The Dynamic Integrated Approach to teacher professional development: rationale and main characteristics

This paper refers to the Dynamic Integrated Approach towards teacher professional development which attempts to merge research findings on teacher effectiveness and teacher professional development. The theoretical framework and the major features of the DIA are presented. It is argued that the DIA can be effectively implemented through five steps: Establishing clarity and consensus about aims and objectives, identifying needs and priorities for improvement through empirical investigation, provision of improvement guidelines, reflection opportunities and coaching on effective teaching by the advisory and research team, establishing a formative evaluation mechanism and finally establishing a summative evaluation system. Results of empirical studies providing support to the basic elements and the overall effectiveness of the DIA are also presented. Implications of the findings are discussed and suggestions for further research, particularly in exploring the conditions under which the DIA could have a long lasting effect on teacher effectiveness, are finally drawn.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Taylor & Francis via http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13664530.2015.107955

The impact of school policy and stakeholders' actions on student learning: A longitudinal study

This paper proposes and validates a theoretical framework on how school policy can promote student learning. School policy is considered to have an indirect effect on student achievement by changing school stakeholders’ actions toward improving the School Learning Environment (SLE) and teaching practice. A reciprocal relationship between school policy and stakeholders’ actions is also considered. A longitudinal study was conducted to test the framework’s main assumptions. A stratified sample of 64 primary schools was selected and students’ achievement in Mathematics at the beginning of Grade 4 and at the end of the next three consecutive school years was measured, alongside the school policy and teachers’ actions with regards to issues associated with teaching and the SLE. The results of Multilevel structural equation modelling analyses supported the main assumptions of the framework. Implications for the development of school policy are drawn and suggestions for further research are provided.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2015.01.00

A comprehensive framework for effective school improvement

The comprehensive framework was developed in the Effective School Improvement Project. The initial framework was based on an analysis of a range of theories and an additional analysis of case studies in the field of school improvement. A revision took place after an analytic confrontation of the initial framework with successful improvement projects. Also, country conferences for groups of researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers contributed to the revised version of the framework. The framework builds on earlier work in the field of school effectiveness and school improvement

Effective School Improvement in Mathematics

This article addresses the evaluation of the Mathematics Improvement Programme. The results show that the programme improved the learning results of pupils in 3 with half a standard deviation and reduced the percentage of struggling pupils to less than 1%. Fifteen percent of the variance in pupil results is to be explained at the school level. About a quarter of this 15% can be explained by differences between the experimental and the comparison group. All of this condition variance is explained by the experimental variables. Five out of 10 implementation features contribute significantly to differences in pupil results

Assessing individual lessons using a generic teacher observation instrument: how useful is the International System for Teacher Observation and Feedback (ISTOF)?

Teacher effectiveness, which impacts student attainment even when controlling for student characteristics, is of key importance as a factor in educational effectiveness and improvement. Improving the quality of teaching is thus the primary means by which we can enhance student learning outcomes. Thus there has long been great interest in the development of classroom observation measures in the field of educational effectiveness research (EER). The International System for Teacher Observation and Feedback (ISTOF) is a unique instrument in the field, as it was developed by a team from 20 countries using an iterative Delphi process to ensure cross-cultural relevance and validity. While previous studies have looked at psychometric properties of the instrument, they have not interrogated the extent to which ISTOF is useful for evaluating individual lessons and providing feedback to teachers. In this study, we observed three grade 4 mathematics lessons taken from the NCTE video library at Harvard University for this purpose. Findings show that ISTOF can provide a highly differentiated and fine-grained picture of individual lessons, but that the strengths of the generic approach in terms of breadth are to an extent counterbalanced by limitations such as the lack of attention to content richness

The impact of peer relations on academic progress in junior high

The purpose of this study is to examine whether peer relations within classrooms were related to students' academic progress, and if so, whether this can be explained by students' relatedness and engagement, in line with Connell and Wellborn's self-system model. We analyzed data of 18,735 students in 796 school classes in Dutch junior high schools, using multilevel analysis. Academic progress, conceptualized as regular promotion to the next year versus grade retention, moving upward, and moving downward in the track system, was measured at the time of transition between Grades 1 and 2 (equivalent to US Grades 7 and 8). The results indicated that students who were accepted by their peers had lower probabilities to retain a grade or to move downward in the track system. Although peer acceptance was associated with relatedness and engagement, these variables did not explain why peer acceptance was associated to academic progress. Furthermore, peer acceptance and relatedness were more strongly related in classes with more negative class climates. © 2006 Society for the Study of School Psychology