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Half of all infants and toddlers receive care in nonparental settings, such as centers and family child care (FCC) homes. On average, infants and toddlers spend more hours per week in care than preschoolers do. Yet infant-toddler care has been identified as lower quality than care for older children, suggesting that professional development (PD) for caregivers could improve care and interactions. Available research on coaching and PD has focused on teachers for preschool or school-age children, with very few studies examining PD strategies for infant-toddler caregivers. The goal of this brief is to describe the implementation of the We Grow Together (WGT) Professional Development System during a field test conducted in late fall 2018 to spring 2019. WGT is a research-based PD system for caregivers working with infants and toddlers in center-based care and FCCs. The field test examined implementation with teachers and caregivers of infants and toddlers and their PD providers in Early Head Start, FCCs, and community-based child care settings.

This report summarizes the practices and findings of the pilot year of Student-Centered Assessment Network (SCAN), which used real-time testing to determine effective and engaging classroom assessment practices for students. Data gathered through quality assessment can be used by teachers to support their students' needs, as well as by students themselves to take ownership of their learning. This report covers some of the major shifts in classroom practice teachers saw as a result of participation in SCAN, as well as some of the challenges in shifting towards more student-centered assessment practices. The end of the report delves into some of the adjustments suggested to refine future versions of the network.

This report provides a description of the development process, field testing, and psychometric properties of the fall 2015 grades 3-5 Elementary Mathematics Student Assessment (EMSA), a student mathematics test designed to be administered in a whole-group setting to students in grades 3, 4, and 5. The test was administered to 2,614 participating grade 3, 4, and 5 students in 266 classrooms located in 10 public school districts in Florida during fall 2015. Focused on number (including whole number and fractions), operations, and algebraic thinking, the student assessment was designed to serve as a baseline measure of student achievement for use as a covariate in a randomized controlled trial evaluating the impact of a teacher professional development program on student learning. [This report was prepared by the Florida Center for Research in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (FCR-STEM) within the Learning Systems Institute.]

This report provides a description of the development process, field testing, and psychometric properties of a student mathematics test designed to assess grades K, 1, and 2 student abilities. The test was administered to 4,486 participating grade K, 1, and 2 students in 67 schools located in 10 public school districts in Florida during fall 2015. Focused on counting, word problems, and computation, the student assessment was designed to serve as a baseline measure of student achievement for use as a covariate in a randomized controlled trial evaluating the impact of a teacher professional development program called Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) on student learning.

This report provides a description of the development process, field testing, and psychometric properties of a student mathematics test designed to assess grades K, 1, and 2 student abilities. The test was administered to 4,535 participating grade K, 1, and 2 students in 66 schools located in 9 public school districts in Florida during spring 2016. Focused on number, operations, and equality, the student assessment was designed to serve as a baseline measure of student achievement in a randomized controlled trial evaluating the impact of a teacher professional development program called Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) on student learning.

Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) Operational Study 4 Component 3 was designed to compare performance on PARCC mathematics field-test items for grade 3 taken with and without a drawing tool. For the 2016 testing window, five field-test items were selected to have the directions edited to allow students to provide a drawing as part of responses and directions on how to include a drawing. For those students, using the drawing tool was optional, and a drawing was not required for earning full credit. The standard variant of these items did not include the directions or the tool option. Both variants were included in the embedded online field-test forms to determine if there was a significant difference in performance. If no significant differences were found, then there would be evidence to allow the inclusion of the drawing response interaction on existing items. All mathematics items available to be embedded into the Spring 2016 forms were reviewed and approved by PARCC. No new items were created for this study, only variant items with modified direction lines. This report summarizes the quantitative and qualitative evidence bearing on the comparability of the study items administered with and without a drawing tool.

