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Four deans of instruction in small, rural junior colleges and four deans of instruction in large, urban junior colleges were interviewed, and faculty members from the small junior colleges were surveyed, in order to ascertain their opinions regarding faculty development procedures. It was found that: (1) deans felt in-service workshops to be essential while faculty were generally unconvinced as to the usefulness of such workshops; (2) consultants were felt to be useful by both deans and faculty; (3) varying methods of faculty evaluation were used, and in the small colleges the deans played a personal role in the evaluation process while in the large colleges where evaluation procedures were more systematic the deans' role was less important; (4) deans in small colleges tended to favor faculty exchange programs while deans in large colleges had reservations as to the utility of such a practice; (5) tangible recognition for teaching excellence or outstanding service was almost unanimously approved by both faculty and deans; (6) faculty and deans approved of community involvement/service as a means of faculty development; and (7) overall, while there was no great difference in the opinions of faculty members and deans' perceptions as to the deans' role in the faculty development process, there seemed to be a nominal breakdown in communications resulting in some unnecessary misunderstandings. An extensive bibliography and the survey instruments are appended. (JDS)

Findings of this study indicate that preservice teachers engaged in student teaching tend to become less humanistic and more authoritarian in their relations with students as the student teaching experience progresses. In addition, inner-city student teachers tend to be more custodial before they begin student teaching than are suburban student teachers after they complete student teaching. The sample for the study consisted of fifty-eight secondary school student teachers in suburban schools and twenty-seven secondary student teachers in inner-city schools. Subjects were administered the Pupil Control Ideology Inventory Questionnaire during prestudent teaching orientation and again during the last week of student teaching. Survey results indicate that student teachers tend to enter student teaching with an idealistic and sometimes erroneous concept of what is involved regarding discipline maintenance in the classroom, thus undergoing a marked change toward more dominant classroom control forms as the experience progresses. The more stringent screening process for student teachers in inner-city schools appears to account in part for the finding that these student teachers are more custodial before they begin student teaching than are suburban student teachers after they complete student teaching. (MB)

University faculty responsibilities include teaching, research, and service. The authors' study aspired to ask faculty their opinions of their experiences while serving on standing committees to better understand the thoughts behind the culture and make suggestions for improvement to the university. An IRB permit 22-0566 was obtained from our institution through the Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects. A nine-question survey consisting of Likert-style and open-ended questions was delivered through the online survey method, Qualtrics, to 234 persons. Participants consisted of faculty educators. Faculty offered suggestions for the overall improvement on placing higher value on committee service.

Massive online user review platforms, with their star ratings and text reviews, are reshaping the information available for consumer and public service decisions. We study the leading K-12 schooling platform, GreatSchools, applying machine learning (Natural Language Processing, NLP) to 600,000 reviews that encompass the vast majority of the nation's traditional public, charter, and private schools (84,009 schools in total), supplemented with qualitative analysis of a subsample of reviews. Encompassing more than fifty million words of text, our initial analysis pre-specified eight broad topics and 27 sub-topics and coded review words into these categories. We find that parents write the vast majority of reviews and tend to write more about School Staff and School Culture than students. More generally, text reviews vary in important ways across user types (parents, students, teachers, principals), school sector (traditional public, charter, and private schools), grade level, and demographics. The partial correlation between topics and star ratings also differs across user types and sectors. Taken together, these results suggest that user reviews are less useful than they appear and less useful than with other kinds of products. Our analysis points to design features that might improve their usefulness. The variation in content and value of the reviews also has methodological implications as it shows how NLP can complement qualitative research methods with such large volumes of text.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is the proactive concept of creating a student-focused learning environment that meets students' variable needs. This qualitative phenomenological study interviewed five active graduate education faculty members on their knowledge and resource support with UDL initiatives. Findings included a variety of knowledge sources for UDL and inclusive initiatives, support services, and constraints on multiple levels. Discussion includes themes of faculty desire to promote and support inclusivity, UDL and professional licensure examination incongruencies, and the grassroots nature of UDL initiatives. Implications for practice include adopting UDL on a larger scale, designing flexible licensure exams, and recognizing and addressing student needs holistically.

