Collective reflection, which has become a de rigueur activity in teacher training and professional development, is predicated upon Schön's theory of reflective practice. This concept, according to which people learn to be reflective-in-action through reflection on practice, relates primarily to individual and one-on-one mentorship processes. The…

School principals are critical to students' academic achievement, second only to teachers. They are the primary agents of change in their schools, fostering supportive learning environments that enhance student learning and teacher effectiveness. Moreover, they often design and oversee the initiatives and hiring to sustain the positive changes…

Dialogic pedagogy, in which students and teachers voice thoughts, co-construct meanings, and generate multiple interpretations of texts, can promote literacy skills and reasoning. Yet, such teaching is challenging and requires, among other changes, adopting dialogic stances. In the language arts, expressive and critical reading stances have been…

The participatory action research (PAR) aimed to build educators' culturally responsive teaching capacity to support equitable classrooms. The study focused on the culturally responsive teaching development and decision-making process of a middle school principal, three Language Art teachers, and the culturally responsive teaching influence to…

Educator leadership requires continuous development, including extended professional learning opportunities for principals in the field. This is also true for district leaders who likely have even fewer robust opportunities to grow professionally. We conducted a comparative interrupted time series of publicly available student achievement data…

At Community Leadership High School, a pseudonym, graduation rates have consistently ranged between 95% and 100%. However, 35% to 40% of graduates, who come from low income families of color, lack the college and career readiness skills required to succeed after high school. The aim of this improvement science study was to increase the percentage…

Developing schedules is one of the most challenging undertakings that school and district leaders do every year. It's also one of the most important. School schedules often have significant inefficiencies that impact student experiences and outcomes, like course offerings that don't align with student needs; mismatches in resources across schools;…

In 2003, the Texas State Legislature enacted the Texas Success Initiative (TSI). Upon entering a postsecondary institution, non-exempt students are tested using the TSI Assessment. A student's scores are used to assist Texas public institutions of higher education in determining if students are prepared for introductory college coursework in the…

Purpose: Adaptivity has long been recognized as a key aspect of teaching and shown to be particularly important for English Language Arts (ELA) teachers leading discussions about texts. Teachers' abilities to make such adjustments are especially important when facilitating discussions in digital contexts, as was made clear with the shift to…

Preparation and professional development can help principals be more effective leaders, but little research has examined what specific approaches are most useful. A study of 462 California principals and the teachers and students in their schools shows that high-quality preservice preparation for principals is associated with stronger teacher…

A growing body of research points to the substantial influence of principals on school conditions and students' learning. But how can principals learn to be good leaders? And are there professional learning strategies that make a difference in principal effectiveness? This study, which is part of a larger project synthesizing the research on…

This report uses data from the RAND Corporation's American Educator Panels to understand the state of infrastructure to support elementary social studies instruction during the 2021-2022 school year. The report is focused at the elementary (specifically, kindergarten through grade 5 [K-5]) level because the authors hypothesized that infrastructure…

Building on previous studies of ESL and content teachers' collaboration, this qualitative case study relied on Davies and Harré's positioning theory as a theoretical lens to examine the influences that collaboration between an ESL teacher and a language arts teacher had on the language arts teacher's approach to planning for and teaching ESL…

This article explicates the structure, content, and pedagogy of an urban district's professional development for literacy coaches. To analyze qualitative data on a district's yearlong coach professional development, I utilize situated cognition theory. Observation and interview data reveal that the coach community of practice (CCOP) was a venue in…

Helping principals improve their leadership practices is a common use of federal funds and one way to improve instruction and student achievement. The study highlighted in this one page report sought to better understand the effectiveness of an intensive principal professional development program focused primarily on helping principals conduct…