The Scientific Basis of Education Productivity

The Scientific Basis of Education Productivity
Author: Rena F. Subotnik
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2006-02-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1607525194

This volume is not primarily concerned with what students should learn, nor even how they should learn. Rather it concerns how we can discover the best means and conditions for teaching them in school, at home, and in society. Expressed more explicitly, we seek to find out how students can learn efficiently or productively as much as possible within a given amount of time and resources. As in agriculture, medicine, public health, and modern industries, we can turn to rigorous science as one of the best sources for informing ourselves. The intended audiences are not only scholars in a variety of academic disciplines but also research consumers, including educators, policymakers, parents, and citizens who seek principles to critically separate valid from invalid claims for the efficacy and efficiency of education products, personnel, and policies. Initial versions of the chapters were discussed at a national invitational conference sponsored by the Laboratory for Student Success (LSS), the mid-Atlantic regional educational laboratory, at Temple University Center for Research in Human Development and Education. LSS operates under a contract with the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.

Productivity in Higher Education

Productivity in Higher Education
Author: Caroline M. Hoxby
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2019-11-22
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 022657458X

How do the benefits of higher education compare with its costs, and how does this comparison vary across individuals and institutions? These questions are fundamental to quantifying the productivity of the education sector. The studies in Productivity in Higher Education use rich and novel administrative data, modern econometric methods, and careful institutional analysis to explore productivity issues. The authors examine the returns to undergraduate education, differences in costs by major, the productivity of for-profit schools, the productivity of various types of faculty and of outcomes, the effects of online education on the higher education market, and the ways in which the productivity of different institutions responds to market forces. The analyses recognize five key challenges to assessing productivity in higher education: the potential for multiple student outcomes in terms of skills, earnings, invention, and employment; the fact that colleges and universities are “multiproduct” firms that conduct varied activities across many domains; the fact that students select which school to attend based in part on their aptitude; the difficulty of attributing outcomes to individual institutions when students attend more than one; and the possibility that some of the benefits of higher education may arise from the system as a whole rather than from a single institution. The findings and the approaches illustrated can facilitate decision-making processes in higher education.

Charter School Outcomes

Charter School Outcomes
Author: Mark Berends
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2017-09-25
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1351572199

Sponsored by the National Center on School Choice, a research consortium headed by Vanderbilt University, this volume examines the growth and outcomes of the charter school movement. Starting in 1992-93 when the nation’s first charter school was opened in Minneapolis, the movement has now spread to 40 states and the District of Columbia and by 2005-06 enrolled 1,040,536 students in 3,613 charter schools. The purpose of this volume is to help monitor this fast-growing movement by compiling, organizing and making available some of the most rigorous and policy-relevant research on K-12 charter schools. Key features of this important new book include: Expertise – The National Center on School Choice includes internationally known scholars from the following institutions: Harvard University, Brown University, Stanford University, Brookings Institution, National Bureau of Economic Research and Northwest Evaluation Association. Cross-Disciplinary – The volume brings together material from related disciplines and methodologies that are associated with the individual and systemic effects of charter schools. Coherent Structure – Each section begins with a lengthy introduction that summarizes the themes and major findings of that section. A summarizing chapter by Mark Schneider, the Commissioner of the National Center on Educational Statistics, concludes the book. This volume is appropriate for researchers, instructors and graduate students in education policy programs and in political science and economics, as well as in-service administrators, policy makers, and providers.

Visible Learning

Visible Learning
Author: John Hattie
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 389
Release: 2008-11-19
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1134024126

This unique and ground-breaking book is the result of 15 years research and synthesises over 800 meta-analyses on the influences on achievement in school-aged students. It builds a story about the power of teachers, feedback, and a model of learning and understanding. The research involves many millions of students and represents the largest ever evidence based research into what actually works in schools to improve learning. Areas covered include the influence of the student, home, school, curricula, teacher, and teaching strategies. A model of teaching and learning is developed based on the notion of visible teaching and visible learning. A major message is that what works best for students is similar to what works best for teachers – an attention to setting challenging learning intentions, being clear about what success means, and an attention to learning strategies for developing conceptual understanding about what teachers and students know and understand. Although the current evidence based fad has turned into a debate about test scores, this book is about using evidence to build and defend a model of teaching and learning. A major contribution is a fascinating benchmark/dashboard for comparing many innovations in teaching and schools.

