After reviewing effective teaching research during the past 20 years, one basic question arises: do teachers make any difference? Specifically, do teachers' classroom practices have any effect on student outcomes beyond the effects of ability and home background? What knowledge of minimal teaching competencies has been gained, and how firm is the…

Data from 12 2-hour observations of 41 elementary school classroom teachers were used to investigate classroom management problems associated with the use of small group instruction. Student engagement during small group instruction was compared with that in whole class instruction, seatwork, and transitions. Classroom narratives of subsamples of…

State and national data were used to examine whether Pennsylvania students are part of a national trend of decreasing higher achievers' scores and declining higher order skills. Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reports and the Pennsylvania Educational Quality Assessment (EQA) were examined. Analysis indicated that…

Joint teacher and student development of a contingency management plan to help control disruptive behavior was explored with a class of 13 mildly mentally retarded elementary school children after several less extensive teacher directed contingencies were unsuccessful. All students in the self contained classroom had extensive school histories of…

An overview is provided of curriculum management and "mapping," an auditing technique for assessing the content, time, and sequence of the taught curriculum as reported by the teacher. The general notion of management is first discussed in terms of three basic kinds of activities: defining purpose and mission, configuring available…

A description is presented of an improvement program that focused upon a small, flexible, open primary school. The school had been targeted for improvement because of rather low test scores. Improvement efforts focused on findings from four basic strands of school research: (1) structured learning environment; (2) academic feedback; (3) high…

A reading activity inventory was administered to approximately 13% of the employees at one division of a high technology company in order to (1) assess the amount of time spent reading different content or topic areas, (2) assess the amount of time spent reading different types of materials, and (3) determine the prevailing uses for reading in…

Part of an overall evaluation study of the WANDAH Project at Logan High School (Utah), this study compared the time on task of students in a computer-based English class in two conditions, the handwriting condition (any situation in which they were not involved with computers) and the computer condition. Observational techniques were used to code…

An interest in conditions of practice and feedback led to a study which examined the effect on writing by elementary school students of (1) two types of practice, both similar to "free focused writing"; (2) practice at a frequency greater than once a week; and (3) a procedure by which students measured their own performance and provided themselves…

The Research Utilization in Elementary Teacher Education (RUETE) study developed techniques for better informing student teachers about current research on effective instruction and schools. Mills College in California was one of three schools of education participating in the study. This report explains and describes the research/intervention…

The purpose of this literature review was to determine what evidence there is that instructional designers apply ID Models, as well as to establish what other activities and processes they might use in their professional activities. Only ten articles were located that directly pertained to this topic: seven reporting on empirical research and…

The purpose of the proposed study was to examine relationships between instructional characteristics in required high school composition classrooms and quality of writing in one of the four domains included in the curriculum, the imaginative/narrative domain. Questionnaire data were collected on objectives, writing activities, and specific writing…

This study explored student perspectives on their work and play at school and examined why they engage in work and play. Nineteen eighth grade students, who were predominantly white, and of the middle or upper middle class, were the subjects. The students were asked to conduct an interviewer on a grand tour and then various mini-tours of their…

This study focused on social and cooperative behavior in traditional science classrooms. Students in 30 junior and senior high school science classes were observed in terms of the amount of time spent on task, or time spent concentrating on the lesson. The physical organization of the classroom, the instructional style of the teacher, and the…

How various methodological decisions may influence studies of the effect of time-on-task on achievement are examined. Subjects were students in grades 2-5 in 18 classes taught by 12 teachers in a rural Maryland school district. All students were pre-tested in February 1978 in reading, language arts, math and social studies using the Comprehensive…