Educational Research and Innovation Measuring Innovation in Education 2019 What Has Changed in the Classroom?


Book Description

Measuring innovation in education and understanding how it works is essential to improve the quality of the education sector. Monitoring systematically how pedagogical practices evolve would considerably increase the international education knowledge base. We need to examine whether, and how ...




Measure, Use, Improve!


Book Description

Measure, Use, Improve! Data Use in Out-of-School Time shares the experience and wisdom from a broad cross-section of out-of-school time professionals, ranging from internal evaluators, to funders, to researchers, to policy advocates. Key themes of the volume include building support for learning and evaluation within out-of-school time programs, creating and sustaining continuous quality improvement efforts, authentically engaging young people and caregivers in evaluation, and securing funder support for learning and evaluation. This volume will be particularly useful to leadership-level staff in out-of-school time organizations that are thinking about deepening their own learning and evaluation systems, yet aren’t sure where to start. Authors share conceptual frameworks that have helped inform their thinking, walk through practical examples of how they use data in out-of-school time, and offer advice to colleagues.




Beyond Test Scores


Book Description

When it comes to sizing up America’s public schools, test scores are the go-to metric of state policy makers and anxious parents looking to place their children in the “best” schools. Yet ample research indicates that standardized tests are a poor way to measure a school’s performance. It is time—indeed past time—to rethink this system, Jack Schneider says. Beyond Test Scores reframes current debates over school quality by offering new approaches to educational data that can push us past our unproductive fixation on test scores. Using the highly diverse urban school district of Somerville, Massachusetts, as a case study, Schneider and his research team developed a new framework to more fairly and comprehensively assess educational effectiveness. And by adopting a wide range of measures aligned with that framework, they were able to more accurately capture a broader array of school strengths and weaknesses. Their new data not only provided parents, educators, and administrators with a clearer picture of school performance, but also challenged misconceptions about what makes a good school. With better data, Schneider shows, stakeholders at the federal, state, and local levels can undo the damage of present accountability systems and build greater capacity in our schools. Policy makers, administrators, and school leaders can better identify where assistance is needed. Educators can engage in more evidence-based decision making. And parents can make better-informed choices for their children. Perhaps most importantly, better data can facilitate communication among all these groups, allowing them to take collective action toward shared, concrete goals.




Value-added Measures in Education


Book Description

The Strategic Management of Charter Schools addresses the challenges facing such schools by mapping out, in straightforward and highly pragmatic terms, a management framework for them. The first charter school law in the United States was enacted in Minnesota in 1991. In the twenty years since that modest beginning, the movement has burgeoned and spread across the country: there are now more than five thousand charter schools attended by nearly two million students. Yet due to this rapid growth in the number of charter schools and to their generally independent character, the nature and quality of these institutions vary greatly. The promise of charter schools is great, but so are the organizational and educational challenges they face. Organized around three crucial challenges to charter school leaders--managing mission, managing internal operations, and managing the larger stakeholder environment--the book provides charter school leaders with indispensable tools and insights for achieving educational and organizational success. In its elucidation of these managerial challenges, and in its equally helpful and detailed examinations of particular schools, the book offers a clear, credible approach to the efficient and sustainable management of what are still young and experimental educational institutions.--Publisher description.




Thirteen Strategies to Measure College Teaching


Book Description

* Student evaluations of college teachers: perhaps the most contentious issue on campus* This book offers a more balanced approach* Evaluation affects pay, promotion and tenure, so of intense interest to all faculty* Major academic marketing and publicity* Combines original research with Berk’s signature wacky humorTo many college professors the words "student evaluations" trigger mental images of the shower scene from Psycho, with those bloodcurdling screams. They’re thinking: "Why not just whack me now, rather than wait to see those ratings again." This book takes off from the premise that student ratings are a necessary, but not sufficient source of evidence for measuring teaching effectiveness. It is a fun-filled--but solidly evidence-based--romp through more than a dozen other methods that include measurement by self, peers, outside experts, alumni, administrators, employers, and even aliens. As the major stakeholders in this process, both faculty AND administrators, plus clinicians who teach in schools of medicine, nursing, and the allied health fields, need to be involved in writing, adapting, evaluating, or buying items to create the various scales to measure teaching performance. This is the first basic introduction in the faculty evaluation literature to take you step-by-step through the process to develop these tools, interpret their scores, and make decisions about teaching improvement, annual contract renewal/dismissal, merit pay, promotion, and tenure. It explains how to create appropriate, high quality items and detect those that can introduce bias and unfairness into the results.Ron Berk also stresses the need for “triangulation”--the use of multiple, complementary methods--to provide the properly balanced, comprehensive and fair assessment of teaching that is the benchmark of employment decision making.This is a must-read to empower faculty, administrators, and clinicians to use appropriate evidence to make decisions accurately, reliably, and fairly. Don’t trample each other in your stampede to snag a copy of this book!