Assessment: Social Practice and Social Product

Assessment: Social Practice and Social Product
Author: Ann Filer
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2002-11
Genre: Education
ISBN: 113458699X

In Assessment the writers take the reader beyond the obvious function of assessment and focus upon the roles it performs in the social structuring of society.

Handbook on Restructuring and Substantial School Improvement

Handbook on Restructuring and Substantial School Improvement
Author: Herbert J. Walberg
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 134
Release: 2007-08-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1607526522

(Published in cooperation with The Center on Innovation & Improvement) As suggested by the title, the purpose of this Handbook on Restructuring and Substantial School Improvement is to provide principles for restructuring and substantially improving schools. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, the Center on Innovation & Improvement (CII) engaged leading experts on restructuring and school improvement to prepare modules for this handbook to assist states, districts, and schools in establishing policies, procedures, and support to successfully restructure schools. The Handbook is organized into three sections. The topic of the Handbook’s modules – restructuring with a focus on the district as the impetus for dramatic improvement – is relatively new in the nation’s education history. For this reason, the module authors were selected because they are highly experienced experts in their fields and can be counted on to judiciously weigh the less than definitive evidence and to state useful guiding principles.

Improving Student Learning

Improving Student Learning
Author: Herbert J. Walberg
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 153
Release: 2010-12-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1617352144

Improving Schools to Promote Learning is a concise and common-sense examination of all the moving parts that drive student learning. The book ties together the research, policies, and practices relative to the state, district, school, classroom, and family, and explains their effects on student learning. The author covers an array of topics, including technology, charter schools, turnaround initiatives, and instruction in specific subject areas. Herbert J. Walberg’s book continues the work of previous publications from the Center on Innovation & Improvement (Handbook on Restructuring and Substantial School Improvement and Handbook on the Statewide Systems of Support) that connect research to practice at various levels of the education system. The book is accessible to a wide audience, including educators, school board members, parents, and policy makers. Walberg includes action steps in every chapter, providing practical recommendations for improved student achievement. The author also offers select references for additional material on the best research and most effective practices.

The Elements of Instruction

The Elements of Instruction
Author: Michael H. Molenda
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2020-10-26
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1351761919

The Elements of Instruction provides a common vocabulary and conceptual schema of teaching and learning that is fully applicable to all forms of instruction in our digital-centric era. This critical examination of educational technology’s contemporary semantics and constructs fills a major gap in the logical foundations of instruction, with special attention to the patterns of communication among facilitators, learners, and resources. The book proposes a new framework for organizing research and theory, clear concepts and definitions for its basic elements, and a new typology of teaching-learning arrangements to simplify the selection of optimal conditions for a variety of learning goals. As trends in media, technology, and methodology continue to evolve, these historically contextual, back-to-basics pedagogical tools will be invaluable to all instructional designers and educational researchers.

Improving Student Achievement

Improving Student Achievement
Author: Lewis C. Solmon
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2006-04-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1607527812

Improving Student Achievement: Reforms that Work expands on the first volume in the Milken Family Foundation series on education policy, Talented Teachers: The Essential Force for Improving Student Achievement. The series explains to policymakers, parents, business leaders, and teachers the importance of teacher quality in increasing student achievement. This volume is based primarily on the proceedings from the 2004 Milken National Education Conference (NEC), which was held in Washington, D.C., in May 2004.

Handbook of International Large-Scale Assessment

Handbook of International Large-Scale Assessment
Author: Leslie Rutkowski
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 650
Release: 2013-11-12
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1439895120

Technological and statistical advances, along with a strong interest in gathering more information about the state of our educational systems, have made it possible to assess more students, in more countries, more often, and in more subject domains. The Handbook of International Large-Scale Assessment: Background, Technical Issues, and Methods of Data Analysis brings together recognized scholars in the field of ILSA, behavioral statistics, and policy to develop a detailed guide that goes beyond database user manuals. After highlighting the importance of ILSA data to policy and research, the book reviews methodological aspects and features of the studies based on operational considerations, analytics, and reporting. The book then describes methods of interest to advanced graduate students, researchers, and policy analysts who have a good grounding in quantitative methods, but who are not necessarily quantitative methodologists. In addition, it provides a detailed exposition of the technical details behind these assessments, including the test design, the sampling framework, and estimation methods, with a focus on how these issues impact analysis choices.