A question of reframing: How LSP improves math fluency, economics, and financial literacy at the secondary level

The purpose of this applied expository paper is to demonstrate how world language teachers at the secondary level can incorporate Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) principles into their courses when it is not possible to offer standalone LSP courses. Multiple examples are provided that illustrate how many traditional classroom lessons, communicative activities, and projects can be reframed to incorporate interdisciplinary connections to provide students with a skill set that focuses on global awareness and communication, as well as economic and financial literacy. One rural and persistently low-performing school district created initiatives to integrate reading apprenticeship strategies, writing across the curriculum, and number fluency into weekly lessons in all classrooms at all grade levels in order to increase student academic achievement. Beginning world language courses at the secondary level, reframed through an LSP lens, can provide valuable support to other content areas. Further, these courses may potentially increase student engagement within the classroom and cause higher achievement on state assessments across multiple disciplines.

Diagnosing bottlenecks in development-stage field experiments: Troubleshooting and finding opportunities for improvement

Randomized trials of social programs yield internally valid estimates of causal impacts on key outcomes. While estimates of gross impact serve as useful summaries, program developers require deeper information to drive improvement efforts, especially when no impact is observed. The first main goal of this work is to present a seven-stage diagnostic method for assessing process bottlenecks in experiments. Designed for programs still in development, the troubleshooting sequence uses mixed methods to assess where in a program’s logic model the process is compromised. It includes post-experimental methods that are built into the design, to account for impact variation and test where effects are intensifying or diminishing. The second main purpose of this work is to demonstrate one such method in detail. The approach tests the relationship between fidelity of program implementation and impact. First, levels of achieved fidelity in the treatment group are modeled in terms of informative baseline covariates. The model is then used to index fidelity in both conditions. Informed only by pre-randomization characteristics of individuals, the model-based fidelity scores are unbiased by endogeneity, and allow assessment of whether impacts on key outcomes vary by levels of fidelity. Results can help program developers focus improvement efforts. We illustrate the seven-step diagnostic process through a randomized trial of the Internet-Based Reading Apprenticeship Improving Science Education (iRAISE) program. Eighty-two high school science teachers and 1468 students were randomly assigned to a literacy program or control. There was no overall impact on achievement. Applying the diagnostic process revealed this was not due to a weak program contrast between conditions, or an inadequate assessment; rather, lower-than-expected impact was likely due to weaker than intended implementation.

Leading for literacy

Two-thirds of U.S. high school students today are unable to read and comprehend complex academic materials, think critically about texts, synthesize information from multiple sources, or effectively communicate what they have learned. And in response, many teachers simply stop assigning challenging texts, opting instead to “deliver content” through lectures. For 25 years, though, the Reading Apprenticeship program has shown that when school and district leaders embrace a collective responsibility to provide effective reading and writing instruction, they can help subject-area teachers reflect on their own literacy practices and fundamentally rethink their approach to literacy instruction.

Integrating Literacy and Science in Biology: Teaching and Learning Impacts of Reading Apprenticeship Professional Development

This study examined the effects of professional development integrating academic literacy and biology instruction on science teachers? instructional practices and students? achievement in science and literacy. The intervention consisted of 10 days of professional development in Reading Apprenticeship, an instructional framework integrating metacognitive inquiry routines into subject-area instruction to make explicit the tacit reasoning processes, problem-solving strategies, and textual features that shape literacy practices in academic disciplines. The study utilized a group-randomized, experimental design and multiple measures of teacher implementation and student learning and targeted groups historically unrepresented in the sciences. Hierarchical linear modeling procedures were used to estimate program impacts. Intervention teachers demonstrated increased support for science literacy learning and use of metacognitive inquiry routines, reading comprehension instruction, and collaborative learning structures compared to controls. Students in treatment classrooms performed better than controls on state standardized assessments in English language arts, reading comprehension, and biology.