Category: Effective Teaching Approach

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Effective Teaching Approach Primary School Education Secondary School Education

The effects of self-assessment

An article published in Educational Research Review has examined the effects of self-assessment on self-regulated learning (SRL) and self-efficacy by conducting four meta-analyses.

To understand the impact of students’ assessing their own work, Ernesto Panadero and colleagues from Spain analyzed 19 studies comprised of 2,305 students from primary schools to higher education. The meta-analyses only included studies published in English that contained empirical results of self-assessment intervention in relation to SRL and/or self-efficacy, had at least one control group, and had been peer-reviewed.

The findings indicated that:

  • Self-assessment had a positive effect on SRL strategies serving a positive self-regulatory function for students’ learning, such as meta-cognitive strategies (ES= +0.23)
  • Self-assessment had a negative effect on “Negative SRL”, which is associated with negative emotions and stress and is thought to be adverse to students’ learning. (ES =-0.65)
  • Self-assessment was also found positively associated with SRL even when SRL was measured qualitatively (ES= +0.43)
  • Self-assessment had a positive effect on self-efficacy (ES= +0.73), the effect being larger for girls

The authors suggest that self-assessment is necessary for productive learning but note that the results are yet to identify the most effective self-assessment components(e.g.: monitoring, feedback and revision) in fostering SRL strategies or self-efficacy.

Source: Panadero, E., Jonsson, A., & Botella, J. (2017). Effects of self-assessment on self-regulated learning and self-efficacy: Four meta-analyses. Educational Research Review, 22, 74-98.… Read the rest

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Effective Teaching Approach Primary School Education Secondary School Education

Prerequisites for Assessment for Learning

A systematic review in the Educational Research Review has analyzed the evidence on prerequisites for implementing Assessment for Learning(AfL) in classroom practice. The aim was not to provide a “recipe for success,”but to generate a better understanding of what needs to be considered.

A total of 25 studies met the inclusion criteria. Of these, nine were conducted in the context of primary education, ten in secondary, and six covered both. The results included data from eleven different countries, but most of the studies were conducted in the US (n = 9).

The authors found that:

  • The knowledge, skills, and attitudes of individual teachers influenced the establishment of an AfL-based learning environment. Pedagogical knowledge and content knowledge had an impact on a teacher’s ability to provide students with accurate and complete feedback. They also needed to have the ability to foster the participation of students in discussions about their answers, and construct questions that drew out evidence about their learning.
  • The quality of AfL was influenced by teachers’ commitment to its underlying ideals,the extent to which they felt responsible for students’ attainment of goals,and their willingness to change their assessment practices to implement AfL.
  • To a lesser extent, students’ knowledge, skills, and attitudes also had an impact.A positive attitude and taking an active role in their own learning process was found to foster autonomy and responsibility.
  • The wider school context also determined how successfully the implementation of AfL was facilitated. School leaders play an important role and should focus on establishing a school wide AfL culture with a vision and expectations for AfL use, as well as providing time to prepare and for professional development.

The review considered the nature of the assessment itself. It concluded that feedback should besu bstantial, constructive, and focused, and provide the students with cues for how to proceed.  AfL should be aligned with the curriculum and standards, as well as being integrated into classroom teaching (rather than being an add-on activity).

Source: Heitink,M. C., Van der Kleij, F. M., Veldkamp, B. P., Schildkamp, K., & Kippers, W.B. (2016). A systematic review of prerequisites for implementing assessment for learning in classroom practice. Educational Research Review, 17, 50–62.
… Read the rest

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Effective Teaching Approach Maths and Science Learning Primary School Education

Effective programs in elementary math

Marta Pellegrini from the University of Florence and Cynthia Lake, Amanda Inns, and Robert Slavin from Johns Hopkins Center for Research and Reform in Education have released a new report on effective programs in elementary math. The report reviews research on the mathematics achievement outcomes of all programs with at least one study meeting the inclusion criteria of the review. A total of 78 studies were identified that evaluated 61 programs in grades K-5.

The studies were very high in quality, with 65 (83%) randomized and 13 (17%) quasi-experimental evaluations. Key findings were as follows:

  • Particularly positive outcomes were found for tutoring programs.
  • One-to-one and one-to-small group models had equal impacts, as did teachers and paraprofessionals as tutors.
  • Technology programs showed modest positive impacts.
  • Professional development approaches focused on helping teachers gain in understanding of math content and pedagogy had no impact on student achievement, but more promising outcomes were seen in studies focused on instructional processes, such as cooperative learning.
  • Whole-school reform, social-emotional approaches, math curricula, and benchmark assessment programs found few positive effects, although there were one or more effective individual approaches in most categories.

The findings suggest that programs emphasizing personalization, engagement, and motivation are most impactful in elementary mathematics instruction, while strategies focused on textbooks, professional development for math knowledge or pedagogy, and other strategies that do not substantially impact students’ daily experiences have little impact.