Between March and June of 2014, the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium conducted a field test of its new online assessment system. Thirteen participating states provided the results of surveys given to students and adults involved in the Field Test. Overall, more than 70% of test coordinators in each of seven states indicated that the Field Test had gone either as well as or better than expected, and most students (an average of 67% across 5 states) found the test interface "easy" or "very easy" to use. Several important lessons emerged to inform final preparations this fall and winter. In addition, the surveys indicate that states need to continue their work to help teachers align instruction with the increased rigor that college and career readiness standards require.

Since the 1999-2000 school year, TAP: The System for Teacher and Student Advancement (TAP) has been implemented in hundreds of schools across the nation and demonstrated an ability to raise student achievement, improve the quality of instruction and increase the ability of high-need schools to recruit, retain and support effective teachers. The TAP system has been implemented in schools across nearly 20 states in urban, suburban, rural, and tribal districts, as well as at the elementary, middle, junior, and high school levels. Throughout TAP's fifteen year history, much information has been learned with regard to the most effective and efficient method to ensure high fidelity implementation. As the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET) continues to expand their partnerships with schools, this document specifically examines their lessons learned for implementation procedures at the high school level. In the fall 2013, NIET held a High School Summit meeting, including principals and teachers from across the nation among our partnering schools, who have experience implementing the TAP system in high school environments. At this Summit, a series of conversations and breakout sessions were used to identify common issues and the effective solutions for implementing TAP in a high school. Among the topics discussed, the participants organized their conversations around three implementation themes and offered eleven solutions. Each of these topics is detailed throughout this document. The first theme that emerged from the discussion centered on cluster groups, where the Summit attendees identified four common challenges and offered a wealth of key solutions to address those issues. Additionally, the Summit attendees discussed the role of field testing at the high school level, noting the challenges of identifying whether the same strategy should be used across content areas or if different strategies should be used; determining which benchmarks are selected; differentiating across grade levels and various content levels within content areas (i.e. algebra/ geometry); and using student work to monitor student achievement gains. The attendees also identified and discussed multiple solutions to each of these challenges. Finally, the group discussed the role of Follow-Up at the high school level to address the challenges regarding scheduling; pedagogy and content; and perceptions. The group also identified and discussed multiple solutions to each of these challenges. This report details the findings from this High School Summit, including the most common issues and the multiple solutions for each issue. Following the themes discussed by the participants, the report is separated into key sections and explores why these issues are different at the high school level and captures the experiences of the experts involved in the Summit. [Contributors to this report included: Gary E. Stark, Jason Culbertson, Keith Wilson, Jennifer Oliver, Monique Wild, and Jessica Alexander.]

States with an alternate assessment based on modified achievement standards (AA-MAS) that received a flexibility waiver from some of the requirements of No Child Left Behind are required to phase out their use of this assessment. And, on August 23, 2013, the U.S. Department of Education published a proposed rollback of regulation that allowed the AA-MAS. Not all states developed an AA-MAS. Sixteen states offered this optional assessment between 2011 and 2013. Many, but not all of these states, also belonged to one of the two Race to the Top Assessment (RTTA) consortia that are developing new general assessments--the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (Smarter Balanced). This Brief addresses the need for consortia to assist their member states in moving away from the AA-MAS. It focuses on key considerations for consortia as they address the inclusion of low-performing students in all member states, informed by the lessons learned from the AA-MAS. Topics highlighted in this brief are: including low-performing students in field test designs, customizing non-summative assessments to include low-performing students, and collecting and examining data on this group of students. [Contributors to the writing of this Brief were Laurene Christensen, Sheryl Lazarus, Vitaliy Shyyan, and Martha Thurlow.]

Much of modern biology has become increasingly chemical in character. Not surprisingly, students often have trouble understanding key ideas in biology because they lack foundational chemistry ideas. AAAS and BSCS are collaborating to develop and study a curriculum unit that supports students' ability to explain a variety of biological processes involving growth in chemical terms. The unit provides conceptual coherence between chemical processes in nonliving and living systems through the core idea of atom rearrangement and conservation during chemical reactions, which is critical for understanding how growth occurs while conserving matter. An initial draft of the unit was pilot tested at two schools in 2011. The results of the pilot test were used to revise the unit. In the spring of 2012, the revised unit and teacher materials was field tested. In this paper we will describe the iterative development process and the research that supports it. We will describe the Year 2 curriculum and, specifically, highlight how the curriculum enacts its four key design principles. Selected findings will be discussed that informed subsequent revisions during the final year of the project. (Contains 8 tables.)

