Research

Harold Pashler, Mark McDaniel, Doug Rohrer, and Robert Bjork Learning styles - broaden instructional techniques - preferred styles. The authors question the idea of catering to different learning styles in the classroom. The notion that teachers should match instruction to visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners has “no strong scientific evidence,” say four psychologists in an the December 2009 issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest. The authors agree that different learning styles exist and that each student has a preferred style. However, they say there’s no evidence that matching teaching to learning styles is the best way to improve learning. Instead, they assert, there’s an optimal way to teach each chunk of content to all students.

Angela Lee Duckworth, Patrick D. Quinn, and Martin E.P. Seligman Predicting highly effective teachers In the world of Race to the Top, with an emphasis on highly effective teachers, it is extremely important to be able to accurately identify teachers who possess the attributes necessary to increase student achievement. This study looks at three significant predictors that help identify teachers who are more effective than others. Many of the traditional indicators of competence explain minimal difference in performance. This study looks at teachers in under-resourced public schools that possess a high degree of effectiveness, measured in terms of academic gains of students. The authors answer the question: How important are positive traits such as life satisfaction, optimistic outlook, and sheer grit in determining a teacher’s effectiveness in the classroom?

H. Pasher, et al. The authors give seven recommendations for improving student learning through instruction. This briefing focuses on Recommendation 7: Help students build explanations by asking and answering deep questions. The authors’ purpose is to distill some of the more well-supported educational recommendations to emerge from recent research. These recommendations are meant to shed light on how teachers can facilitate not only initial learning and understanding, but, equally important, long-term retention of that information. Each of the research studies is ranked on the levels of evidence associated with the research. The one strategy that has high levels of evidence is their seventh recommendation: Help students build explanations by asking and answering deep questions.The level of evidence was based on over a dozen studies, in which the students have typically ranged from fourth grade to college. Research involved the areas of science, history, different types of informational text, stories, argumentative text, mathematics, and statistics.

Andrea Martone and Stephen G. Sireci Addressing the importance of creating instruction and assessments based on the requirements of the standards. Martone and Sireci discuss the importance of alignment in order to develop assessments and instruction that support the standards. They identify the three most common methods of evaluating alignment between state standards and assessment - the Webb Methodology, the Achieve Methodology, and the Surveys of Enacted Curriculum (SEC) Methodology -- as well as discuss the strengths and limitations of each. While this rather technical article is focused on the methods for aligning assessments to state standards, there is a great deal of application for school districts as they develop common assessments.

Marzano, R., Zaffron, S., Zraik, L RESEARCH FOCUS Implementing content standards -- policy tools and guidelines by which content of the intended curriculum is assessed -- in a classroom. The study focuses on why many educational innovations often fail. The authors look at the nature of the change process, examining two orders of change. The first order assumes innovation is assimilated into existing beliefs and is rejected if it does not fit into a current structure. Second order change addresses the existing culture as part of the change process. The authors propose that one reason for the short-lived nature of education innovation is that most do not address the dynamics of second order change. The question the authors try to answer is: Why did these innovations fail?

Brad Olsen and Dena Sexton The impact of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and how ensuing reforms adopted by schools influence instruction, flow of information, and assessment practices. This article reports on a study of teachers at a high school and discusses the ways current federal and state policies influence schools as well as how those schools adopted corresponding reforms that influenced teachers’ work. Schools that see the reforms as a threat, often centralize and restrict the flow of information, constrict control, emphasize routine and simplified instructional and assessment practices, and apply strong pressure for school personnel to conform.

Rothman, B. Providing support for national standards and why a common core of standards can improve teaching and reduce costs. The author looks at the reasons for a common core set of standards and how they can keep the United States more competitive, improve preparation for postsecondary education, and why the current system of state standards is not sufficient.