 

Source (Open Access):Pellegrini, M., Lake, C., Inns, A., & Slavin, R. E. (2018). Effective programs in elementary mathematics: A best-evidence synthesis. Baltimore, MD: Center for Research and Reform in Education, Johns Hopkins University.… Read the rest

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Effective Teaching Approach Programme Evaluation Secondary School Education Social and Motivational Outcomes Uncategorized

Say hello, wave goodbye to behavior problems

A small-scale study by Clayton Cook and colleagues, published in the Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, investigated the impact of a Positive Greetings at the Door (PGD) strategy.

Ten language arts and math classrooms (from sixth to eighth grade) in two schools in the Pacific Northwest of the United States were identified that had low levels of academic engaged time (AET) and a high rate of disruptive and off-task behavior. In total, 203 students took part. A randomized block design was used to allocate the classes to intervention and control groups.

Teachers of intervention classes were provided with training sessions and follow-up coaching on a PGD strategy (greeting the students by name, reminding students individually and collectively of behaviors for success, having a structure learning activity ready, and positively recognizing on-time behavior). Teachers in the control classes were given the same amount of time to talk with other teachers about their classroom management practice. Classwide and individual student behavior was measured using the Behavioral Observation of Students in Schools (BOSS). Over two months, results showed that:

  • Academic engaged time increased for the intervention group and stayed relatively constant for the control group (ES= +0.93).
  • The gain in academic engaged time for intervention group corresponds to an extra 12 minutes of on-task behavior per instructional hour.
  • Disruptive behavior decreased by a similar amount (ES = -0.87).

The authors caution that the small sample of teachers lessens the generalizability of the study findings, and that the study focused on classes with low baseline levels of academic engagement and classroom management practices, so a similar impact might not be seen in all classrooms.

 

Source: Cook, C. R., Fiat, A., Larson, M., Daikos, C., Slemrod, T., Holland, E. A., … Renshaw, T. (2018). Positive Greetings at the Door: Evaluation of a low-Cost, high-yield proactive classroom management strategy. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 20(3), 149–159. … Read the rest

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Achievement Effective Teaching Approach Secondary School Education

Teacher/parent communication an effective tool to help students succeed

A study from Harvard and Brown Universities shows that struggling students did better in school when their teachers communicated with their parents regularly, and suggested specific actions students could do to improve their grades.

Researchers studied the effects of teacher/parent communication on the academic achievement of 435 struggling high school students enrolled in summer school to recover lost credits in English, history, math, or science two hours a day during a five-week program. Students were mostly Hispanic and African-American, and all were low-income. All students had to have been absent less than 30 days and to have received an “F+” in up to two courses. Students’ parents were randomly divided into three groups: the first group received a short weekly message from the teacher by phone, text, or email about what their child was doing well (positive); the second received a weekly teacher’s message about areas where their child needed improvement (improvement); and the third received no teacher message at all (control). The results showed:

  • At the end of the term, students whose parents had received messages from their teachers were 41% more likely to pass their classes than the control group who received no messages. Researchers noted that this was due to larger dropout rates in the control group.
  • Students whose parents received messages about areas for improvement passed their classes at a higher score than the group who received messages about what students were doing well.
  • A participant survey at the end of the study shows that the parent-student teams in the “improvement” and “positive” groups communicated about schoolwork with the same frequency, but the conversational content differed in that the improvement-group teams discussed areas where the students needed to do better, something the positive teams were less likely to do and a factor the researchers cite as a possible reason for the improvement students’ higher scores.

The study was performed as part of a series of low-cost school-improvement strategies.

 

Source (Open Access): Kraft, M.A., & Rogers, A. (2014). The underutilized potential of teacher-to-parent communication: evidence from a field experiment – HKS faculty research working paper series. Retrieved from http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/mkraft/files/kraft_rogers_teacher-parent_communication_hks_working_paper.pdf… Read the rest

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Effective Teaching Approach Kindergarten Language Development

Effects of shared book reading for young ELL children

A meta-analysis, published in Review of Educational Research, examines how shared book reading affects the English language and literacy skills of young English Language Learners (ELLs).

Shared book reading involves an adult reading with one or more children, and is considered to be an effective practice for language and literacy development. It may also involve interactive practices such as dialogic reading techniques to engage children or reinforce specific ideas or words from the text.

For this meta-analysis, Lisa Fitton and colleagues identified 54 studies of shared reading interventions conducted in the U.S. that met their inclusion criteria. The total number of participants across the studies was 3,989, with an average age of six.

Results revealed that:

  • There is an overall positive effect of shared reading on ELL outcomes (effect size = +0.28).
  • Children’s developmental status moderated this effect, with larger effect sizes found in studies including only typically developing children (+0.48) than in studies including only participants with developmental disorders (+0.17).

The authors recommended further research with attention to detailed reporting and rigorous research methodology on shared reading to identify other moderators, including intervention characteristics.

 

Source: Fitton, L., McIlraith, A. L., & Wood, C. L. (2018). Shared book reading interventions with English learners: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 88(5), 712–751.… Read the rest