The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education Wraparound Zones (WAZ) Initiative is designed to create coordinated district systems that allow schools to proactively and systematically address the nonacademic needs of students. AIR conducted an evaluation of how well the WAZ Initiative achieved these goals, which found improvements in student ...
Far too many students see mathematics as a subject to be endured, rather than a subject of real-world importance and personal value. But when teachers use student-centered techniques to engage students in more active and authentic ways, they can transform math classrooms into lively learning environments in which students take ...
Exclusionary school discipline policies once instituted to prevent serious infractions have crept into discipline practices for minor issues. Youth who participated in a roundtable on the subject contend that it limits opportunities to learn and compromises academic achievement; is applied disproportionately and subjectively; and deprives students of the ...
Zero tolerance policies were born out of fear and even desperation. After the 1999 school shootings in Colorado, some educators and public figures adopted a tough law-and-order stance; but, instead of deterrence, we got a discipline regime of mass suspensions. In this blog post, AIR's Peter Cookson argues that zero ...
The Communities for Just Schools Fund's Allison R. Brown speaks with David Osher, vice president and Institute Fellow at AIR, about social-emotional learning and its impact on students and teachers alike over the years.
In 2005 AIR partnered with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to identify the core indicators that schools must actively manage to support student success, and develop an instrument to assess these indicators. Based on consensus from a meeting of national experts and district staff, and refined through a series of 22 ...
The Plan, Do, Study, Act Process is central to the improvement of instructional routines. Watch one of the Better Math Teaching Network members in real time and in a real classroom setting introduce the Plan, Do, Study, Act, or PDSA, process.
Have you ever wondered what social and emotional skills look like in practice? If so, watch this whiteboard animation that follows a student throughout her day and ways in which she applies her social and emotional skills.
AIR and partners are conducting a large-scale study of the impact of teacher professional development in mathematics. The Mathematics Professional Development (PD) Impact Study is a randomized controlled trial designed to test the impact of a scalable program of professional development that holds promise for improving mathematics instruction and student achievement at the ...