Members of the Data Science Program at George Washington University (GWU) designed and implemented a tuition-free two-week summer camp at GWU for high-school students from the Washington Metro Area. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Office of the Chief Information Officer and his staff were our main partners in the project. The…

K-12 education resources are often allocated non-strategically, with schools spending time and money on activities that have little relationship to student outcomes. Most of these decisions take place within districts, rooted in the processes of setting schedules, staffing levels, and assignments, and creating final budgets. Local Education…

Although there is a strong legislative base and perceived efficacy for multidisciplinary team decision making, limited evidence supports its effectiveness or consistency of implementation in practice. In recent research, we used the Decision Observation, Recording, and Analysis (DORA) tool to document activities and adult behaviors during positive…

There is a debate on students' low science achievement in the United States, particularly among low income, African American students, and Latino students. An important part of the education community's response to low achievement generally and in science specifically has been the implementation of high stakes accountability policies. Because of…

This research focuses on the everyday challenge in academic learning of assessment, and argues that academic buoyancy is a key factor in academic success. To scaffold students' learning and effectively support academic buoyancy, there is arguably a need for a better understanding of: (i) what students find most and least useful in their assessment…

The Technical Assistance Center on Social Emotional Intervention for Young Children (TACSEI) Roadmap on "Data Decision-Making and Program-Wide Implementation of the Pyramid Model" provides programs with guidance on how to collect and use data to ensure the implementation of the Pyramid Model with fidelity and decision-making that…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how data are used in classroom placement routines. The authors explore educators' assumptions about the purposes of the classroom placement routine, detailing the ostensive (i.e. structure and template) and performative aspects of the routine itself, and the implications of data use for equity and…

The Teacher Data Use Survey can be used to query teachers, administrators, and instructional support staff about how teachers use data to support instruction, their attitudes toward data, and the supports that help teachers use data. This guide provides step-by-step instructions to help district and school planners implement the survey. The…

This report provides a description of a study conducted by WestEd on behalf of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to examine how the affordances of the technologies in the blended learning environments of three charter schools impacted teaching and learning activities. A particular focus of the work was to examine whether the blended learning…

In the quest to improve measured educational outcomes national governments across the The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and beyond have instituted large-scale assessment (LSA) policies in their public schools. Controversy almost universally follows the implementation of such testing, related to such topics as: a)…

Studying Topography, Orographic Rainfall, and Ecosystems with Geospatial Information Technology (STORE), a 4.5-year National Science Foundation funded project, explored the strategies that stimulate teacher commitment to the project's driving innovation: having students use geospatial information technology (GIT) to learn about weather, climate,…

Since 2010, the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) has periodically administered the "Strong Foundations" survey, which documents the content, structure, and effective use of state postsecondary student unit record systems (PSURSs). This report highlights the results of the fourth administration of the survey,…

This report addresses two key questions about postsecondary student unit record data systems (PSURSs): (1) What data are collected by various parties; and (2) how do these entities use the data to inform policy decisions? This 2016 report is both a follow-up and a redesign of two previous "Strong Foundations" reports by SHEEO (2010 and…

In this exploratory study, the authors examine Greek special education teachers' individual and collaborative teaching experiences in the context of their literacy instruction. The Five Foci Framework, situated in Vygotskian theory, is utilized in the study's design to examine special education teachers' individual and collaborative experiences…

Education reform efforts have mandated the use of student achievement data in schools. This Q-methodology study investigates the perceptions of principals and teachers about how data are used or misused. Principals in the sample were found to use data mostly to evaluate the school, make improvements, and model best practices of data use. Teachers…