High School Teachers' Use of Data to Inform Instruction

The expectation that teachers will use student achievement data to improve their instruction is a major feature of national and local reform agendas. The theory of action behind data-driven decision making is a mostly causal model of professional action, whereby teachers diagnose weaknesses and implement solutions. The purpose of this article is to examine how high school teachers, situated within their policy and work contexts, use data to inform instructional decisions. Using a framework that draws upon sense-making and co-construction theories on reform implementation, we analyze qualitative data gathered in 4 urban public high schools in the United States. Findings reveal that the process of data use by teachers is complex, multilayered, and influenced by teacher interpretations and social interactions. Teachers used a variety of forms of data to inform their decision making and struggled to reconcile policies promoting data-driven decision making with local beliefs and practices. Implications for research and policy are discussed.     

Tools for Reflection: Video-Based Reflection Within a Preservice Community of Practice

Current reform in science education calls for teachers to understand student thinking within a lesson to effectively address students’ needs (NRC in A framework for K-12 science education: practices, crosscutting concepts, and core ideas. National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 2012; NRC in Guide to implementing the Next Generation Science Standards. The National Academies Press, Washington, DC, 2015). This study investigates how to scaffold preservice teachers with learning to attend to students’ thinking for the purpose of guiding curricular decisions. The study focuses on one team teaching a science unit during their early field experience. We sought to understand how participants’ thoughts and abilities changed through participation in a moderated community of practice using video of their own teaching as a reflective tool. We examined how these changes affected both their classroom practice and their decision-making for future lessons. Evidence shows growth in participants’ ability to identify opportunities to elicit, assess, and use students’ thinking to guide instructional decisions. Implications for use of the approach used in this study to begin developing novice teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge for teaching science are discussed.     

Wireless Cities: Local Governments' Involvement in the Shaping of Wi-Fi Networks

This study examines the role of local government in the deployment of municipal Wi-Fi networks from the perspective of path dependency and social shaping of technology. By employing a case study method, the study investigated ways in which municipal networks in three cities in the United States were constructed and operated. The study found that the technology models developed from each city's past experiences in communication technologies played an essential role in the rollout of the current Wi-Fi networks. It also uncovered that social and political factors accounted for the different characteristics of each city's network implementation.     

Gender and online health information: a partitioned technology assessment

Objective: To examine the extent to which health information seeking behaviors vary across genders or are differentially associated with access to computers, the Internet, and online health information. Research design: Stratified survey, data analysis. Methods: Using binary logistic regression we examine information seeking differences between demographic groups. Questions addressed include: 1) Are any identified groups significantly underserved regarding access to computers, access to the Internet, and preferences for seeking online health information, and 2) have differences between gender groups in access to computers, Internet services and online health information narrowed, remained constant, or widened over recent years, following recent national initiatives to narrow the technology gap for underserved populations? Outcomes: Information seeking variation across gender groups and between technologies was at times significant. There was little difference in the access to computer between females and males. In 2002, 75.4% and 73.1% of female and male participants reported that they occasionally use computers, respectively. In 2000, the respective figures were 72.4% and 72.7%. The rates of use of Internet services among computer users, however, were quite different between female and male (P_{at 2002}= 0.0002 and P_{at 2000}= 0.0082) and the disparity in 2000 (OR = 0.7366 [0.5870, 0.9243]) increased in 2002 (OR = 0.5675 [0.4222, 0.7627]). The odds ratios (OR) indicate that females were 0.7366 and 0.5675 times less likely to use computers than male counterparts in 2000 and 2002, respectively. Conclusion: Recent technology initiatives in the US aimed at reducing disparities in access to online resources appear to have had little effect in facilitating equal access to web‐based health information.     

Ubiquitous Learning Environment as a Solution to Education Problem

Ubiquitous learning means the intelligent learning environment that enables people to learn using any terminal at any place and at any time no matter what the contents may be.This is different from the existing method of learning the information through the internet or studying at specific place,such as school or library,and so on.People do not need to go to specific place at specific time to access the information that they want,but the learning information finds its way to people,which is the biggest difference from the existing method. Ubiquitous learning aims to solve current problems of education in more creative and learner-oriented way by creating an education environment where learners can learn with any terminal anytime and anywhere without regard to contents.The presentation this time would help promote the understanding of the Ubiquitous and explore the ubiquitous education environment that is capable of solving overall problems of education.In addition,it will propose a direction of ubiquitous learning scenario and the change in the educational environment.     

