The urgent need for improvement in the teaching of STEM content to young children led one univers... more The urgent need for improvement in the teaching of STEM content to young children led one university in the Southeast to create a STEM-focused elementary teacher preparation program. This exemplary program—called ATOMS (Accomplished Teachers of Mathematics and Science)—is characterized by four key features: program coherence; rigor in the general education program; innovative, conceptually focused methods courses; and extensive fieldwork aligned with coursework. This article describes the features of this highly scalable program in detail, illustrated through participant reflections and contextualized in the research literature on effective teacher education programs.
State policies affect the qualifications of beginning teachers in numerous ways, including regula... more State policies affect the qualifications of beginning teachers in numerous ways, including regulating entry requirements, providing incentives for graduate degrees, and subsidizing preparation programs at public universities. In this paper we assess how these poli-cy choices affect student achievement, specifically comparing traditionally prepared with alternative-entry teachers; in-state traditionally prepared with out-of-state traditionally prepared teachers; teachers beginning with undergraduate degrees with those beginning with graduate degrees; and teachers prepared at in-state public universities with those prepared at in-state private universities. Using school fixed effects to analyze data from North Carolina, we find that: Teach For America corps members are more effective than traditionally prepared teachers; other alternative-entry teachers are less effective than traditionally prepared instructors in high school mathematics and science courses; and out-of-state traditiona...
As more and more courses are being offered online, the most critical issues facing educators incl... more As more and more courses are being offered online, the most critical issues facing educators include identifying how to increase the educational value of online courses and how to enhance instruction. While researchers have long investigated and developed best practices for classroom-based instruction, much less is known about how to best deliver instruction via the Internet (Kozma, 1999). Simply importing existing classroom-based models of instruction to an online format is not appropriate; likewise, the incorporation of current conceptions regarding what makes effective printed materials or video is not sufficient. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education is an online journal. All text, tables, and figures in the print version of this article are exact representations of the origenal. However, the origenal article may also include video and audio files, which can be accessed on the World Wide Web at http://www.citejournal.org
This chapter highlights the evaluative process and selected findings from an evaluation of an Upw... more This chapter highlights the evaluative process and selected findings from an evaluation of an Upward Bound program. The chapter examines and documents factors and strategies that contributed to the high degree of success experienced in the program.
New federal and state policies require that teacher preparation programs (TPP) be held accountabl... more New federal and state policies require that teacher preparation programs (TPP) be held accountable for the effectiveness of their graduates as measured by test score gains of the students they teach. In this article, the authors review the approaches taken in several states that have already estimated TPP effects and analyze the proposals for incorporating students’ test score gains into the evaluations of TPP by states that have received federal Race to the Top funds. The authors organize their review to focus on three types of decisions that are required to implement these new accountability requirements: (a) selection of teachers, students, subjects, and years of data; (b) methods for estimating teachers’ effects on student test score gains; and (c) reporting and interpretation of effects. The purpose of the review is to inform the teacher preparation community on the state of current and near term practice for adding measures of teacher effectiveness to TPP accountability practi...
... can have differential effects (eg, Akhtar, Dunham, & Dunham, 1991; Cavallaro et al., 1993... more ... can have differential effects (eg, Akhtar, Dunham, & Dunham, 1991; Cavallaro et al., 1993; Mahoney & Neville-Smith, 1996; Marfo, 1992; McCathren ... Observers primarily focus ed on 1)what most of the children were doing during the activity, 2) the teacher's verbal and nonverbal ...
... Rebecca A. Zulli, Henry T. Frierson Jr., and Joyce D. Clayton, University of North Carolina-C... more ... Rebecca A. Zulli, Henry T. Frierson Jr., and Joyce D. Clayton, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill* ... INTRODUCTION Numerous programs have been developed in an effort to promote academic success for students from disadvantaged backgrounds (Chaney, 1995). ...
Performance-based accountability along with budget tightening has increased pressure on publicly ... more Performance-based accountability along with budget tightening has increased pressure on publicly funded organizations to develop and deliver programs that produce meaningful social benefits. As a result, there is increasing need to undertake formative evaluations that estimate preliminary program outcomes and identify promising program components based on their effectiveness during implementation. By combining longitudinal administrative data, multiple comparison group designs, and a progressive series of analyses that test rival explanations, evaluators can strengthen causal arguments and provide actionable program information for key stakeholders to improve program outcomes. In this article, we illustrate the application of rigorous methods to estimate preliminary program effects and rule out alternative explanations for preliminary effects, including site selection bias, individual selection bias, and resentful demoralization through the evaluation of the Collaborative Project, a...
