Mary Jo Taylor

This infographic summarizes a recommendation from the What Works Clearinghouse Practice Guide Providing Reading Interventions for Students in Grades 4–8, which emphasizes teaching students with reading difficulties explicit strategies to decode complex multisyllabic words to improve reading and comprehension.

Several school districts in Georgia use two teacher-administered diagnostic assessments of student knowledge of mathematics as part of their multi-tiered system of support in grades K-8: the Global Strategy Stage (GloSS; New Zealand Ministry of Education, 2012) and the Individual Knowledge Assessment of Number (IKAN; New Zealand Ministry of Education, 2011), which comes in two formats (Counting Interview and Written Assessment). However, little is known about whether two teachers using the sa...

REL Southeast developed this facilitator's guide on the topic of mathematical problem solving for use in professional learning community (PLC) settings. The facilitator's guide is a set of professional development materials designed to supplement the What Works Clearinghouse practice guide, Improving Mathematical Problem Solving in Grades 4 Through 8 (Woodward et al., 2012). The practice guide provides research-based recommendations for teachers to incorporate into their classroom practice. T...

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of the Developing Mathematical Ideas (DMI) professional development program on grade 4 teachers' in-depth knowledge of fractions as well as their students' understanding and proficiency with fractions. The study was conducted during the 2014/15 school year. A total of 84 schools from eight school districts in three states (Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina) agreed to participate. Participants included 264 grade 4 teachers and their 4,204 s...

This facilitator's guide is designed to assist professional learning communities (PLCs) in applying evidence-based strategies to help K-8 English learners acquire the language and literacy skills needed to succeed academically. Through this collaborative learning experience, educators will expand their knowledge base as they read, discuss, share, and apply the key ideas and strategies presented in the "Teaching Academic Content and Literacy to English Learners in Elementary and Middle School"...

This study used a systematic process modeled after the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) study review process to answer the question: What does the causal research say are effective math professional development interventions for K-12 teachers aimed at improving student achievement? The study identified and screened 910 research studies in a comprehensive literature search for effectiveness studies of math professional development approaches. (See appendix A for details of the search, screening,...