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Math performance continues to be an important focus for improve- ment. Many districts adopted educational technology programs to support student learning and teacher instruction. The ASSISTments program provides feedback to students as they solve homework problems and automatically prepares reports for teachers about student performance on daily assignments. During the 2018- 19 and 2019-20 school years, WestEd led a large-scale randomized controlled trial to replicate the effects of ASSISTments in 63 schools in North Carolina in the US. 32 treatment schools implemented ASSISTments in 7th-grade math class- rooms. Recently, we conducted a follow-up analysis to measure the long-term effects of ASSISTments on student performance one year after the intervention, when the students were in 8th grade. The initial results suggested that implement- ing ASSISTments in 7th grade improved students’ performance in 8th grade and minority students benefited more from the intervention.
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National Trends in the Formal Content Preparation of US Science Teachers: Implications of Out-of-Field Teaching for Student Outcomes
This study used nationally representative data from the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (8th-grade Science) and the 2018 National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education toward two primary purposes: (a) to examine the association between teachers’ formal (university) content preparation in science and student outcomes in science, and (b) to document the prevalence and locality of Out-of-Field (OoF) science teaching in the US. The relationship between teachers’ formal science preparation and students’ 8th-grade science outcomes was mixed across science disciplines with a statistically significant association being observed for students’ earth science outcomes. Teachers’ experience teaching science and access to science instructional materials/kits were more strongly associated with student outcomes than was their formal content preparation, with statistically significant associations observed for all student outcomes (physical science, life science, and earth science). The prevalence of OoF science teaching was higher in middle schools than in high schools, as well as more frequently occurring in historically lower achieving and impoverished educational contexts.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1642413
- PAR ID:
- 10161827
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Science Teacher Education
- ISSN:
- 1046-560X
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 12
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1080/1046560X.2020.1762992
