Teaching Practices and Student Achievement: Report of First-Year Findings from the 'Mosaic' Study of Systemic Initiatives in Mathematics and Science - Softcover

Klein, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0833028790 ISBN 13: 9780833028792

Publisher: RAND Corporation, 2000

Synopsis

In our increasingly technological society, improving students' performance in mathematics and science has become a critical challenge. During the 1990s, the National Science Foundation funded a series of Systemic Initiatives designed to change the way these subjects are being taught in schools throughout the country. These initiatives sought to align all aspects of the educational system in support of ambitious curriculum and performance standards, with particular emphasis on teacher training and professional development to promote effective changes in instructional practice.

About this title

From the Publisher:

During the 1990s, the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded anumber of large-scale initiatives designed to change the way math-ematicsand science are taught in schools. These efforts, called Sys-temicInitiatives (SIs), shared a common emphasis on aligning allaspects of the educational system in support of ambitious curricu-lumand performance standards. Particular emphasis was placed onteacher training and professional development to promote changesin instructional practice that would enable students to achieve thenew standards.Funds were given to states, to urban school districts, and to consortiaof districts to implement reforms consistent with NSF's purposes.Sites had considerable flexibility in designing their programs, andthey adopted very different strategies for promoting reform. As a re-sult,initial research on the SIs focused on the complex process of de-velopmentand implementation. Although individual sites gatheredinformation, after five years of funding, NSF had no broad picture ofthe effects of the reform on student achievement.In 1996, NSF provided funds to RAND to investigate the relationshipsbetween student achievement in mathematics and science and theuse of instructional practices that are consistent with systemic re-forms.The study, called the Mosaic project, was conducted in twowaves: A set of six sites (including both states and urban districts)that were implementing systemic reforms was studied during the1996-97 school year, and a similar set of six sites was studied duringthe 1997-98 school year. The same basic analytic design was repli-catedat each site, and the study draws much of its power and gen-eralizabilityfrom this replication.This report presents results for the first wave of the study. The re-sultsshould be of interest to educational policymakers at all levels ofgovernment, as well as to program developers and school adminis-tratorsinterested in mathematics and science education.

About the Author:

Stephen P. Klein (Purdue University, Ph.D., Industrial Psychology) is a senior research scientist at Rand. His areas of research include design and direct studies in the fields of education, criminal justice, health, and military manpower. Laura Hamilton (Stanford University (Stanford, CA), Ph.D., 1997, Educational Psychology, specialization in psychometrics) is an associate behavioral scientist, Rand, Santa Monica, CA. Daniel McCaffrey (Ph.D., Statistics, North Carolina State University)is a statistician at Rand. Brian M. Stecher (Ph.D., Education, 1982, University of California, Los Angeles) is a senior social scientist at Rand. Daniel McCaffrey (Ph.D., Statistics, North Carolina State University)is a statistician at Rand. Delia Burroughs (M.S. in Biostatistics, 1997, Columbia University School of PublicHealth, New York NY) is a senior programmer/analyst, Rand, Santa MonicaCA.

About this edition

• Publisher: RAND Corporation
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0833028790
• ISBN 13: 9780833028792
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 84