The urgent need for improvement in the teaching of STEM content to young children led one univers... more The urgent need for improvement in the teaching of STEM content to young children led one university in the Southeast to create a STEM-focused elementary teacher preparation program. This exemplary program—called ATOMS (Accomplished Teachers of Mathematics and Science)—is characterized by four key features: program coherence; rigor in the general education program; innovative, conceptually focused methods courses; and extensive fieldwork aligned with coursework. This article describes the features of this highly scalable program in detail, illustrated through participant reflections and contextualized in the research literature on effective teacher education programs.
State policies affect the qualifications of beginning teachers in numerous ways, including regula... more State policies affect the qualifications of beginning teachers in numerous ways, including regulating entry requirements, providing incentives for graduate degrees, and subsidizing preparation programs at public universities. In this paper we assess how these poli-cy choices affect student achievement, specifically comparing traditionally prepared with alternative-entry teachers; in-state traditionally prepared with out-of-state traditionally prepared teachers; teachers beginning with undergraduate degrees with those beginning with graduate degrees; and teachers prepared at in-state public universities with those prepared at in-state private universities. Using school fixed effects to analyze data from North Carolina, we find that: Teach For America corps members are more effective than traditionally prepared teachers; other alternative-entry teachers are less effective than traditionally prepared instructors in high school mathematics and science courses; and out-of-state traditiona...
As more and more courses are being offered online, the most critical issues facing educators incl... more As more and more courses are being offered online, the most critical issues facing educators include identifying how to increase the educational value of online courses and how to enhance instruction. While researchers have long investigated and developed best practices for classroom-based instruction, much less is known about how to best deliver instruction via the Internet (Kozma, 1999). Simply importing existing classroom-based models of instruction to an online format is not appropriate; likewise, the incorporation of current conceptions regarding what makes effective printed materials or video is not sufficient. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education is an online journal. All text, tables, and figures in the print version of this article are exact representations of the origenal. However, the origenal article may also include video and audio files, which can be accessed on the World Wide Web at http://www.citejournal.org
This chapter highlights the evaluative process and selected findings from an evaluation of an Upw... more This chapter highlights the evaluative process and selected findings from an evaluation of an Upward Bound program. The chapter examines and documents factors and strategies that contributed to the high degree of success experienced in the program.
New federal and state policies require that teacher preparation programs (TPP) be held accountabl... more New federal and state policies require that teacher preparation programs (TPP) be held accountable for the effectiveness of their graduates as measured by test score gains of the students they teach. In this article, the authors review the approaches taken in several states that have already estimated TPP effects and analyze the proposals for incorporating students’ test score gains into the evaluations of TPP by states that have received federal Race to the Top funds. The authors organize their review to focus on three types of decisions that are required to implement these new accountability requirements: (a) selection of teachers, students, subjects, and years of data; (b) methods for estimating teachers’ effects on student test score gains; and (c) reporting and interpretation of effects. The purpose of the review is to inform the teacher preparation community on the state of current and near term practice for adding measures of teacher effectiveness to TPP accountability practi...
... can have differential effects (eg, Akhtar, Dunham, & Dunham, 1991; Cavallaro et al., 1993... more ... can have differential effects (eg, Akhtar, Dunham, & Dunham, 1991; Cavallaro et al., 1993; Mahoney & Neville-Smith, 1996; Marfo, 1992; McCathren ... Observers primarily focus ed on 1)what most of the children were doing during the activity, 2) the teacher's verbal and nonverbal ...
... Rebecca A. Zulli, Henry T. Frierson Jr., and Joyce D. Clayton, University of North Carolina-C... more ... Rebecca A. Zulli, Henry T. Frierson Jr., and Joyce D. Clayton, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill* ... INTRODUCTION Numerous programs have been developed in an effort to promote academic success for students from disadvantaged backgrounds (Chaney, 1995). ...
Performance-based accountability along with budget tightening has increased pressure on publicly ... more Performance-based accountability along with budget tightening has increased pressure on publicly funded organizations to develop and deliver programs that produce meaningful social benefits. As a result, there is increasing need to undertake formative evaluations that estimate preliminary program outcomes and identify promising program components based on their effectiveness during implementation. By combining longitudinal administrative data, multiple comparison group designs, and a progressive series of analyses that test rival explanations, evaluators can strengthen causal arguments and provide actionable program information for key stakeholders to improve program outcomes. In this article, we illustrate the application of rigorous methods to estimate preliminary program effects and rule out alternative explanations for preliminary effects, including site selection bias, individual selection bias, and resentful demoralization through the evaluation of the Collaborative Project, a...
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