AAAS and BSCS are collaborating to develop and study a curriculum unit that supports students' ability to explain a variety of biological processes such as growth in chemical terms. The unit provides conceptual coherence between chemical processes in nonliving and living systems through the core idea of atom rearrangement and conservation during chemical reactions, which is critical for understanding how growth occurs while conserving matter. Abundant evidence in the literature suggests that many middle school teachers lack adequate science preparation, but even teachers with excellent science content knowledge often lack pedagogical skills necessary to effectively use research-based curricular materials. Thus, we consider teacher support materials and professional development (PD) to be a critical component of this intervention. We will describe the design of teacher support materials and professional development to support teachers' implementation of the curriculum through developing their knowledge and skills in the areas of Content Coherence and Pedagogical Support for Student Learning. In the context of face-to-face and online interactions with the curriculum unit, teachers learn about science content, student ideas, and strategies for teaching the content and curriculum effectively. This paper reports on the iterative development of the suite of teacher support materials and PD, highlights of key features, findings of our Year 2 field test, and implications of those findings for future revisions. (Contains 7 tables and 3 figures.)

This report presents the appendices to the report of the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education's (NRCCTE's) five-year collaboration with the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) to develop an induction model for new career and technical education (CTE) teachers pursuing an alternative route to certification that increases their competence, self-efficacy, and retention. CTE teachers who enter the profession through alternative routes are more likely to feel confident about their knowledge of their career field but less confident about their ability to convey that knowledge to students. Many alternatively certified CTE teachers express concern regarding classroom management, student motivation, and planning instruction for special needs students. As this report outlines, research indicates that alternatively certified teachers need professional development in planning, instructional methods, assessment, and how to support struggling students. Alternatively certified CTE teachers also need feedback about their work, strategies for managing added demands on their time and energy, and resources for planning and teaching. In response to these needs, this field-tested induction model builds the capacity of beginning CTE teachers to offer instruction that is both intellectually demanding and standards-focused and thus more likely to improve CTE students' academic achievement. The model also builds CTE teachers' capacity to design instruction that is actively engaging using strategies like project-based learning and cooperative learning. Students who are actively engaged intellectually and emotionally in their high school courses are more likely to stay in school, acquire their high school diplomas in four years, and enter postsecondary institutions without the need for remediation. [For the full report, see ED574498. For the executive summary, see ED574499.]

This report presents the results of the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education's (NRCCTE's) five-year collaboration with the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) to develop an induction model for new career and technical education (CTE) teachers pursuing an alternative route to certification that increases their competence, self-efficacy, and retention. CTE teachers who enter the profession through alternative routes are more likely to feel confident about their knowledge of their career field but less confident about their ability to convey that knowledge to students. Many alternatively certified CTE teachers express concern regarding classroom management, student motivation, and planning instruction for special needs students. As this report outlines, research indicates that alternatively certified teachers need professional development in planning, instructional methods, assessment, and how to support struggling students. Alternatively certified CTE teachers also need feedback about their work, strategies for managing added demands on their time and energy, and resources for planning and teaching. In response to these needs, this field-tested induction model builds the capacity of beginning CTE teachers to offer instruction that is both intellectually demanding and standards-focused and thus more likely to improve CTE students' academic achievement. The model also builds CTE teachers' capacity to design instruction that is actively engaging using strategies like project-based learning and cooperative learning. Students who are actively engaged intellectually and emotionally in their high school courses are more likely to stay in school, acquire their high school diplomas in four years, and enter postsecondary institutions without the need for remediation. The appendices listed in the table of contents for this report are presented in a separate document. [For the executive summary, see ED574499. For the appendices, see ED574500.]

