The Feasibility of Using Virtual Professional Development to Support Teachers in Making Data-Based Decisions to Improve Students’ Writing

Rubrics can be used to give students targeted feedback on their writing and, therefore, teachers should be able to use them as a type of formative assessment to guide writing instruction. This article describes an exploratory study of how three teachers provided instruction for fourth, fifth, and seventh graders with learning disabilities and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in using a technology-based graphic organizer (TBGO) to compose persuasive essays. Given professional development inclusive of online modules, long-range plans, and virtually facilitated professional learning communities, the teachers used a digital dashboard to (a) monitor students’ writing progress with a genre-specific analytic rubric, (b) target a specific instructional skill, and (c) document their instructional decision(s). The article illustrates how educators can effectively use genre-specific writing rubrics in practice to make data-driven decisions about student writing.     

Effects of structural features on word recognition development of hispanic and non-hispanic second graders

Reading and Writing - Do Hispanic and non-Hispanic second graders acquire knowledge ofstructural features of words in the same order and at the same rate? Doesthe order and rate of acquisition of...     

Can a teacher-led RCT improve adolescent girls’ physical self-perception and perceived motor competence?

Perceived and actual motor competence (MC) influence physical activity (PA) behaviour. Notably, both are lower in girls than in boys. This study aimed to investigate (i) whether a 12-week, teacher-led intervention that improves actual MC (Lander, N., Morgan, P. J., Salmon, J., & Barnett, L. M. (2017). Improving early-adolescent girls’ motor skill: A cluster randomized controlled trial. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. 49(12), 2498–2505) could also improve adolescent girls’ physical self-perception and perceived MC, and (ii) whether change in actual MC is associated with post-intervention perceptions A randomized controlled trial with 171 girls (mean age 12.48 ± 0.34 years), measured perception (i.e., physical self-perception profile (PSPP) and pictorial scale of perceived movement skill competence (PMSC)) and actual MC (i.e., Victorian FMS Teachers’ Assessment Manual). Mixed models with post-intervention perception as the outcome, adjusting for baseline perception, group, and change in actual MC, as well as clustering, were performed. An interaction term between change in MC and intervention status was included to test the secondary aim. There were significant intervention effects on girls’ physical self-perception as well as their perceived MC. However, there was no association between change in actual MC across the intervention and post intervention perception. While the intervention improved both actual MC and perceived MC, they were not associated.