Building trust is a major theme of Stand for Children’s free, new guidebook, Preventing a Lost School Year, which was created to help district leaders plan for academic and social-emotional learning in the coming school year. The 2019-2020 school year was severely disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and, without the right preparation and intervention, the Read more about Preventing a Lost School Year[…]
Writing for The 74, Bruno Manno explores programs that help nurture students’ occupational identities and vocational selves. Excerpts from the piece appear below: New partnerships are emerging across the U.S. that create innovative educational approaches to preparing America’s young people for jobs, careers and further education, helping them develop an occupational identity and vocational self. Read more about How Do You Keep 21st Century Students Engaged? By Building Up Their ‘Vocational Selves’[…]
Writing for FutureEd, Andreas Schleicher reviews the findings of the second volume of the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Excerpts of the piece appear below. TALIS, which surveyed 260,000 secondary school teachers and administrators worldwide, found that only 7 percent of teachers work in schools Read more about Appraising Teachers Across the Globe: Where the U.S. Stands[…]
The GTL Center’s Mentoring and Induction Toolkit is a ready-to-use resource for states working closely with districts to build strong mentoring and induction programs. The purpose of the GTL Center’s Mentoring and Induction Toolkit is to give regional comprehensive centers (RCCs) and state education agencies (SEAs) tools, resources, and support to facilitate meaningful conversations with Read more about Mentoring & Induction Resources from the Center on Great Teachers & Leaders[…]
Writing for the Annenberg Institute at Brown University’s working paper series, researchers Matthew Ronfeldt, Emanuele Bardelli, Stacey Brockman and Hannah Mullman explore the effects of hosting a student teacher on cooperating teachers’ evaluation scores. Growing evidence suggests that preservice candidates receive better coaching and are more instructionally effective when they are mentored by more instructionally Read more about Mentoring a Student Teacher may Boost your Evaluation Scores[…]
Helen Ladd and Lucy Sorensen, writing for the Brookings blog, recently explored the concerns associated with within-school turnover, focusing on the churn in middle school core subject areas. Excerpts from their piece appear below: We draw on a recent paper in which we examined how middle schools in North Carolina responded to changes in the Read more about Teacher Turnover and the Disruption of Teacher Staffing[…]
Matt Barnum, writing for Chalkbeat, recently wrote an article exploring the fact that new teachers often end up in the most challenging classroom assignments. Excerpts of the piece appear below: Being a new teacher is notoriously difficult — and schools often make it even tougher. New research out of Los Angeles finds that teachers in Read more about New teachers often get the students who are furthest behind — and that’s a problem for both[…]
Recently in the Fordham Flypaper, Michael Petrilli wrote about the practice and promise of instructional coaches. Excerpts from the piece appear below: Whether initiated from the bottom-up or the top-down, any effort to help educators align their practice with the best evidence is going to succeed or fail on the strength of its implementation. This Read more about Instructional Coaches: The Heroes of the Golden Age of Educational Practice[…]
High-quality, evidence-based mentoring and induction (M&I) programs can transform classroom instruction, improve teacher retention rates, narrow gaps in equitable access to effective educators, and raise student performance. The Center on Great Teachers and Leaders’ updated toolkit helps states and districts design M&I programs that support beginning teachers in strengthening classroom instruction in high-need schools and Read more about Center on Great Teachers and Leaders releases M&I Toolkit[…]
Teacher mentoring has proven to be an effective form of professional learning that has positive results on student performance. But too often, mentoring programs are loosely designed and fall short of desired outcomes. In Core Education’s September issue brief, we explore teacher mentoring and coaching, including the research base for this form of professional development, Read more about September Issue Brief: Teacher Mentoring[…]
Most states have been struggling to address teacher shortages for several years now, often filling the vacuum with underprepared teachers who aren’t able to give children the high-quality learning they need and who leave at two to three times the rate of well-prepared teachers. Most often, these teachers are hired in schools serving students of Read more about State Efforts to Solve Teacher Shortages by Strengthening the Profession[…]
Teachers need helpful feedback and support to improve their instruction and own their professional growth. But what kinds of feedback translate into improved teaching practice? In Core Education’s August issue brief, we explore the research on teacher feedback, including teacher perceptions of feedback systems, characteristics of feedback that may influence teacher response, tools and resources Read more about August Issue Brief: Effective Feedback for Educators[…]
Writing for Chalkbeat, Matt Barnum explores the research on the value of being mentored by an expert teacher. Excerpts from the piece appear below: Studies released this year offer real evidence that good teaching can be passed down, in a sense, from mentor teacher to student teacher. In several cases, they find that the performance Read more about Mentors matter: Good teaching really can be passed down to student teachers, new research finds[…]
Principals and districts benefit when principal supervisors move beyond the role of administrator to coach and mentor, according to a new Vanderbilt University report. The report, “A New Role Emerges for Principal Supervisors: Evidence from Six Districts in the Principal Supervisor Initiative,” details the implementation of five key components to reshape the supervisor position in Read more about Revisioning the Principal Supervisor Role[…]
One-on-one teacher coaching generates meaningful improvements to both classroom instruction and student achievement, according to a newly published meta-analysis of existing research. But there’s a tricky caveat: Efforts to expand coaching programs on a wider scale might only dilute their value, the authors find. Key takeaways from this study include the following: Coaching programs tend Read more about Teacher Coaching Can Boost Instruction and Student Achievement. But Can It Be Scaled Up?[…]
The National Association of State Boards of Education has released a policy brief exploring state mentoring policies related to the support of novice teachers and the research on effective mentoring programs. Policy recommendations as well as state exemplar programs are offered. The brief finds that although there is evidence that formal induction programs lasting at Read more about State Mentoring Policies Key to Supporting Novice Teachers[…]