This report is the fourth in a series describing the RAND Corporation's evaluation of the two Delaware weighted funding programs for disadvantaged K-12 schools spanning the 2019-2020 to 2021-2022 school years: Opportunity Funding and the Student Success Block Grant. The authors drew on annual surveys of Delaware local education agencies (LEAs)…

Chinese principals play a significant role in recontextualizing the U.S. principals' practices in leading their school reform and student outcomes in Chinese social, cultural, and educational contexts. The purpose of this basic qualitative study is twofold: (1) to describe and interpret how Chinese principals make meaning of their experiences as…

This study evaluated the implementation and effectiveness of My Math Academy and My Reading Academy, two digital learning programs, in supporting early math and literacy skill development during the 2021-2022 school year in Tyler Independent School District, Texas. In a district where 85% of students were eligible for free and reduced-price meals,…

The "App-Generation" the present student population that grew up in a world of digital technology and mobile apps faces obstacles explored in this article. It explores their traits, such as multitasking, limited attention spans, and technology fluency, and how these affect their involvement in and experiences with learning. The article…

Virtual Reading Coach assesses student reading abilities with MindPlay's Universal Screener and automatically develops a unique, differentiated syllabus of instruction and mastery-based activities for every student, thus improving their reading fluency. This report includes its logic model, foundational literature review, and summaries of…

Designing teaching in an era of educational technology calls for new models for designing learning opportunities. The 7Cs framework developed by Professor Gráinne Conole and her colleagues provides a tool for discussing learning designs for online learning environments. In this paper, we introduce the 7Cs framework put forward by Conole and…

The essence of mobile learning is learners' agentic use of mobile devices to create learning experiences across time and space. Thus, understanding learners' perceptions and preferred use of mobile devices for learning are critical to realizing the educational potentials of mobile learning. This study explored language learners' self-directed use…

Traditional efforts to increase teacher quality through professional development (PD) have been largely ineffective. A growing body of research on teacher coaching provides strong evidence of its effectiveness as a PD tool, although it also raises difficult questions about whether and how to implement coaching programs at scale. Key considerations…

There is a long history of calls to "personalize" education -- (by which will be meant, in this study, to adaptively generate goals and plans for individual students, based on various kinds of information about those students). Calls for such personalization have perhaps increased with the rise of personalizing information technologies.…

Popular culture texts are widely desired by many elementary students, and yet some teachers do not value the use of popular culture texts in the classroom (Lambirth, 2003; Marsh 2006). The purpose of this research was to explore two, Title I elementary teachers' perceptions of the use of popular culture texts during independent reading. Data…

Individualization of instruction in a regular classroom is difficult. The paper explores the possibilities of using a mobile touch device and a web tool for time individualization in mathematics instruction. The paper compares the pros and cons of using an electronic and a regular (printed) test to determine students' needs. The results show that…

This Appreciative Inquiry (AI) study was conducted to create the framework for the Differentiated Support Model (DSM). The DSM is a framework of individualized support for first year teachers that can be applied in any school district alongside a mentoring program or without a mentoring program. The DSM was designed to be implemented by an…

This topic brief is one in a series on personalized learning prepared for Conversations with Innovators, 2018. Personalization refers to a teacher's relationships with students and their families and the use of multiple instructional modes to scaffold each student's learning and enhance the student's personal competencies. Personalized learning…

The present mixed methods study aimed to understand the challenges faced by teachers of the gifted and how elementary gifted learners were supported and taught during the COVID-19 pandemic. A survey was administered to 310 elementary school teachers of the gifted across the United States between March and June 2021, one year after initial school…

This mixed-method study introduced an adaptive scaffolding system to support middle school science problem-based learning (PBL) activities. 298 6th-graders were grouped into three conditions, which are the adaptive scaffolding group, the non-adaptive scaffolding group, and a control group that did not receive any scaffoldings. Results showed that…