The national center on Schoolwide Integrated Framework for Transformation (SWIFT Center) is now approaching the halfway point in its first full year of providing intensive technical assistance (TA) to 68 schools in 20 local educational agencies across five states. The purpose of this brief is to provide a thumbnail sketch of how this TA process…

This roadmap provides a description of the activities involved in the development of the State Systemic Improvement Plan (SSIP) (SPP/APR Indicators C11 and B17) due to the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) on April 1, 2015. The roadmap is intended to support states with completing Phase I of the SSIP process. This document provides…

On November 19, 2009, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it would invest $290 million to support effective teaching as a means to ensure all students receive the education they need to succeed in high school and beyond. The foundation made six-year grants to support four Intensive Partnership for Effective Teaching (IP) sites…

This study focuses on how matching, a method of preprocessing data prior to estimation and analysis, can be used to reduce imbalance between treatment and control group in regression discontinuity design. To examine the effects of academic probation on student outcomes, researchers replicate and expand upon research conducted by Lindo, Sanders,…

This study used a randomized controlled trial to determine whether students, assessed by their community colleges as needing an elementary algebra (remedial) mathematics course, could instead succeed at least as well in a college-level, credit-bearing introductory statistics course with extra support (a weekly workshop). Researchers randomly…

The teacher has been identified as one of the most important factors in effecting student achievement. Consequently, school systems across the country engage their teachers in costly and time-consuming professional development in an effort to improve their effectiveness. This study examined whether one such professional development activity, the…

Family engagement in a student's education can lead to improved student academic achievement, attendance, and behavior. Yet many districts and schools still struggle to form strong partnerships with the families they serve. Having a supportive district-level infrastructure is key to the success and sustainability of family engagement initiatives.…

This paper presents the details and examines the outcomes of a professional development program created for instructors who are beyond the novice stage as online instructors, but desire and require further support to develop their online teaching expertise to meet their students' learning needs and their own teaching goals. This program…

This study investigated teachers' beliefs about the changes needed to improve student learning in low-performing schools. The study employed a new instrument, the Need for Change Assessment (NCA), which solicited teachers' perceptions of the need for change in areas such as reading and math programs, classroom instruction, and school policies.…

In this report of a phenomenological study, the co-director of a U.S. early childhood program describes and reflects on the interrelationship of his collaborative work with teachers, staff members' documentation of children's work and school events, and his own professional development activities. The author presents and discusses three events…

The purpose of this article is to describe the professional development (PD) model for preschool literacy and language instruction that took place in a 3-year, 2-tiered Early Reading First project in 9 Head Start and community-based school classrooms. In our tiered model, the Tier 1 level was classroom instruction and Tier 2 was intervention…

Action research (AR)--as a participatory, problem-oriented methodology--has been employed recently in Egypt to resolve complicated classroom and learning problems, and provide context-based solutions. Simultaneously, new "special education" courses have been included recently in the university bylaws of Egyptian colleges of education.…

This study investigated how 22 advanced-low proficiency ESL students used computer-based multimodal composing activities (CBMCAs) to facilitate self-revision and learn English through academic writing in the USA. The CBMCAs involved a combination of writing, listening, visual analysis, and speaking activities. The research was framed within an…

The field of education technology is embracing a use of learning analytics to improve student experiences of learning. Along with exponential growth in this area is an increasing concern of the interpretability of the analytics from the student experience and what they can tell us about learning. This study offers a way to address some of the…

This paper reports an action-research study on language learning strategies in tertiary education at a Colombian university. The study aimed at improving the English language performance and language learning strategies use of 33 first-year pre-service language teachers by combining elements from two models: the cognitive academic language…