Many high-need students do not learn to read well because they do not receive effective personalized literacy instruction during the early elementary grades. To address this, the data-driven A2i Professional Support System was designed by and for teachers, and it has shown strong evidence of effectiveness.
Professional Development/ Teacher Training
Insights from the LATIDO Roundtable
April, 2018
Latinos are enrolling in California colleges in rising numbers, but their outcomes lag behind those of white students. The Latino Academic Transfer and Institutional Degree Opportunities project is examining the approaches taken by Hispanic-Serving Institutions in California to improve the rates at which they transfer to universities and complete college.
At the forefront of debates about early childhood education policy is a focus on raising the quality of learning environments in community-based centers and schools as a means of promoting child development, particularly for low-income children and children of color.
Implementation and Outcome Findings for the AVID Central Florida Collaborative Study
March, 2018
Implemented in eight secondary schools and a local college, this program was designed to build students’ college preparedness by training instructors in shared teaching strategies and best practices, strengthening academic rigor in the classroom, and promoting collaboration and consistency in teaching and study strategies across grades and schools.
The Implementation of High 5s in New York City
March, 2018
Small-group math clubs in kindergarten are an innovative way to align children’s elementary and pre-K math experiences. In a demonstration of the High 5s kindergarten supplement aligned with the principles of an evidence-based, developmentally appropriate pre-K curriculum, attendance and engagement were high, and children participated in hands-on, individualized activities.
The Impacts of Making Pre-K Count and High 5s on Kindergarten Outcomes
March, 2018
This project tested whether high-quality, aligned math instruction, via an evidence-based curriculum in pre-K and innovative math clubs in kindergarten, could improve children’s outcomes. The effect of two years of enriched math translates into closing more than a quarter of the achievement gap between low-income children and their higher-income peers.
Launching the Drive to Write Program
January, 2018
How do schools encourage students to write more and teachers to offer more comments on student writing? How can schools use technology more effectively to support this shift in instruction? What makes achieving both of these goals difficult? The Drive to Write program tackles these challenges.
A Literature Review
October, 2017
Examining the scholarly literature published since a seminal review in 2000, this working paper discusses the principles that underlie project-based learning, how it has been used in K-12 settings, the challenges teachers have confronted in implementing it, and what is known about its effectiveness in improving students’ learning outcomes.
Introducing ExCEL P-3, a Study from the Expanding Children’s Early Learning Network
July, 2017
The ExCEL Network, a collaboration of researchers, preschool providers, and local officials, is exploring how benefits of early childhood interventions persist. The ExCEL P-3 project examines whether one preschool program, reinforced by a system-wide alignment of instruction into elementary school, has impacts on a range of skills through third grade.
A Report from the Investing in Innovation (i3) Evaluation
June, 2017
PowerTeaching emphasizes cooperative learning to instruct middle school math and has shown strong evidence of effectiveness. In 2011, the U.S. Department of Education funded an effort to scale up the program, and in 2012 MDRC began a multiyear evaluation of it. This report describes the evaluation and presents its findings.