This research study aims to explore the current state of EFL student teacher education programmes in preparing teachers to teach English to students with special educational needs (SEN) in Egypt and other Arab-speaking countries, and subsequently, to propose a framework for preparing English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers to teach students with SEN in Egypt based on experiences in Egypt and other Arab-speaking countries. This involves identifying the main challenges and needs of EFL student teachers and their educators in relation to teaching English to students with SEN in Egypt based on experiences in other Arab-speaking countries along with the existing policies and practices that support or hinder the implementation of inclusive education for EFL learners with SEN in Arab-speaking countries in general and Egypt in particular. The proposed framework is based on a review of the literature on inclusive education (IE) and foreign language teaching for SEN learners, as well as semi-structured interviews with 50 EFL teacher educators from seven Egyptian universities. The study identifies three main components of the framework: (1) developing general and pedagogical knowledge and skills of EFL teachers to cater for the diverse needs of SEN learners, (2) enhancing self-efficacy beliefs and positive attitudes of EFL teachers towards IE and SEN learners, and (3) incorporating relevant information and communication technology (ICT) tools to support EFL teaching and learning for SEN learners. The paper also discusses the challenges and implications of implementing the framework in the Arab context, especially in Egypt, and suggests directions for future research. [This paper was published in "CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education" v88 n1 p287-316 2024.]

This report sets out the findings of the technical development work completed as part of the Use Cases for Generative AI in Education project, commissioned by the Department for Education (DfE) in September 2023. It has been published alongside the User Research Report, which sets out the findings from the ongoing user engagement activity conducted as part of this project. As part of exploratory work by DfE into the use of Generative AI within education, Faculty has built a bespoke AI-powered tool to demonstrate the potential of using Large Language Models (LLMs) for a specific use case. The tool is a proof of concept (PoC), limited to just the evaluation of Year 4 Literacy work, however, its design acts as a good approximation for other bespoke or open-source tooling that an institution could feasibly set up for its staff or pupils.

The goal of Smithsonian Science for North and South Carolina Classrooms was to provide teachers with ongoing, differentiated professional development and research-based curricular materials to improve elementary student achievement in science, mathematics, and reading. This work used an inquiry-based science curriculum, Smithsonian Science for the Classroom, which is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), and was implemented in Grades 3-5 within predominantly rural North and South Carolina school districts serving high-needs students. The Center for Research in Educational Policy (CREP) at the University of Memphis, a State of Tennessee Center of Excellence, was the independent third-party evaluator. CREP implemented a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) to collect and analyze data using a rigorous, mixed-methods approach, including quantitative analyses of student achievement data from the Stanford-10 and state assessments, and qualitative analyses of classroom observation data, as well as teacher feedback from professional development surveys, module logs, and focus groups. For this study, 36 schools (including one split cohort being treated as one school) in seven districts within North and South Carolina were randomly assigned to treatment and comparison groups. The study cohort, followed over three academic years (2020-21 through 2022-23), was composed of more than 1,600 third grade (2020-21) students in these schools. In the comparison condition, schools used their business-as-usual science curricula and teacher professional development and did not receive Smithsonian Science curricular materials or professional development. As the pretests for achievement outcomes, students took the Abbreviated Battery of the Stanford Achievement Test Series, Tenth Edition (Stanford-10) in Reading and Math in spring of 2021 (the cohort's third grade year). The main findings and posttests included the combined sample (i.e., both states combined) for (a) the Stanford-10 Science subtest, which was administered in the spring of 2023 (the cohort's fifth grade year), and (b) spring 2023 standardized state assessment scores in Reading and Math. Using a hierarchical linear model (HLM) with school as a random effect, the analysis of the effect of Smithsonian Science for the three main findings after several years of disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic was (a) positive (g = 0.18) and statistically significant (p = 0.032) on the Stanford-10 science assessment and (b) positive for both Reading (g = 0.10) and Math (g = 0.16), meaning students in the treatment group performed better than the control group, but the effects were not statistically significant. Teachers were generally positive in terms of the professional development provided, and feedback on the module logs largely supported the effectiveness of the professional development and fidelity of implementation. Classroom observations further supported the effectiveness of the professional development and fidelity to inquiry-based practices in treatment classrooms (e.g., use of experiential hands-on learning and level of class time dedicated to inquiry-based science). With instructional time for science lagging other subject areas, and as learning recovery in reading and math after COVID-19 receive national attention, the results demonstrate that ongoing, differentiated, high-quality professional learning and high-quality instructional materials for science instruction can support student achievement in science, math, and reading.