Factors affecting achievement in a satellite‐delivered Japanese language program

Abstract

This article reviews previous research and reports on a study relating to six factors relevant to achievement in learning a new language: motivation, language learning styles, language learning strategies, gender, course level, and previous experience in learning a foreign language. Although motivation, learning styles, gender, and learning strategy use were all found to be influential, motivation was the single most important predictor of success. The authors suggest that awareness and understanding of the influence and interaction of student characteristics on achievement will allow instructors to provide optimal learning opportunities for all students.     

Teaching about complex systems is no simple matter: building effective professional development for computer-supported complex systems instruction

The recent next generation science standards in the United States have emphasized learning about complex systems as a core feature of science learning. Over the past 15 years, a number of educational tools and theories have been investigated to help students learn about complex systems; but surprisingly, little research has been devoted to identifying the supports that teachers need to teach about complex systems in the classroom. In this paper, we aim to address this gap in the literature. We describe a 2-year professional development study in which we gathered data on teachers’ abilities and perceptions regarding the delivery of computer-supported complex systems curricula. We present results across the 2 years of the project and demonstrate the need for particular instructional supports to improve implementation efforts, including providing differentiated opportunities to build expertise and addressing teacher beliefs about whether computational-model construction belongs in the science classroom. Results from students’ classroom experiences and learning over the 2 years are offered to further illustrate the impact of these instructional supports.     

The determinants of demand for private tutoring in South Korea

This study investigated the determinants of the demand for private tutoring (PT) in South Korea, especially focusing on the effectiveness of governmental regulations regarding the operating hours of cram schools in decreasing expenditure on PT. Survey data from 3,605 parents of 12th grade students were collected from 45 proportionally stratified high schools and analyzed using Tobit and censored least absolute deviation models. Results showed that among student and family background characteristics, students’ achievement level, household income, and parents’ educational level were positively associated with a higher consumption of PT. At the school level, students attending schools with higher student–teacher ratios were expected to spend more on PT. Urban schools under the high school equalization policy (HSEP) showed larger expenditure on PT than non-HSEP schools. Despite the public perception of the ineffectiveness of government policy on PT, this study finds that the local governmental regulation of PT positively contributes to decreasing the demand for PT.     

Early Education Essentials: Validation of Surveys Measuring Early Education Organizational Conditions

Research Findings: The Early Education Essentials surveys use teacher and parent perceptions to measure 6 organizational conditions of early childhood education programs, extending and complementing existing measures of early childhood care and education (ECE) quality constructs. This study tests the reliability and concurrent validity of the Early Education Essentials in 81 school- and community-based ECE sites in a large Midwestern city selected using a stratified random sampling method. Using a Rasch item response theory model, scales were created; theory and exploratory factor analyses combined scales into higher level constructs called essentials. Multilevel models took into account individual measurement error to create site-level essential scores and assessed relationships between programs’ essential scores and site-level teacher–child interactions scores and student attendance. Findings suggest that the Early Education Essentials is reliable in multiple ECE settings; it is sensitive to site-level differences; and some, but not all, organizational conditions measured are associated in expected directions with site-level metrics indicative of center-based ECE quality. Practice or Policy: The Early Education Essentials has the potential to provide leaders and practitioners with actionable data about organizational supports that enable ECE practitioners to be more effective in their daily work with children and families.     

No one way: Differentiating school district leadership and support for school improvement

This article examines findings from a qualitative investigation of how school district administrators in four mid to large sized urban school districts (10,000–50,000) identify and address differences in school performance. The analysis explores the interaction between district policies and actions that centralize and standardize expectations for teaching, learning, and leadership, and those that lead to the differentiation of district support to schools depending upon their identified needs. The findings demonstrate variability in district orientation and capacity to understand school needs to improve performance, as well as in district strategies for actually differentiating support to schools. Differentiated assistance can focus both on strengthening implementation of district expectations in order to improve school performance, and on supporting experimentation with non-standard solutions to performance challenges that are not solvable through use of established programs and practices.