What's The Research On...?

Teachers build professional communities
Several structural and social resources must be available for a professional community of teachers to develop and grow wthin a school.

Professional Development for Teachers of American History
In 2007 the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) undertook a three-year teacher professional development project called “Building Informed Citizens.” A Teaching American History grant from the U.S. Department of Education enabled the district to offer this professional development project that aims to raise student achievement by increasing teachers’ knowledge and understanding of U.S. history. This joint effort involves the MMSD, the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater, the Wisconsin Historical Society, and the Wisconsin Veterans Museum. It’s being evaluated by WCER researcher Shihmei Barger. She aims to provide scientifically rigorous evidence on the extent to which project outcomes meet the project goals and objectives.

Distributing Leadership to Support Instructional Change
Discussions of comprehensive school reform and distributed leadership have been dominated by descriptions of what they are and what forms they take. Now a plausible case can be made that distributing leadership to teachers can support instructional change, says UW–Madison education professor Eric Camburn. In a 2008 study, Camburn determined that configuring and activating teacher leadership positions can support the adoption of specific instructional practices advocated by the America’s Choice program. The America’s Choice program distributes leadership responsibilities to teacher leaders in schools. How this comprehensive school reform program played out in a sample of urban elementary schools was Camburn’s question.

Reclaiming Assessment
Effective assessment practices are more likely to take place in schools with higher achievement. That’s because these contexts offer explicit connections, through assessments, to varied communities of interest: district, school, teachers, students, and families. These connections increase the likelihood that the assessments meet the needs of these audiences and that they prompt some kind of action. These findings result from a recent study conducted in nine Wisconsin elementary schools participating in a class size reduction program called Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE). SAGE is a state-supported class size reduction (CSR) program that provides funding to districts to limit class sizes to 15 students and 1 teacher in grades K-3. Almost 500 Wisconsin schools participate.