Each year, SC TEACHER administers the SC Teacher Exit Survey to public K-12 classroom teachers who are not renewing their teaching contracts. The survey is designed to offer insights into how working conditions and other factors relate to teachers' decisions to either teach in another school district or leave the classroom. This report highlights the SC Teacher Exit Survey results for the 2023-24 academic year. The SC Teacher Exit Survey is designed to categorize teachers into different types of mobility based on their professional choices and circumstances.

This volume serves as a companion to the "Lessons from the First Statewide Family Engagement Centers: Alignment with Federal Priorities and Factors Influencing Implementation" report. The report focuses on the Statewide Family Engagement Centers (SFEC) program and provides insights into its implementation and alignment with federal priorities on family engagement. This appendix provides additional information to supplement the main report, with its content referenced throughout the report. Appendix A presents the study design and analysis. Appendix B includes supporting and supplemental tables that provide additional information about the SFEC program and its implementation.

This report describes the implementation efforts of the first grantees under the Statewide Family Engagement Centers (SFEC) and how they aligned with program priorities. Begun in 2018, SFEC is one of the key U.S. Department of Education programs designed to address disparities in family engagement in schools. The program provides grants to selected partnerships of education organizations and their states to deliver services and disseminate technical assistance resources to further family-school engagement. The study was designed to provide early lessons about the program, including the extent to which implementation reflected the 2018 federal emphasis on providing services directly to families and schools, using specific approaches, topics, and ways of collaborating among partners, and serving mostly disadvantaged families and districts with high concentrations of students from such families. The study also examined the factors that influenced grantee implementation, including challenges in carrying out their program efforts that coincided with the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and immediately after.

Considered one of the nation's most comprehensive statewide principal development initiatives, the primary purpose of the Missouri Leadership Development System (MLDS) is to develop and support effective school leaders. R12CC employed a mixed-methods design for this evaluation by collecting both quantitative and qualitative data to address overarching research questions. The evaluation examined areas such as educators' overall perceptions of MLDS, the extent to which MLDS supports principals to address leadership challenges, and how principals' perceptions of MLDS differ by school CSI (Comprehensive Support and Improvement) status, community type (city, suburban, or rural), race/ethnicity, years of experience with MLDS, and RPDC (Regional Professional Development Center) region. From 2018-19 to 2023-24, principals and superintendents believed MLDS effectively facilitates the professional growth of school leaders in Missouri. Mentors and teachers also indicated MLDS contributes to improvement in classroom instruction and student learning. Findings from this study help the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to continue to deepen its support to an increasingly larger number of school leaders.

This report draws on insight from a nationally representative survey of schools in England, a convenience sample of nearly 1,500 supply teachers and qualitative research with 60 supply teachers, 22 leaders, and seven supply teacher providers conducted in 2023. It explores individuals' motivations for entering the supply market, along with the reasons schools use supply teachers and the ways in which they are deployed. Current models for the procurement, management and professional development of supply teachers are also examined.

The use of four-day school weeks (4dsw) in the United States has expanded rapidly over the past two decades. Previous work examines the impact of 4dsw on student outcomes, but little research to date examines the effect on school employees even though schools in some locales have adopted 4dsw to recruit and retain staff. This paper examines the effect of 4dsw adoption in Oregon, a state with widespread 4dsw use, on teacher and other school staff retention by leveraging a staggered roll-out of the schedule using a difference-in-differences design. We find that adopting a four-day week increased turnover among teachers, but that turnover among non-teaching staff was largely unaffected. The findings suggest that policymakers interested in implementing 4dsw for improved school employee retention should exercise caution and be attentive to the full set of incentives offered to staff.

The Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE) complements the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). FSSE measures faculty members' expectations of student engagement in educational practices that are empirically linked with high levels of learning and development. The survey also collects information about how faculty members spend their time on professorial activities, such as teaching and scholarship, and what kinds of learning experiences their institutions emphasize. This overview provides general information about the institutions and faculty members that participated in the 2024 FSSE administration, and highlights ways institutions can use their results to identify areas of institutional strength, as well as aspects of the undergraduate experience that may warrant attention.

From September 2023 to March 2024, Faculty AI, the National Institute of Teaching (NIoT) and ImpactEd Group (representing the AI in Schools Initiative) have worked with the Department for Education (DfE) to deliver the Use Cases for Generative Artificial Intelligence in Education project. The project explored potential applications for Generative AI (GenAI) in the education sector as part of a wider effort to 'transform a teacher's day to day work' -- reducing workload and improving educational outcomes by automating routine tasks. The project team ran 4 work-streams at different stages of the project: pre-hackathons user engagement; delivery of the hackathons; build and testing of the PoC; and user research. This report sets out the user research findings of the project and has been published alongside the Technical Report which details the experimentation and technical development work conducted as part of the project.