Measuring Up


Book Description

How do you judge the quality of a school, a district, a teacher, a student? By the test scores, of course. Yet for all the talk, what educational tests can and can’t tell you, and how scores can be misunderstood and misused, remains a mystery to most. The complexities of testing are routinely ignored, either because they are unrecognized, or because they may be—well, complicated. Inspired by a popular Harvard course for students without an extensive mathematics background, Measuring Up demystifies educational testing—from MCAS to SAT to WAIS, with all the alphabet soup in between. Bringing statistical terms down to earth, Daniel Koretz takes readers through the most fundamental issues that arise in educational testing and shows how they apply to some of the most controversial issues in education today, from high-stakes testing to special education. He walks readers through everyday examples to show what tests do well, what their limits are, how easily tests and scores can be oversold or misunderstood, and how they can be used sensibly to help discover how much kids have learned.




It Takes an Ecosystem


Book Description

It Takes an Ecosystem explores the idea and potential of the Allied Youth Fields—an aspirational term that suggests increased connection across the multiple systems in which adults engage with young people. Recent research and initiatives make a strong case for what developmentalists have argued for decades: A young person’s learning and development is shaped in positive and negative ways by the interactions they have with all the adults in their life. Now is the time to reshape our systems to support this scientific understanding. The chapters in this book provide ideas, tools, examples, and visions for a more connected, more equitable world for young people and the adults in their lives. Endorsements for It Takes an Ecosystem "It Takes an Ecosystem offers a powerful and timely engagement of the possibilities and challenges facing the Out-of-School Time sector…this book charts a path forward for scholars, practitioners, community members to imagine OST anew---in ways that are socially just and affirming, centered on the optimal development of youth and the power of community." — Bianca Baldridge University of Wisconsin Madison "The book’s emphasis on an ecosystem approach, anchored in commitments to equity and racial justice, combines evidence-based analyses with a future-oriented call to action for the allied youth fields. This book will be a must-read for those committed to radically re-thinking how we bring sectors together to support thriving for children and youth." Ben Kirshner University of Colorado




Handbook of Student Engagement Interventions


Book Description

Handbook of Student Engagement Interventions: Working with Disengaged Students provides an understanding of the factors that contribute to student disengagement, methods for identifying students at risk, and intervention strategies to increase student engagement. With a focus on translating research into best practice, the book pulls together the current research on engagement in schools and empowers readers to craft and implement interventions. Users will find reviews on evidence-based academic, behavioral, social, mental health, and community-based interventions that will help increase all types of engagement. The book looks at ways of reducing suspensions through alternative disciplinary practices, the role resiliency can play in student engagement, strategies for community and school collaborations in addressing barriers to engagement, and what can be learned from students who struggled in school, but succeeded later in life. It is a hands-on resource for educators, school psychologists, researchers, and students looking to gain insight into the research on this topic and the strategies that can be deployed to promote student engagement. - Presents practical strategies for engagement intervention and assessment - Covers early warning signs of disengagement and how to use these signs to promote engagement - Reviews contextual factors (families, peers, teachers) related to engagement - Focuses on increasing engagement and school completion for all students - Emphasizes multidimensional approaches to disengagement




Why They Can't Write


Book Description

An important challenge to what currently masquerades as conventional wisdom regarding the teaching of writing. There seems to be widespread agreement that—when it comes to the writing skills of college students—we are in the midst of a crisis. In Why They Can't Write, John Warner, who taught writing at the college level for two decades, argues that the problem isn't caused by a lack of rigor, or smartphones, or some generational character defect. Instead, he asserts, we're teaching writing wrong. Warner blames this on decades of educational reform rooted in standardization, assessments, and accountability. We have done no more, Warner argues, than conditioned students to perform "writing-related simulations," which pass temporary muster but do little to help students develop their writing abilities. This style of teaching has made students passive and disengaged. Worse yet, it hasn't prepared them for writing in the college classroom. Rather than making choices and thinking critically, as writers must, undergraduates simply follow the rules—such as the five-paragraph essay—designed to help them pass these high-stakes assessments. In Why They Can't Write, Warner has crafted both a diagnosis for what ails us and a blueprint for fixing a broken system. Combining current knowledge of what works in teaching and learning with the most enduring philosophies of classical education, this book challenges readers to develop the skills, attitudes, knowledge, and habits of mind of strong writers.