As district leaders search for the best ways to improve student learning with the Common Core State Standards, some early implementers are giving us an opportunity to learn from their experience.This brief describes Sacramento City Unified School District’s approach to developing units of study that guide teachers’ classroom practice. The ...
For years, education leaders have sought to pinpoint how teachers become effective in order to better leverage teachers’ impact on student learning and improve student outcomes. This report describes the characteristics of teacher leaders, the roles teacher leaders take in improving teacher practice, and the supports and barriers to teacher ...
As the COVID-19 pandemic turns into a longer-term crisis with no end in sight, planning for the fall raises even more questions for teachers about school policies and their own futures. This is the first installment of a new series in which AIR experts discuss how to facilitate quality instruction ...
What does the classroom of the future look like? In this blog post, Gretchen Weber explores educator roles that go beyond teacher and principal, arguing that new roles that emphasize leadership skills and precise expertise can motivate current and future teachers to stay in the profession and help them thrive ...
In this blog post, Mark Schneider discusses the disconnect between what students and faculty expect from a college education, and how to reconcile those differences.
In this commentary published in the Hill, Dan Goldhaber, AIR vice president and director of CALDER, and John C. White, Louisiana state superintendent of education, discuss the importance of formal mentoring for teachers during their career training.
Teacher quality is recognized as a primary driver of variation in student learning outcomes, particularly in refugee and emergency settings, but few studies have examined the factors that motivate or demotivate teachers in these contexts. This article examines secondary source materials from academic experts and gray literature from United Nations ...
Recent research suggests that intensive, content-focused professional development improves teachers’ knowledge and some aspects of their practice, but not student achievement. Kirk Walters sat down with Mike Garet, who led the research, and three other experts to get their reactions to these findings. ...
The Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) represents a fundamental transformation of the way California allocates state funds to school districts and the ways the state expects districts to make decisions about (and report on) the use of these funds. This brief identifies some early lessons about how best to use ...
Great teachers do more than promote the student's academic learning–they teach the whole child. The Center on Great Teachers and Leaders' Social and Emotional Learning School helps teachers, school and district leaders, and state education agencies collaborate in connecting social and emotional learning to effective teaching. ...