The need to improve outcomes among students with disabilities (SWD) by increasing teachers' skilled use of evidence-based practices (EBPs) has been a pressing challenge around the country. Texas, in particular, has a specific focus on supporting the increased use of teachers' EBPs within their State Systemic Improvement Plan (SSIP). Therefore,…

Research suggests (a) students benefit when educators implement positive and proactive classroom behavior support practices (e.g., maximizing structure, teaching expected behaviors, delivering engaging instruction) and (b) educators benefit when school leadership teams invest in positive and proactive professional development support systems…

California's CORE Districts--a consortium of eight school districts serving a racially and socioeconomically diverse population of over one million students--have since 2014 led the way in deploying measures of social and emotional learning (SEL) and school climate and culture. Influenced by surging interest and research support over the past…

The UChicago Consortium, Network for College Success, and the To&Through Project's new paper, "Practice-Driven Data: Lessons from Chicago's Approach to Research, Data, and Practice in Education," shares key lessons learned from Chicago's approach to using data to foster ongoing improvement in students' educational attainment. This…

The purpose of this brief is twofold. First, it describes a useful template for business instructors to improve teamwork assignment design and efficacy; and second, it provides an example of how to use data collected and analyzed from a Web-based tool, Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME). Though CATME has been the subject…

Creating a positive classroom learning environment is a complex but necessary task for all educators. By fully realizing the seven keys the author highlights, teachers can establish clearer expectations, enhance instruction and assessment practices, and foster quality relationships with students, thereby maximizing the potential of all students.…

Ever-growing expectations exist for educators to use assessments to collect, analyze, and interpret data, but how, if at all, are these processes affecting instruction? This descriptive case study of one team of second grade teachers offers an analysis of the links between teachers' use of data within their collaborative team meetings and…

This study emerged out of collaboration between an artist-educator and a dance researcher. It explores student experience participating in a school based dance outreach program at an urban elementary school. The program is supported by a local, contemporary dance company. The artist-educator approaches teaching and curriculum with values shared by…

Many schools around the country are getting positive responses implementing Response to Intervention (RTI) within a Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) framework (e.g., Abbott, 2011; Ball & Trammell, 2011; Buysee & Peisner-Feinberg, 2009). RTI refers to an instructional model that is based on a student's response to instruction. RTI…

Food mapping is a new, participatory, interdisciplinary pedagogical approach to learning about our modern food systems. This method is inspired by the Situationist International's practice of the "dérive" and draws from the discourses of critical geography, the food movement's research on food deserts, and participatory action…

One of the driving forces behind the design of the Pathways to Results (PTR) initiative is to dismantle and redesign systems to produce equitable outcomes. This notion of systems producing the exact outcomes for which they were designed can also be applied to the Pathways to Results methodology itself. After five years of leading PTR initiatives…

This event focused on the What Works Clearinghouse practice guide, "Using Student Achievement Data to Support Instructional Decision Making" (ED506645). During the event, the presenter, Sharnell Jackson, led school data teams in activities involving analysis of their own student data. This Q&A addressed the questions participants had…

In engineering, like in many other disciplines, collaborative writing (CW) has been identified as a central practice in both the academy and industry. A number of studies have shown that both students and professionals in this field write most discipline-specific genres collaboratively. Despite its centrality, CW in engineering is still an…

Nursing students are expected to apply knowledge from lectures and laboratories to the clinical setting. One major challenge of nursing educators is facilitating the transfer of knowledge to the clinical-practice setting. Simulation-based education provides students with an experiential-learning activity within the context of a simulated clinical…

Effective use of data is key to improving student outcomes. This requires leaders to ensure teachers have developed the skills to convert student data to useful information to effectively plan for instruction and student interventions; to hold collaborative discussions that are structured for these purposes; to broaden the view of data to include…