This report describes the methodologies and results of the third follow-up Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002/12) field test which was conducted in the summer of 2011. The field test report is divided into six chapters: (1) Introduction; (2) Field Test Survey Design and Preparation; (3) Data Collection Procedures and Results; (4) Field Test Questionnaire Timing and Data Quality; (5) Survey Control Systems and Data Processing; and (6) Summary of Recommendations for the Full-scale Study. The following are appended: (1) Technical Review Panel Summary; (2) ELS:2002 Data Collection Materials; (3) Third Follow-up Field Test Questionnaire; (4) ELS:2002 Cognitive Testing Reports, 2010 and 2011; (5) ELS:2002 Scale Reliability Analyses; and (6) ELS:2002 Third Follow-up Field Test Codebooks.

The Inclusive Classroom Profile (ICP) was developed in response to a lack of validated instruments designed specifically to measure the quality of inclusive practices, and it is based on research evidence on the effectiveness of specialized instructional strategies for meeting the individual needs of children in inclusive settings (Odom, 2004; National Professional Development Center on Inclusion, 2011; Buysse and Hollingsworth, 2009). The ICP has been used in a pilot study in the United Kingdom with promising results for the measure's reliability and validity (Soukakou, in press). The purpose of this study was to conduct the first USA demonstration study leading to validation. The measure was field tested in 51 inclusive settings in North Carolina. The following are the preliminary results from this demonstration study: (1) The measure has acceptable inter-rater agreement, is internally consistent, and shows a good factor structure; (2) Correlations with another measure of global classroom quality (ECERS-R) provided initial evidence for construct validity; and (3) Assessors reported the measure to be feasible and easy to use. (Contains 1 footnote.) [Additional funding for this paper was provided by the NC Rated License Assessment Project, the Division of Child Development and Early Education; and the NC Department of Public Instruction, Exceptional Children.]

This paper describes the design and preliminary results regarding the testing of the Good Behavior Game in schools that vary in their proportion of Latinos and the use of bilingual instruction. The authors discuss how working with multicultural schools/school district has influenced the design, intervention and training, data collection, and analytic approaches of a randomized field trial testing the impact of GBG under various models of professional development for teachers. They will also present preliminary impact results from the first cohort (from school year 2010-2011). (Contains 4 tables.) [This work is jointly supported by IES grant R305A090446 (PI Poduska), NIDA grant R01 DA030452 (PI Poduska), NIMH grant R01MH040859 (PI Brown), and NIDA grant P30DA027828 (PI Brown).]

The POWERSOURCE[C] intervention is intended as a generalizable and powerful formative assessment strategy that can be integrated with any on-going mathematics curriculum to improve teachers' knowledge and practice and, in turn, student learning. Combining theory and research in cognition, assessment and learning (for both adults and students) with design elements to support the transformation of practice within existing constraints, POWERSOURCE[C] includes both a system of learning-based assessments and an infrastructure to support teachers' use of those assessments to improve student learning. The current study focuses on middle school mathematics, starting in grade 6, and on helping to assure that students possess key understandings they need for success in Algebra I. Such a focus is motivated by ample research showing the frequency and price of failure for subsequent academic performance, including high school graduation, college entry and preparation (e.g., Brown & Niemi, 2007). The author and her colleagues' primary research objectives are based on their hypotheses that as a result of POWERSOURCE[C], teachers will become more proficient in their subject matter knowledge, more skilled in their formative use of assessment, and better focus their instruction on key ideas, and, as a result, will be more effective in helping students to improve their understanding, as shown by measures of student learning. Ultimately, they expect the improvements in student understanding to drive better performance on No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandated state tests, transfer measures, and future coursework. This report summarizes some of the key trends found across this qualitative data set. The findings provided some useful information and insights as the implementation continues to move into other schools or districts. (Contains 7 figures and 9 tables.)

