Compulsory schemes that extend peer review beyond classroom observation are rare. The institution within which this study sits implements one such example named peer support. By drawing upon data from one faculty, the peer support scheme, which has been in operation since 2009 is placed under a research-led critical review. Whilst the scheme is…

Montessori was very specific about the value of observation. Observation may feel like a never-ending chore--a routine that is difficult to fit into the day that results in data that is difficult to use once collected. No matter the reason, observation can inspire feelings of discomfort, inadequacy, and confusion. Viewed from this perspective,…

Teacher evaluation systems are associated with teacher quality, accountability, performance observations, and support. These systems are typically comprised of multiple measures including at least observations of teaching and student performance data reflecting teacher impact. Many criticisms of these systems have emerged not necessarily from the…

I begin with my experience, with the importance of words during my early years, then as a teacher. Through the Prospect Center's Summer Institutes, I learned a descriptive process, Reflection on a Word, based in the work of Pat Carini at the Prospect School. I write about learning this process, the ways it entered my teaching life, and how it is…

This dissertation address two significant challenges in the causal inference workflow for Big Observational Data. The first is designing Big Observational Data with high-dimensional and heterogeneous covariates. The second is performing uncertainty quantification for estimates of causal estimands that are obtained from the application of black box…

The Optimizing Learning Opportunities for Students (OLOS) Observation System was developed by the Early Learning Network's assessment team at the University of California, Irvine. OLOS is a user-friendly, web-based tool designed to help teachers understand what is happening in their classrooms and uncover ways to meet the unique learning needs of…

In education settings, treatments are often non-randomly assigned to clusters, such as schools or classrooms, while outcomes are measured for students. This research design is called the clustered observational study (COS). We examine the consequences of common support violations in the COS context. Common support violations occur when the…

Wildflower Schools, a network of decentralized "shopfront" Montessori schools, began in 2014, when Sep Kamvar, a MIT Media Lab professor, was unable to find a preschool for his son that fit his needs, and ended up partnering with two veteran Montessori educators, Mary Rockett and Katelyn Shore, to start a school. Wildflower's work is…

Makerspaces, especially in their diverse proliferating forms, support a broad variety of learning outcomes. There is rich work in attempting to understand and describe these learning goals. Yet, there is a lack of support for practitioners and educators to assess the learning in events and programming at makerspaces (and similar environments)…

Noticing is an essential skill for all teachers of mathematics. Mathematics teacher educators have utilized a variety of tools to practice and develop preservice teachers' (PSTs') ability to notice, which we extend to include photographs and learning trajectories. This article explores PSTs' noticing skills by analyzing work samples from a methods…

Foundations of statistics research aims to establish fundamental principles guiding inference about populations under uncertainty. It is concerned with the process of learning from observations, notions of uncertainty and induction, and satisfying inferential objectives. The growing interest in predictive methods in high-stakes fields like…

Infants who receive better counting input at home tend to become toddlers with better number knowledge in preschool. However, for many children, in-person counting experience is not always available, despite educational media becoming increasingly prevalent. Might virtual counting experience benefit the young mind? Using a novel online looking…

There is a critical need for high-quality clinical outcome assessments to capture the important aspects of communication ability of individuals with Angelman syndrome (AS). To center the perspective of caregivers, our team developed the novel Observer-Reported Communication Ability (ORCA) measure using best practice guidelines, with the goal of…

The family resemblance approach to nature of science is receiving increasing attention by science educators since its inception about a decade ago. Many scholars of science education have contributed and continue to contribute to it not only theoretically but also by applying it empirically to a wide range of areas such as curriculum and textbook…

In this study, we examine "what went wrong" in our professional development program for encouraging cognitively demanding instruction, focusing on the difficulties we encountered in using an observational tool for evaluating this type of instruction and reaching inter-rater reliability. We do so through the lens of a discursive theory of…