Relationship of Online Teacher Professional Development to Seventh-Grade Teachers' and Students' Knowledge and Practices in English Language Arts

Online professional development (OPD) has potential to improve teacher quality by improving teachers' knowledge and instructional practices. These changes, in turn, have potential to improve student achievement. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of scientific research on the effects of OPD on teachers and, more importantly, on students. This article presents the results of a randomized controlled trial exploring the effects of a series of three learning-community model OPD workshops on teachers' content knowledge, teachers' instructional practices, students' content knowledge, and students' practices in the context of seventh-grade English language arts. There were statistically significant effects on teachers' vocabulary and overall English language arts content knowledge and on vocabulary and writing practices. The effect sizes of these changes ranged from small to medium. There were statistically significant effects on students' reading comprehension practices.     

The ‘Naturals’ and Victorian Cambridge: reflections on the anatomy of an elite, 1851‐1914

Abstract

abstract There is plenty of evidence that Britain has underinvested in education and now has a smaller base of educated manpower than many industrial competitors. While much debate has centred on what the government can do about it, the government itself now places much hope on the private sector. Yet much government and business policy is at odds with this objective which seems to owe more to romanticism about capitalism than to hard‐headed appreciation of where the market really can deliver the educational goods by creating appropriate private incentives.