Gina Schuyler Ikemoto

Strategies to Promote Data Use for Instructional Improvement: Actions, Outcomes, and Lessons from Three Urban Districts.

The current high‐stakes accountability environment has created strong incentives for educators to systematically collect and use data to inform instructional decisions. This article examines the strategies employed by three urban school districts to promote data use for instructional improvement and their effect on administrator, principal, and teacher practice. Several factors are found to affect data use, including accessibility and timeliness of data, perceptions of data validity, training, and support for teachers with regard to data analysis and interpretation, and the alignment of data strategies with other instructional initiatives.

The Role of Districts in Fostering Instructional Improvement Lessons from Three Urban Districts Partnered with the Institute for Learning.

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Adaptive Assistance for Learning Improvement Efforts: The Case of the Institute for Learning

Districts across the country face significant demands to strengthen student learning districtwide, and many are turning to intermediary organizations to help them build their capacity for such demanding, large-scale work. However, how these “learning-support intermediary organizations” assist with these capacity-building efforts is little understood. This article reports data from a largely qualitative investigation into how one such intermediary organization, the Institute for Learning (IFL) at the University of Pittsburgh, partnered with multiple urban districts to help build district capacity for districtwide learning improvements. Our conceptual framework draws on sociocultural learning theory to identify key features of the IFL-district assistance relationships that seem associated with these outcomes. We utilized data from interviews, observations, document reviews, and focus groups conducted over a five-year period. Findings elaborate specific features of their assistance relationships—which we call adaptive assistance relationships—such as enabling particular forms of modeling, tools, and opportunities for rich dialogue. We conclude with implications for the research and practice of districtwide learning improvement efforts and the participation of intermediary organizations in the process.

An Experiment to Evaluate the Efficacy of Cognitive Tutor Geometry

Abstract This randomized, controlled field trial estimated the causal impact of a technology-based geometry curriculum on students’ geometry achievement, as well as their attitudes toward mathematics and technology. The curriculum combines learner-centered classroom pedagogy with individualized, computer-based student instruction. Conducted over a 3-year period in eight high schools within an urban fringe district, the study found that students assigned to the treatment curriculum scored 19% of a standard deviation lower on the geometry posttest than their counterparts assigned to the districts standard curriculum, but found no statistically significant impact on students’ attitudes toward mathematics and technology. Researchers also collected observation and interview data on teachers’ instructional practices. These data suggest that many teachers had difficulty implementing the treatment curriculums learner-centered pedagogy. In fact, observed levels of learner-centered practices were only modestly higher in treatment classes than in control classes. In both treatment and control classes, however, higher levels of learner-centered pedagogy were associated with higher student achievement in geometry.