The Mastery-Based Learning Collaborative (MBLC) is a demonstration project taking place in 47 schools across Washington to help decision makers understand what quality mastery-based (or competency-based) learning looks like, how long it takes to implement, and what resources are necessary. The schools receive funding, coaching, and professional learning as part of a statewide network. In its first three years, the initiative has led to deeper Mastery-Based Learning (MBL) implementation and has shown positive impacts on early outcomes such as school climate, cultural responsiveness, and student engagement. Almost all school leaders said they would recommend the MBLC to other school leaders. The Aurora Institute is conducting a six-year evaluation of the MBLC to identify policies, practices, and system changes that can support successful mastery-based and culturally responsive learning. The report shares findings from the first three years of the first cohort of MBLC schools, based on extensive surveys and interviews of educators, school leaders, students, state leaders, and professional learning providers. This evaluation report offers insights and strategies for anyone working to shift K-12 schools, districts, and states toward more student-centered, equitable, and culturally responsive approaches.

This paper reports findings from a nationally representative survey of K-12 teachers in May 2023 that examines the potential long-term impacts of COVID-19 on public schooling. The findings suggest fundamental ways in which school operations, instructional practice and parent-teacher interaction have changed since the pandemic. Some changes seem promising; others suggest caution. While policymakers may not be able to directly influence some of the reported changes in the short run, monitoring the evolution of school practices (and their consequences for children) will position educational leaders to help teachers and students address the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic going forward.

High-dosage tutoring-defined as consistently scheduled tutorials during the school day in which students work with a trained tutor in small groups (for example, four students to one tutor) at least three times per week--is among the most promising educational interventions for improving student learning. Despite their appeal, high-dosage tutoring programs can be challenging to deliver; in particular, research has shown that it is difficult to ensure that students participate in the expected number of tutoring sessions per week. Students can only benefit from tutoring interventions if they are able to attend. The Personalized Learning Initiative (PLI)--led by the University of Chicago Education Lab in collaboration with MDRC--seeks to understand how school districts can expand the benefits of high-dosage tutoring (and more affordable alternatives). This brief elevates the perspectives of school staff members and tutors at schools that are part of PLI. Hearing from people who are directly involved in the delivery of tutoring programs can bring to the surface new and innovative ideas and can help to ensure that those ideas are feasible for school staff members to implement. During the 2022-2023 school year, the PLI research team conducted an implementation study in two urban school districts--Chicago Public Schools and Fulton County Schools in Georgia--to explore how participating elementary, middle, and high schools implemented high-dosage tutoring programs during the school day. The research team fielded surveys and conducted semistructured interviews with school staff members and tutors who were involved with high-dosage tutoring programs. This brief is based on surveys from 30 schools and interviews from a subsample of 18 schools. Drawing on staff members' insights, the brief offers recommendations that schools and district offices can use to help students receive the intended amount of their school-day tutoring programs. [The Personalized Learning Initiative receives substantial support from Accelerate--The National Collaborative for Accelerated Learning, which is supported by Citadel founder and CEO Kenneth C. Griffin and Griffin Catalyst, Arnold Ventures, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Overdeck Family Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation. Additional funding comes from the AbbVie Foundation, Crown Family Philanthropies, Citadel founder and CEO Kenneth C. Griffin and Griffin Catalyst, IMC Chicago Charitable Foundation, and Vivo Foundation.]

These are the appendixes for the report, "Strengthening the Pennsylvania School Climate Survey to Inform School Decisionmaking." This study analyzed Pennsylvania School Climate Survey data from students and staff in the 2021/22 school year to assess the validity and reliability of the elementary school student version of the survey; approaches to scoring the survey in individual schools at all grade levels; and perceptions of school climate across student, staff, and school groups. The three appendixes in the document include: (1) Data and methods; (2) Supplemental findings; and (3) Additional findings.