Secondary career and technical education (CTE) is a field in transition. It is moving from a primary focus on preparing students for entry-level employment to preparing them for continuing education and training as well as employment. The rapid pace of change in technology and the global economy has created a demand for workers who are able to learn and adapt, and CTE must prepare its students to meet these demands. The National Research Center for Career and Technical Education (NRCCTE) is responding to these developments with a number of projects, some of which are being conducted by its own staff and others that are being directed by institutions that are partners in the NRCCTE consortium. Two of the projects are developing professional development models for improving the skills of secondary CTE teachers. The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) is developing and testing an induction model for alternatively certified teachers; that is, those who have not completed a traditional teacher education program. NOCTI (formerly the National Occupational Competency Testing Institute) is applying its expertise to a professional development model designed to improve the ability of secondary-level CTE teachers and administrators to interpret data from technical skill assessments to improve instruction. An analysis of the field test data provided clear indicators as to changes needed in program materials to meet the needs of alternative route teachers. Many learning activities were revised to fit the audience in order to provide more time for reflection or to clarify content. Field test participants identified key elements of the modules that they felt would be necessary for new teachers prior to entering the classroom, including: (a) the use of rubrics, (b) formative and summative assessment, (c) how to use a table of specifications to align their instructional goals and assessments to technical standards and 21st century skills, (d) getting to know students, (e) engaging students in developing classroom rules and procedures, and (f) classroom management scenarios. Data suggested that three strategies used by program developers were particularly effective in supporting participant learning: (a) use of examples in participants' content areas, (b) use of "floating" one-on-one and small group coaching during cooperative learning segments, and (c) facilitated small group discussion in the afternoon or evening to structure reflection. Field testing on the model will continue through 2012, when the fully-developed model will be ready for rigorous experimental testing. Appendices include: (1) Concept Paper for Instructional Planning Module; (2) Concept Paper for Instructional Strategies Module; (3) Concept Paper for Classroom Assessment Module; (4) Concept Paper for Classroom Management Module; (5) Flowcharts of Module Units and Lessons; (6) Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale Results; (7) Focus Group and Instructor Debrief Protocols; (8) Results of Year 1 Five-State Survey, Summary of Survey Responses; and (9) Material Review Protocol. (Contains 16 tables, 9 figures and 5 footnotes.)

The Multilevel Assessment of Science Standards (MASS) project is creating a new generation of technology-enhanced formative assessments that bring the best formative assessment practices into classrooms to transform what, how, when, and where science learning is assessed. The project is investigating the feasibility, utility, technical quality, and effectiveness of formative assessments, summative assessments and the Learning Management System (LMS) developed in the SimScientists program. The MASS project is funded by IES and has the following goals: (1) Use systematic design principles to create formative assessments with technical quality to be used during (embedded) and at the end of (benchmark) science curriculum units; (2) Use systematic assessment principles to create a coherent, multilevel state science assessment system by aligning (1) the items within the embedded assessments and the items within the benchmark assessments with the student, task, and evidence models used to design them (horizontal alignment), and (2) the designs of the embedded and benchmark assessments and items with state science standards and relevant items on the state science test (vertical articulation); (3) Study the relationship of the formative assessments and activities to student learning; (4) Study the validity of the use of data from the embedded and benchmark assessments for interpreting student performance on the targeted science standards; and (5) Describe the components of the formative assessments and their implementation so that they can serve as scalable models. The pilot test involved 5,867 middle school students in Spring 2010. This population is from a range of small to large schools and districts, including rural, urban, and suburban districts, a variety of ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, and includes English learners and students with disabilities. In the field test, approximately 800 middle school students are participating in Spring 2011; an additional 500-800 middle-school students will participate in Fall 2011. These populations are from a large school district, a variety of ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, and include English learners and students with disabilities. The simulation-based assessments studied in this project could contribute to the coherence, comprehensiveness, and continuity of a state science assessment system. Comprehensiveness would be improved by using simulation-based unit assessments to add measurements of science standards for integrated system knowledge and active inquiry practices. Continuity would be improved by the multiple measures unit benchmark assessments could add to state science assessment reports. Coherence could be forged by a nested set of simulation-based assessments in the form of curriculum-embedded modules for formative uses, unit benchmark assessments for summative proficiency, and use of the unit benchmark data or tasks in district or state science testing. (Contains 4 tables.)

