Notes - How Schools Matter

“As the qualitative literature leads one to expect, a focus on higher-order thinking skills is associated with improved student performance. Applying problem-solving techniques to unique problems is a key component of such skills. Hands-on learning can be understood in this way as well, in that it involves the simulation of concepts, moving the student from the abstract to the concrete.(Note 13) Also suggested by the qualitative literature, individualizing instruction seems to be effective. Students whose teachers received professional development in learning how to teach different groups of students substantially outperformed other students.” p. 1. (Discussion section)

“A possible reason for the lack of large school effects in quantitative research is the failure of such research to capitalize on an insight from qualitative research: the central importance of the classroom practices of teachers.” 1st sect. 3rd para.

“For this study, the 7,146 eighth graders who took the 1996 assessment in mathematics are studied along with their mathematics teachers. The statistical technique of multilevel structural equation modeling (MSEM) is employed to address the major methodological shortcomings of the quantitative literature, namely the failure to distinguish between school- and student-level effects, to measure relationships among independent variables, and to explicitly model measurement error. The study finds that classroom practices indeed have a marked effect on student achievement and that, in concert with the other aspects of teaching under study, this effect is at least as strong as that of student background. This finding documents the fact that schools indeed matter, due to the overwhelming influence of the classroom practices of their teachers.” 1st sect. 4th para.

“The qualitative literature on effective teaching emphasizes the importance of high-order thinking skills (McLaughlin & Talbert, 1993). Teaching higher-order thinking skills involves not so much conveying information as conveying understanding. Students learn concepts and then attempt to apply them to various problems, or they solve problems and then learn the concepts that underlie the solutions. These skills tend to be conveyed in one of two ways: through applying concepts to problems (applications) or by providing examples or concrete versions of the concept (simulations). In either case, students learn to understand the concept by putting it in another context. In the case of an application, this might mean solving a unique problem with which the student is unfamiliar.” Background sect. 7th para.