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  • Study of Deeper Learning: Opportunities and Outcomes
17 Oct 2016
Report

School Features and Student Opportunities for Deeper Learning: What Makes a Difference?

Findings From the Study of Deeper Learning: Opportunities and Outcomes (Report 5 of 5)

Mette Huberman, Helen Duffy, Jessica Mason, Kristina Zeiser, and Jennifer O'Day
The Study of Deeper Learning: Opportunities and Outcomes examines how some schools have provided opportunities for students to acquire deeper learning skills and how these opportunities are related to student outcomes.

The Study of Deeper Learning: Opportunities and Outcomes aimed to determine whether Students attending high schools with a mature and at least moderately well-implemented approach to promoting deeper learning actually experienced different instructional strategies, greater deeper learning opportunities, and better outcomes than they would have had they not attended these schools. The main findings from this study indicated that students in deeper learning network schools did in fact experience different instructional strategies, greater opportunities to engage in deeper learning activities, and more positive results on a range of outcomes than their matched counterparts in comparison sites.

This report extends those main findings by investigating the potential facilitating role of certain school features in schools’ ability to provide deeper learning opportunities for their students. Researchers examined teachers’ survey responses related to their own beliefs about teaching, their assessment of their peers’ professional culture, and their assessment of the success of the principal in providing instructional leadership and program coherence. They then asked whether these features help to explain variation in students’ reports of their opportunities to engage in deeper learning in their core classes.

Key Findings
  • Network schools varied with respect to beliefs about teaching, teachers’ professional culture, and instructional leadership and coherence, as reported by teachers on surveys.
  • Teachers’ reports of their own student-centered beliefs about teaching (i.e., giving students agency in their own learning) and their self-efficacy for teaching (i.e., believing in their capabilities as teachers) were the features most strongly and consistently related to greater student opportunities to engage in deeper learning.
  • By contrast, teacher-centered beliefs about teaching were negatively related to student opportunities.
  • Through interviews, school administrators, teachers, and network staff reported three school-level conditions that facilitated their ability to implement and sustain their approach to deeper learning: teacher collaboration and professional community, school leadership, and support from the network.
  • The most commonly cited barriers to implementation and sustainability were staff burnout and turnover, lack of funding, and state and district policies related to teacher hiring practices and student assessments.
  • In general, while teachers’ own beliefs seemed to have the most consistent and strongest associations with the opportunities students reported experiencing in the classroom, the interview data suggested that other school features and external policies can influence teachers’ beliefs about teaching and about their own teaching skills.

Creative Commons License
School Features and Student Opportunities for Deeper Learning: What Makes a Difference? by Mette Huberman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

PDF icon Report: School Features and Student Opportunities for Deeper Learning: What Makes a Difference? (PDF)
PDF icon Brief: School Features and Student Opportunities for Deeper Learning What Makes a Difference? (PDF)

Related Projects

Project

Study of Deeper Learning: Opportunities and Outcomes

AIR is studying the ways in which schools provide opportunities for students to acquire complex knowledge and deeper learning skills. Funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the study examines the impact of these opportunities on how students develop five dimensions of deeper learning: mastery of core content, critical thinking skills, collaboration skills, communication skills, and independent learning skills.

Related Work

Students working together
17 Jul 2019
Spotlight

Spotlight on Deeper Learning

What do today’s students really need to learn in order to succeed, not only in the classroom but also later on in college, careers, and as engaged citizens? What role can deeper learning—“a set of competencies students must master in order to develop a keen understanding of academic content and apply their knowledge to problems in the classroom and on the job”—play?
24 Oct 2016
Brief

School Features and Student Opportunities for Deeper Learning - What Makes a Difference? (Brief)

The Study of Deeper Learning: Opportunities and Outcomes found that students attending network high schools with a mature and well-implemented approach to promoting deeper learning experienced different instructional strategies, greater opportunities, and better results on a range of outcomes than did their matched counterparts in comparison sites. This brief examines how teachers’ own beliefs about teaching, their assessment of their peers’ professional culture, and their assessment of the success of the principal in providing instructional leadership and program coherence are related to students’ reports of deeper learning opportunities in their classes.

Further Reading

  • School Features and Student Opportunities for Deeper Learning- What Makes a Difference? (Brief)
  • Study of Deeper Learning: Opportunities and Outcomes
  • Providing Opportunities for Deeper Learning
  • Maximizing Student Agency: Implementing and Measuring Student-Centered Learning Practices
  • The Shape of Deeper Learning: Strategies, Structures, and Cultures in Deeper Learning Network High Schools
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Helen Duffy

Senior Researcher

Topic

Education
District and School Improvement

DEEPER LEARNING STUDY PUBLICATIONS

The Shape of Deeper Learning: Strategies, Structures, and Cultures in Deeper Learning Network High Schools

Providing Opportunities for Deeper Learning

Evidence of Deeper Learning Outcomes
Update: Graduation Advantage Persists for Students in Deeper Learning Network High Schools
Update: Deeper Learning and College Attendance: What Happens After High School?

Deeper Learning and Graduation: Is There a Relationship?

School Features and Student Opportunities for Deeper Learning: What Makes a Difference?
Brief: School Features and Student Opportunities for Deeper Learning What Makes a Difference?

RESEARCH. EVALUATION. APPLICATION. IMPACT.

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