching based on five infrastructure pillars: research-based curriculum, differentiated professional development, administrative and community support, materials support, and assessment. This model uses the Science and…

The study authors examined the impact of "Responsive Classroom," a professional development program for teachers, on student achievement. This study took place in a large, ethnically and socioeconomically diverse district in a mid-Atlantic state. The intervention was implemented during 3 school years from 2008 to 2011. Study authors…

In 2010, Iredell-Statesville Schools was awarded an Investing in Innovation grant (i3) from the Office of Innovation and Improvement within the Federal Department of Education. Collaborative Organizational Model to Promote Aligned Support Structures (COMPASS) is a development grant that seeks to meet the needs of students with disabilities,…

School leadership has been shown to exert a positive but mostly indirect influence on school and student outcomes. Currently, there is great interest in how quality leadership preparation is related to leadership practice and improved teacher outcomes. The purpose of the study was to understand the moderating influence of leadership preparation on…

This study seeks to identify the characteristics and training experiences of teachers who are differentially effective at promoting academic achievement among English language learners (ELLs). Our analyses indicate that general skills such as those reflected by scores on teacher certification exams and experience teaching non-ELL students are less…

Science notebooks can play a critical role in activity-based science learning, but the tasks of recording, organizing, analyzing, and interpreting data create barriers that impede science learning for many students. This study (a) assessed in a randomized controlled trial the potential for a web-based science notebook designed using the Universal…

This brief is directed to researchers and adds to the research base about instructional practices that are related to student achievement. Additional evidence on these relationships can suggest specific hypotheses for the future study of such instructional practices, which, in turn, will provide research evidence that could inform professional…

Reading is a skill, which is essential for a child's school success. The purpose of this quantitative, causal-comparative study was to investigate the effects of the Reading Recovery (RR) Program. The data utilized were from two groups of students at-risk in the area of reading, first-grade students involved in at least 12 weeks of Reading…

In this Appendix, we provide details about the data used for the current study, the curricula used in the classrooms from which data were collected, and the current study's methodological approach. (Contains 14 tables and 5 footnotes.)[For full report, see ED544189.]

The purpose of this study was to explore upper elementary reading classes in a low socio-economic area to determine the effects frequent praise, both academically and socially, have on the zone of proximal development in reading (ZPD[subscript RL], Renaissance Learning, 2006). A causal-comparative study was utilized by observing two groups of…

A yearlong experimental study showed positive effects of a professional development project that involved 19 urban elementary schools, 180 teachers, and 3735 students from one of the lowest performing school districts in California. Algebraic reasoning as generalized arithmetic and the study of relations was used as the centerpiece for work with…

In this paper, we describe the results a study assessing the relationship between the certification of teachers by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) and elementary level student achievement. We examine whether NBPTS assesses the most effective applicants, whether certification by NBPTS serves as a signal of teacher…

Recent debates about the utility of teacher education have raised questions about whether certified teachers are, in general, more effective than those who have not met the testing and training requirements for certification, and whether some candidates with strong liberal arts backgrounds might be at least as effective as teacher education…