Edgenuity - Research

By reading about what others have learned,
teachers become more aware of what works in what situations

– Linda Darling-Hammond

Research

This section provides some of the latest research about school improvement including curriculum alignment, formative assessment, and teacher quality.

Title:	New Study Points to Gap Between U.S. High School Curriculum and College Expectations
Source:	ACT News
Date:	April 9, 2007
A new study by ACT points to a gap between what U.S. high schools are teaching in their core college preparatory courses and what colleges want incoming students to know in order for them to succeed in first-year courses.

Title:	Using Classroom Assessment to Improve Teaching
Author:	The Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement
Source:	Newsletter
Date:	December, 2006
Argues that both summative and formative assessments are important and that teachers should use assessment not only to actively and continuously measure a learner’s progress but also to acquire useful data to inform their own instructional practice. Provides guidelines for developing effective formative assessments.

Title:	What We Know and Don't Know About Improving Low-Performing Schools
Author:	Daniel L. Duke
Source:	Phi Delta Kappan
Date:	June, 2006
Reviews recent studies of turnarounds of low-performing schools and discusses what made the schools decline in the first place and the factors that might hinder their transformation.

Title:	From Formative Assessment to Assessment FOR Learning: A Path to Success in Standards-Based Schools
Author:	Rick Stiggins
Source:	Phi Delta Kappan
Date:	December, 2005
As the mission of schools changes from ranking students to ensuring that all learn to specified standards, Mr. Stiggins argues that the purpose and form of assessments must change as well.

Title:	Closing the Achievement Gap by Detracking
Author:	Carol Corbett Burris and Kevin G. Welner
Source:	Phi Delta Kappan
Date:	April 2005
Achievement follows from opportunities, Ms. Burris and Mr. Welner assert, and the persistent practice of tracking denies a range of opportunities to large numbers of students. That a disproportionate number of these students are minorities is one of the underlying reasons that the achievement gap has remained so persistent. The authors describe how a diverse suburban district in New York narrowed the gap by offering its high-track curriculum to all students.

Title:	Formative Classroom Assessment and Benjamin S. Bloom: Theory, Research, and Implications
Author:	Thomas R. Guskey
Source:	Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, Canada.
Date:	April 2005
Reviews the work of renowned educator Benjamin Bloom on the problem associated with the achievement gap. Bloom argued that to reduce variation in students’ achievement and to have all students learn well, we must increase variation in instructional approaches and learning time. The key element in this effort was well constructed, formative classroom assessments. Bloom outlined a specific strategy for using formative classroom assessments to guide teachers in differentiating their instruction and labeled it “mastery learning.” This paper describes Bloom’s work, presents the essential elements of mastery learning, explains common misinterpretations, and describes the results of research on its effects.