Are Virtual Math Manipulatives As Good As Actual Manipulatives?

In this article in Teaching Children Mathematics, Justin Burris (a Texas math coach and University of Houston visiting professor) reports on a study of third graders’ mathematical thinking about place value in the Investigations curriculum. Some students used virtual base-ten blocks (part of an enVision software program) while other students used real base-ten blocks. Researchers…

NYSRSAS Position Paper on

High-Stakes Testing in New York State

As former school administrators/supervisors and residents of school districts in New York, the New York State Retired School Administrators and Supervisors [NYSRSAS] are concerned about the current state of high-stakes testing in our schools.  

It is our position that the impact of current testing on children, teachers, administrators and…

Is It Better to Have a Great Teacher or a Small Class?

Why America's Prep Schools Aren't Following Arne Duncan's Public School Education Reforms

Good+You

Shaun Johnson

http://www.good.is/posts/why-america-s-prep-schools-aren-t-following-arne-duncan-s-public-school-education-reforms

Using Blogs and Twitter to Improve Teaching and Learning

In this Kappan article, William Ferriter (a North Carolina sixth-grade teacher) and Nicholas Provenzano (a Michigan high-school English teacher) sing the praises of the two-way conversation with fellow teachers around the world made possible by blogs and Twitter (Provenzano’s The Nerdy Teacher has almost 30,000 Twitter followers), and the “unconferences” they…

Russ on Reading: The Common Core in English/Language Arts: A Critically Literate Reading

Test, Punish, and Push Out: How "Zero-Tolerance" and High-Stakes Testing Funnel Youth Into the School To Prison Pipeline

A report by The Advancement Project

Advancement Project is an innovative civil rights law, policy, and

communications “action tank” that advances universal…

Universal Design for Assessment

In this article in Better: Evidence-Based Education, Benjamin Lovett (Elmira College) agues that giving students with special needs extra time on tests is not always appropriate. “Giving extended time accommodations is an attractive solution when young people with disabilities perform poorly on school assessments,” says Lovett. “The accommodations can raise performance, and they have also been shown to reduce…

Highly Effective Study Strategies

In this helpful article in American Educator, John Dunlosky (Kent State University) summarizes the research he and several colleagues have done on the most effective methods of studying. [For a more detailed report on this research, see Marshall Memo 470.] It turns out that the strategy used most often by students – reading, re-reading, and highlighting – is one of the least-effective ways to retain…

Finding and Replicating Successful Practices 

In this intriguing Kappan article, Arvind Singhal (University of Texas/El Paso) says that every community has positive deviants – “individuals or groups whose uncommon behaviors and strategies enable them to find better solutions to problems than their peers although everyone has access to the same resources and challenges.” The challenge for change agents is (a) spotting the positive deviants, who…