SPARK (now renamed Future Forward), developed by the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee (BGCGM) in 2005, is an early grade literacy intervention for students in high-poverty schools. As a school-community-family partnership strategy, this program seeks to improve K-3 students’ literacy skills through in-school one-on-one tutoring provided by AmeriCorps volunteers or college students with family engagement. Jones and Christian evaluated the effect of SPARK in 7 public schools in Milwaukee serving primarily low-income students of color. They randomly assigned 576 participating students in grades K-2 into either the intervention or the comparison groups. Most students were African American (79.7 %), and 95.3% qualified for free or reduced-price lunch. For those eligible to participate, most of them (85%) were not proficient in reading at baseline. After 2 years of implementation, the results indicated that: SPARK was found to have significantly positive effect on foundational literacy skills (PALS: ES = +0.23)...

A recent meta-analysis performed by Sinha and Kapur utilized 53 studies from around the world comparing the order of instruction for a range of learners, primarily focused on 2nd graders through undergraduate students.  The focus of the meta-analysis was to investigate outcomes for students exposed to learning that introduces problem solving prior to instruction (PS-I) compared with students exposed to learning that introduces instruction prior to problem solving (I-PS).  Arguments in favor of PS-I designs emphasize the acquisition of higher-order thinking skills developed by allowing students to grapple with concepts they have not yet formally studied, while arguments supporting I-PS designs suggest that direct instruction is needed to enable students to focus on the most important aspects of the material.  Within the broader category of PS-I designs, the authors focused on the effects of productive failure (PF), where the problem-solving portion of the lesson is specifically designed to result in...

To nourish children so that learning can happen, federal lunch programs offer meals to students across the country every single day. However, many students remain deficient in their food consumption patterns and end up wasting mass quantities of these subsidized meals. Serebrennikov and colleagues of Purdue University sought to evaluate the effectiveness of a classroom intervention aimed at bolstering healthy food selection and reducing plate waste in school lunch rooms. The nutrition education intervention aims to improve student knowledge surrounding the benefits of fruit and vegetable intake. Through bi-weekly lessons that run 15 minutes each, students are guided through activities aligned with science and health teaching standards that help to define healthy eating, why it’s important, and how to do it. Through a randomized control trial implemented in ten second grade classes from three public schools in a Midwestern state, 62 students (5 classes) who received the nutrition education intervention...

Computer or mobile-based English enhancement programs are gaining popularity among English language learners around the world. A recent publication in the Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness investigated the effects of these technology-assisted interventions on expanding English language learners’ vocabulary. The paper synthesized studies conducted between 2012 to 2018. Eligible studies followed treatment-control experimental designs, targeted pre-school to college-aged students who learned English as a foreign language, and reported vocabulary-related learning outcomes. Researchers identified 45 studies that met these inclusion criteria. Compared with traditional instructional methods, technology-supported English learning programs were conducive for building vocabulary (ES = +0.85, p < .05). Detailed analysis revealed that mobile-assisted vocabulary learning (ES = +1.09, p < .05) was more effective than computer-assisted learning (ES = +0.63, p < .05). Contrary to common assumptions, technology without gamification (ES = +0.90, p < .05) was more effective than game-based technology (ES = +0.49, p <...

Although the four-day school week schedule is not a new phenomenon, it has seen unprecedented growth in its adoption over the past two decades, reaching 662 public school districts in 24 states in 2019. Prior limited research shows that the schedule reduces school expenditures by a small amount but doesn’t affect the attendance among students in grades 3-8. In a recent working paper published by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, the author assessed the impact of the four-day school week policy in Oklahoma on high school students’ attendance, achievement, and school discipline. The author employed district-level high school data from Oklahoma and a quasi-experimental research method to provide a rigorous analysis of the effect of the four-day school week on high school students’ attendance. Results indicate that Four-day school weeks have no significant effect on either math and English ACT scores as well as high school attendance rates. Findings...

A recent randomized evaluation conducted by Rimm-Kaufman and colleagues investigated the effects of Connect Science on student academic achievement and civic engagement. Connect Science is a service-learning program, a form of project-based learning that aims to prepare students to tackle with social and environmental problems in their community. The content of the intervention in this study was related to energy use and social emotional skills in groupwork. The study involved 41 fourth grade classes in the South-Central US randomly assigned to receive the intervention over 14-22 weeks or to continue with their regular practice. Science achievement and civic engagement were measured using quantitative tests developed by the researchers who conducted the study. Researcher-made measures may overestimate the effect of the intervention compared to independent tests, such as standardized or state tests. For this reason, the results presented below should be used with caution. Results showed Significant positive effects for science...

In an effort to reduce viral transmission, many schools are planning to reduce class size if they have not reduced it already. Yet the effect of class size on viral transmission is unknown. In a recent working paper published by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, the authors assessed the impact of the Project STAR class size study from the 1980s on infection-related school absence. Project STAR was a randomized trial that followed 10,816 Tennessee schoolchildren from kindergarten in 1985-86 through third grade in 1988-89. Children were assigned at random to small classes (with a target size of 13 to 17 students), regular-sized classes (with a target size of 22 to 26 students), and regular-sized classes with a teacher’s aide. The authors merged data from Project STAR with influenza and pneumonia data from the 122 Cities Mortality Reporting System on deaths from pneumonia and influenza, a surveillance study run by...

A recent meta-analysis published in Review of Educational Research examined the cognitive and psychosocial outcomes of students with general learning difficulties (GLD) in inclusive education. Students with GLD are those with general difficulties in learning that affect their performance in most school subjects. The purpose of the review was to answer: Do students with GLD and their peers benefit from inclusive education? The review included studies that compared students with GLD and their peers in inclusive settings and segregated settings. The studies had to evaluate the effects on cognitive outcomes, such as performance on standardized tests and metacognition, as well as psychosocial outcomes, such as social, attitudinal, emotional, and motivational aspects. Forty studies met the inclusion criteria. Results showed that: On average, students with GLD in inclusive education had larger cognitive outcomes compared to similar students in segregated settings (ES = +0.35, p < .001). With regard to psychosocial outcomes,...

A recent randomized evaluation conducted by Song and colleagues investigated the effects of feedback to teachers and principals. The intervention under evaluation lasted two school years and consisted of feedback on classroom practice, student growth, and principal leadership. Feedback on classroom practice included in-person classroom observations and a report with ratings and narrative feedback to be discussed with teachers. Feedback on student growth compared a target school’s student test scores to those of similar students in the same district. Finally, principal leadership was measured twice a year and results were discussed with the principals. The study took place in 126 elementary and middle schools. Sixty-three schools were randomly assigned to the treatment group and the same number to the control group. After two years, the researchers measured the effect on teachers’ classroom practice by video-recorded lessons using CLASS (Classroom Assessment and Scoring System) and FFT (Danielson’s Framework for Teaching). Principal...