In December 2007, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave MDRC a grant to conduct reconnaissance on promising strategies to reengage disconnected young people and improve their long-term outcomes. The primary objective of the grant was to identify key leverage points for future investment by government and foundations. MDRC consulted with researchers and policy experts, reviewed the results of completed and ongoing evaluations of youth programs, visited a number of innovative youth programs and cities with strong youth strategies, and hosted a meeting of youth practitioners. The goal of the paper's recommendations is to develop a menu of approaches for the heterogeneous population of disconnected youth--analogous in some ways to the multiple pathways that are being developed for high school students. The recommendations fall into two broad categories: building knowledge about mature, existing programs (to better understand whether they work, for whom, and why) and investment in developing and/or scaling up new programs that address areas of unmet need, such as efforts to restructure General Educational Development (GED) preparation programs so that they are more tightly linked with postsecondary programs, both occupational and academic; new "leg-up" strategies for older youth with very low basic skill levels, for whom a GED may not be a realistic goal; and new strategies to engage young people who are more profoundly disconnected and unlikely to volunteer for youth programs. (Contains 3 tables, 2 boxes and 7 footnotes.)

As part of a podcasting initiative at a community college, a student survey was developed. This survey was based upon the work of Janossy (2007) and Evans (2008) and addressed student use of, opinions of and preferences regarding podcasted lectures. The development, field test and field test outcomes of the survey instrument are described. (Contains 7 tables.)

This study reports the preliminary results from a field test of the College-readiness Performance Assessment System (C-PAS), a large-scale, 6th-12th grade criterion-referenced assessment system that utilizes classroom-embedded performance tasks to measure student progress toward the development of key cognitive skills associated with success in college. A sample of 1,795 students completed C-PAS performance tasks in English and mathematics at 13 New York City high schools in grades 9-12 during Fall 2007. The performance tasks were derived from construct maps and "task shells" designed to elicit the key cognitive strategies. Teachers administered the tasks to students and scored the tasks using standardized scoring guides. Preliminary analyses using Item Response Theory (IRT) yielded evidence that C-PAS measures the acquisition of college readiness cognitive thinking skills in both math and English. The study is significant because it suggests that cognitive strategies important to college readiness can be measured discretely and within separate subject areas. Additionally, the study suggests that complex performance assessments can be utilized to systematically contribute useful information on student performance to help improve student learning. This is important given the current search for ways to address some of the limitations of current large-scale testing methods and systems. (Contains 10 tables and 7 figures.)

As the National Assessment Governing Board marks its 20th anniversary, it looks back at its stewardship of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) with understandable pride. NAEP existed for 20 years before the Board was established to provide an independent governance structure for the assessment. During its first two decades, NAEP tested only national and regional samples of students. Its reports were generally considered technically excellent. But while they may have been groundbreaking in the assessment field, they were little noticed and played virtually no role in shaping educational policy or practice. NAEP received little political heat in exchange for casting modest educational light--a tacit trade making NAEP non-controversial and inconsequential. For the past 20 years, the Board has been second-guessed often, but never criticized for politically motivated decisions. The Governing Board's political purity explains why the Board was eventually given the job of developing the Voluntary National Tests (VNT). This paper takes a look at the history of the National Assessment Governing Board and the Voluntary National Tests. Appendices include: (1) Archived Information for Voluntary National Tests; (2) Sec. 447. Prohibition on Federally Sponsored Testing; and (3) Tables about Draft Scenarios for the Proposed Voluntary National Test and (4) Implementation and Other Issues.