The Literacy Footprints Digital Reader provides elementary grade students and teachers with online access to books and resources from the Literacy Footprints Complete System of Guided Reading. Teachers can create a bookshelf of appropriate books for students to read independently and can create assignments for individuals or groups of students.…

Pioneer Valley Books (PVB) contracted McREL International to investigate the effects of the third grade Literacy Footprints (LFP) guided reading system on English language arts (ELA) performance on state assessments. LFP is a research-based, comprehensive, small-group literacy tool that facilitates explicit and systematic guided reading…

All principals can learn and implement the actions and behaviors that have the biggest effect on student learning outcomes, namely: (1) to establish a clear schoolwide focus on delivering quality instructional experiences for all students; (2) to initiate, lead, and manage change in school processes, programs, personnel, professional learning, and…

The challenges of virtual learning have been well documented during the last year as districts have focused on providing students with devices and internet access, debated developmental appropriateness of virtual learning, engaged teachers in professional development activities about how to design and deliver meaningful online lessons, worried…

Approximately 40 to 60 percent of America's high school students are chronically disengaged (i.e., inattentive, exert little to no effort, do not complete tasks, and claim to be bored; National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, 2004). Disengagement is so widespread that it has been labeled the "Silent Epidemic" (Bridgeland et…

The current study examined the effect of a web-based literacy program, Raz-Plus, that serves as a resource for blended learning instruction in K-5 classrooms. Following a 13-week implementation period at three rural elementary schools, comparisons of the treatment (21 teachers and 249 students) and control (18 teachers and 198 students) groups…

Purpose: In January 2015, the Northwest Board of Cooperative Educational Services (NW BOCES) received a five-year Investing in Innovation (i3) grant to develop and implement the System for Educator Effectiveness Development (SEED) program--an innovative professional development (PD) system designed to provide geographically isolated educators an…

Online teaching and learning can be more engaging and effective for students and teachers alike if districts take into account several key considerations when formatting their digital plans and processes. Combining and building on ideas from change management, improvement science, and inside-out systems development, Dr. Kris Rouleau from McREL's…

While districts and policymakers focus on sweeping changes to schools, teachers can get big results by making comparatively small changes to their daily practice. This companion piece to the McREL book "Tilting Your Teaching" introduces you to the seven Simple Shifts--adjustments that every teacher can make immediately to turn dodgy…

Multiple researchers have described walkthroughs as effective ways for instructional leaders (commonly principals, but also various other roles like assistant principals and teacher coaches) to play an active role in generating focused, qualitative data to inform schoolwide improvement efforts (Bole & Farizo, 2013; Starrett, 2015). In addition…

Here's the book for every teacher who feels "this" close to excellence in the classroom. What if you could keep doing what you're doing...but do it just a tiny bit differently...so that student engagement and achievement skyrocketed--not to mention your own sense of accomplishment? That's what Glen Pearsall and Natasha Harris have…

In far too many classrooms, the emphasis is on instructional strategies that "teachers" employ rather than on what "students: should be doing or thinking about as part of their learning. What's more, students' minds are something of a mysterious "black box" for most teachers, so when learning breaks down, they're not sure…

Researchers have been refining their thoughts on student engagement for decades, and teachers who familiarize themselves with this history have an advantage in identifying opportunities to make their own work resonate with students, according to McREL's Cheryl Abla and Brittney R. Fraumeni. The authors present McREL's definition of student…

An instructional model can unite school leaders, teachers, and students with shared goals, a shared understanding of how to reach the goals, and a shared vocabulary for discussing progress. In this paper, the authors present an introduction to instructional models and a leadership primer focused on helping school teams cohere around an initiative…

Too often, professional development (PD) sessions consist of little more than delivering lists of things teachers should know and should be doing. There is little to no follow up. There are few opportunities to think about how to adapt and apply the learning to fit your own classroom context, or to try it out and compare outcomes with fellow…