A clustered randomized controlled trial (RCT) by Bai and colleagues evaluated the impact of an online computer-assisted learning (OCAL) intervention on academic and non-academic outcomes of grade 5 rural and migrant students in China. A random sample of 44 schools in rural areas was randomly assigned to either in a treatment group (n= 22) or a control group (n=22). Students in the treatment group attended two 40 min English online computer-assisted learning tutorials per week during the 2016 spring semester (about 3 months), while students in the control group continued their usual classes. The OCAL tutorial sessions provided only remedial materials which matched the content of the standard English curriculum studied in the class without any new material. A total of 1,342 students completed the program. After controlling baseline test scores, students’ and schools’ characteristics, results of regression analysis indicated that: Students in the treatment group outperformed those in the...

A recent randomized study evaluated the effectiveness of a summer program to recover credits in high school, comparing two delivery modes: online vs. in-class directed by a teacher. Students who failed the Algebra I or English 9 courses from schools in Los Angeles were randomly assigned to receive the credit recovery program online or in-class. For the Algebra course, 305 students were assigned to the online delivery and 308 to the in-class program. For the English course, 564 students were assigned to the online delivery and 560 to the in-class program. The researchers used three measures of impact: credit recovery rates at the end of the program; district PSAT math and reading tests; and a researcher-made end-of-course test to evaluate student outcomes. The results of the latter may be overestimated due to the type of measure used and are not reported in this summary. For the Algebra course, results showed...

Many studies have attempted to understand the learning loss resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic by studying the learning loss students typically experience during summer vacations. A new study, however, contends that more accurate lessons can be drawn from studies of unexpected and extended learning disruption due to other health emergencies like SARS or natural disasters.  This systematic review of the literature analyzed 15 studies, many of which were qualitative, focusing on the aftermath of crises that interrupted school learning. Several key themes arose. The most consistent was regarding the critical need for school leadership to center student and staff mental health with both a gentle return to normalcy and also flexibility. Curricula that offer students a chance to understand the event, process their experiences, and express themselves at their own pace can be helpful. Support for teachers can entail resisting the temptation for immediate changes following the crisis in favor...

Teacher preparation practices refer to the approaches, activities, and processes that teacher educators employ to enhance preservice teachers’ knowledge, skill, and dispositions. While researchers and policymakers have been actively identifying the most effective teacher preparation practices, the lack of rigorous evaluations of these practices is of concern because their effectiveness in different contexts remains unclear. Therefore, a recent review systematically examined the research designs of relevant studies conducted over the past two decades. An online database and hand search of relevant studies published in peer-reviewed journals between 2002 and 2019 yielded 166 eligible studies. In terms of internal validity, only 26.67% of the studies used a comparison group design to address maturation effects, and only 15.66% reported reasons why participants left during the study. Regarding measurement, 45.18% used a clearly defined and consistent rating scheme; 18.67% used measures developed by other researchers; 24.7% investigated the effect of teacher preparation practices...

Learning-by-teaching is a generative learning activity in which learners explain the material in a lesson to others after studying it.  Wang and colleagues conducted an experiment with 96 college students from a university in central China to compare three versions of learning-by-teaching, all without audience interaction but with varied levels of social presence, thereby leading to different levels of extraneous processing, which causes learners to engage in cognitive processing irrelevant to the instruction purpose (e.g., distraction). Participants studied a 2-minute video on chemical synaptic transmission for 9 minutes and prepared a brief lesson of less than 5 minutes under a randomly assigned one of three conditions: (1) teach-to-camera – teach to an imaginary audience by creating a video lecture; (2) teach-to-student – teach to an audience face-to-face; (3) teach-to-group – teach to seven people physically present in the room. Audiences in the latter two conditions provided no feedback. Data collecting...

Due to the growing number of early coding education programs designed for young children, there is increasing research interest in whether acquiring computational thinking (CT) can be transferred to other key developmental outcomes. A recent study by Yang and colleagues examined the link between computational thinking to sequencing ability and self-regulation in kindergarten students. Computational thinking was defined by researchers as the foundational concept needed to solve problems algorithmically, with solutions that can be reused in various contexts. Algorithmic thinking involves step-by-step operations that guide one towards achieving a goal. Based on the Cattell-Horn-Carroll theory of cognitive abilities, the researchers hypothesized that CT would be related to both sequencing ability and self-regulation. Sequential ability, which entails identifying a series of steps to complete a task, was assessed by Picture Sequencing Task. Self-regulation comprising working memory, mental flexibility, and inhibitory control was measured by the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders task. CT was measured by...

According to international and national assessments, US secondary school students struggle with math. Together with policymakers, specialists, and a team from the University of San Diego California, the San Diego Unified School District planned a four-year intervention based on the Changing the Odds (CTO) program. Aimed to improve students’ math performance, this teacher-centered program provided help in identifying students’ math learning needs and in designing interventions addressing these needs. In 2015, four low-performing middle schools of the San Diego Unified School District were appointed to implement the CTO program for four years, while four schools were matched for comparison on achievement and demographics. The four-year program provided materials for teaching and professional development; support for co-teaching, co-planning lessons, and assessing tests; opportunities for collaboration between schools; and a yearly Summer School. A recent NBER working paper evaluated the impact of Changing the Odds through a difference-in-difference approach. Because the testing...

Producing and making available evidence of effective educational programs is not enough to make it used in practice. Knowledge mobilization should be one of the key research areas to foster greater equity and responsiveness to educators’ needs. A study by Fitzgerald and Tipton focused on the communication of statistical data by studying how those data should be reported in order to facilitate decision-making based on evidence at school and policy levels. The authors proposed three main considerations. First, using the expression “the message sent may not be the message received,” they highlight that researchers set norms often not understood by practitioners. To overcome this issue, participatory research methods should be used to set norms. Second, practitioners and decision-makers are different from each other: they may work in large or small districts with diverse resources and educational backgrounds. The contexts where they work vary considerably based on the community they serve....

With the usage of smartphones becoming increasingly pervasive, taking photos to record information in class allows students to store more information with less effort. Many studies have demonstrated that longhand note-taking facilitates the deeper encoding of information and reduces mind-wandering, but little research has investigated the learning outcomes of the photo-taking strategy, so a recent study was conducted to compare their effectiveness. The sample of this study included 100 college students between the ages of 18-32 who were divided into three subgroups to listen to two lectures in three different conditions: listening with longhand note-taking, with photo-taking, and without note-taking. After they completed both lectures, participants reviewed their hand-written notes, photos they took, and plain printouts, respectively, to prepare for a recall test. The results revealed that students who took longhand notes outperformed the other two groups. A repetitive experiment was also done to probe participants’ mind-wandering behavior by asking...