This study analyzed Pennsylvania School Climate Survey data from students and staff in the 2021/22 school year to assess the validity and reliability of the elementary school student version of the survey; approaches to scoring the survey in individual schools at all grade levels; and perceptions of school climate across student, staff, and school groups. The survey encourages data-informed efforts in participating Pennsylvania schools to foster supportive learning environments that promote social and emotional wellness for students and staff. The study validated the elementary school student survey but found that one domain--safe and respectful school climate--did not meet the reliability threshold and thus suggests that revisions are needed. At all grade levels noninstructional staff had the most positive perceptions of school climate, followed by classroom teachers then students. The study found that different approaches to combining the school climate scores of students, teachers, and noninstructional staff within schools yielded slightly different distributions of school climate summary index scores. It also found that different performance category thresholds resulted in similar distributions of schools across categories. Scores calculated using simple averages were strongly and positively correlated with scores calculated using a more complex approach (Rasch models), suggesting that both approaches deliver similar information. School climate scores varied across student groups (defined by race/ethnicity, gender, and grade level) within schools and across school groups. Larger schools and schools with higher percentages of Black students tended to have lower school climate scores than other schools. The findings can inform the Pennsylvania Department of Education's decisionmaking on revisions to the elementary school student survey, approaches to scoring and reporting survey results, and efforts to increase participation in future survey administrations.

Research has shown that teacher beliefs shape classroom dynamics, influence student performance, and drive achievement disparities, especially across racial and socioeconomic lines. However, interventions can help mitigate these beliefs and empower teachers to raise expectations for all students, creating growth-focused, inclusive environments. This resource is a research base that focuses on equitable student outcomes through an exploration of teacher expectations and their profound impact on student success.

This report explores the dramatic increase in Head Start teacher turnover during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from the Head Start Program Information Report (PIR) from 2010 to 2022, the study investigates trends in teacher turnover across all Head Start program types and examines the reasons behind teacher departures. The report finds that teacher turnover surged significantly in both 2020-21 and 2021-22, with the 2021-22 year experiencing a particularly sharp increase exceeding 28% of teachers. Turnover rates varied by program type, with Early Head Start programs exhibiting higher turnover than traditional Head Start programs, and American Indian Alaska Native (AIAN) Early Head Start programs seeing the highest rate at 37.1%. The study reveals that compensation remains the most common reason cited for teachers' departures, both before and during the pandemic. However, COVID-19 related factors also emerged as prominent reasons for departure. This research underscores the urgent need to address the challenges of teacher turnover in the Head Start sector, particularly in the wake of the pandemic. The report advocates for policy initiatives aimed at improving teacher retention through enhanced compensation.

Tempe PRE was designed as a high-quality preschool program to create more opportunity for children in Tempe. In the 2021-2022 school year, NORC at the University of Chicago conducted an evaluation of Tempe PRE to understand how the program was being implemented and its effects on children and families. They also collected students' outcome data the following year once they entered kindergarten to measure impacts on achievement compared to a control group. This evaluation documented the successful early installation of a high-quality preschool program that was designed to provide novel access to children from low-income households who would not otherwise have had such an opportunity in their community. Through close collaboration among multiple local government and philanthropic partners, and with a strong, common commitment to quality, the Tempe PRE program was structured and implemented with key components hypothesized to produce positive child outcomes.

Although the use of social networks, especially Facebook, has become a common practice among educational communities in Egypt, studies have yet to explore the online practices of in-service (language) teachers as part of Continuing Professional Development (hereafter CPD). Therefore, this study investigated English language teachers' informal online professional development that may include some types of language learning for improving their pedagogical content knowledge. It also explored differences between teachers' perceived use of Facebook as a venue of CPD. This study employed a mixed-method design, collecting qualitative and quantitative data via content analysis and a questionnaire. The participants were 180 English-language Egyptian in-service teachers. The qualitative analysis of teacher's posts demonstrates that CPD informal groups, as maintained by Egyptian EFL teachers, display different aspects of professional knowledge. Results showed that the data yielded seven main categories: General Pedagogical Knowledge (PK), Content Knowledge (CK), L2 Pedagogical Content Knowledge, Knowledge of L2 Learners, Knowledge of Educational context and Knowledge of (professional) self and miscellaneous topics. Besides, ANOVA's Welch test indicated significant differences in the means of the sum scores of the questionnaire as well as two sub-domains (PK and CK) among primary, preparatory and secondary teachers in some aspects, such as pronunciation and vocabulary. This study concludes that CPD Facebook groups provide wide options and spaces for continuous learning and informal study for EFL teachers. Pedagogical implications and recommendations for further research were suggested. [This paper was published in "CDELT Occasional Papers in the Development of English Education" v87 2024.]