PennGSE Faculty Research
The University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education partners with schools, universities, and communities to expand educational access – especially for those underserved by society. Through rigorous research and innovative programs, we develop new knowledge, and transformational teachers and leaders in pursuit of educational opportunity..
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Publication Learning Trajectory-Oriented Formative Assessment in the Early Grades: Findings from Year 2(Consortium for Policy Research in Education, 2024-12-04) Caroline B. Ebby; Karina G. Diaz; Brittany HessThis report presents the second-year results from the Learning Trajectory-Oriented Formative Assessment in the Early Grades study, funded by the Heising Simons Foundation. The study explored the impact of a professional development and formative assessment system called the Ongoing Assessment Project (OGAP) for K-2 mathematics instruction in a set of urban elementary schools. The intervention was supported in six schools in the first year and then expanded to 15 schools in the second year. Teachers in the control condition received “business as usual” or district-provided mathematics professional development, but no OGAP training. Results from Phase 1 of the study showed significant effects on a district-administered curriculum-based assessment of math competency for K-3 students in the six treatment schools. To evaluate the medium-term impacts of this intervention, Phase 2 of the study followed two cohorts: Cohort 1 treatment and control students were assessed after two years of implementation to determine the effects over a longer duration, while Cohort 2 students were evaluated after their first year of exposure and compared to a newly matched comparison group. The primary focus of the second phase of the study was to (1) continue to explore the impacts on K-3 students’ math performance; (2) explore the variation in teachers’ beliefs, knowledge, perceptions of school support, time teaching math daily, and professional development and follow-up support received; (3) begin to understand how trained teachers used the knowledge gained in OGAP training to inform their use of curriculum resources for mathematics instruction.Publication Challenges and opportunity: An examination of barriers to postsecondary academic success(2024) Sade BonillaCommunity colleges are a critical component of the U.S. higher education system, providing access to students from traditionally underserved communities. However, enduring challenges to completion stemming from educational, economic, and social inequities persist. Building on prior work that examines barriers to student success and their relationship to student outcomes, this descriptive study examines the relationship between students’ time utilization, engagement with campus resources, financial and mental well-being, with academic persistence. Specifically, we examine the relative importance of these barriers on students’ educational attainment. We find that the incidence of adverse mental health is comparable to 4-year undergraduate populations. The rates of food and housing insecurity are comparable to previous studies, though strikingly high. While a plurality of respondents engage with multiple campus resources, this engagement is unrelated to their propensity to remain enrolled or complete additional credits. Most notably, mental health conditions were negatively related to persistence and credit accumulation, while the relationship between academic outcomes and measures of food and housing insecurity was smaller and not significant. Our findings suggest that facilitating access to mental health supports is a prominent avenue for supporting student engagement and success. Keywords: community college; higher education; community college success rates; community college success indicators; college mental health campus communitiesPublication Facilitating Collaborative Discussions around Video Artifacts of Mathematics Teaching(Consortium for Policy Research in Education, 2024) Caroline B. EbbyThis paper traces the development of responsive facilitation practices in online teacher communities focused on analyzing video artifacts of K-8 mathematics instruction. The study was part of the Responsive Math Teaching project, a research-practice partnership focused on improving mathematics instruction in a network of 14 under-resourced urban elementary schools. As part of the model for the development of instructional leadership, grade-level Collaborative Lesson Design groups engaged in regular cycles where they met online to plan a lesson, enacted that lesson in their classrooms, and then met again to debrief. Each group was composed of a university-based mentor, novice teacher leaders who were learning to facilitate the sessions, and teacher participants. Drawing on a situated perspective, we explored the following questions: What is involved in facilitating the sharing of video artifacts in online teacher learning communities? What are the component responsive facilitation practices? How do developing leaders use of those practices develop over time? We draw on our analysis to develop a framework that articulates how teacher leaders learned to facilitate discussions in ways that built on teacher knowledge, experiences, and contributions while also focusing on a professional learning goal. Paper Presented at the 2023 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research AssociationPublication Appendix for Designing questions for critical inquiry.(2023-01-15) Conrad, JenniPublication Review of Robert W. Rieber and Aaron S. Carton, Collected works of L.S. Vygotsky, Volumes 3 and 4(1998-06-01) Wortham, StantonSince it branched off from philosophy in the 19th century, psychology has had a troubled, dual nature. Some have envisioned another natural science, one that offers causal explanations for behavior. Others have envisioned a humanistic science, one that offers context-specific descriptions of meaningfulness in human experience. The first group reduces behavior to natural mechanisms. The second insists that humanity be described in intentional or spiritual terms. Writing in the 1920s and '30s, Lev Vygotsky claimed that this split within psychology had created a crisis because it had prevented the field from gaining wide acceptance like the natural sciences. Although progress has been made over the past 70 years, Vygotsky's description rings uncomfortably true today.Publication Until All Of Us Are Home: The Process of Leadership at Project H.O.M.E. A Leadership for a Changing World Collaborative Ethnography(2006-03-01) Hall, Kathleen D"None of us are home until all of us are home." This is the motto of the not-for-profit organization Project H.O.M.E. (Housing, Opportunities for Employment, Medical Care, Education). The words, expressing the organization's commitment to solidarity in struggle, are permanently inscribed in a beautiful stone mosaic just inside the golden doors at the entrance of 1515 Fairmount Avenue, Philadelphia, one of Project H.O.M.E.'s 11 residential facilities for formerly homeless men and women and the site of the outreach program and many of the administrative offices. The motto serves as a reminder that the true struggle is to end homelessness and as a clarion call to bring all of us, all of humanity, home. This ethnography explores the process of shared leadership at Project H.O.M.E. We consider how leadership emerges through struggle and results in transformations, individual as well as social, in the context of personal struggles for recovery and family reunification, collective struggles for fair housing and equality, and administrative struggles to stay true to Project H.O.M.E.'s vision and pursue appropriate avenues for organizational growth. The information and analysis in this ethnography is based on a yearlong (July 2003 to October 2004) participatory study. In keeping with the aims of the Leadership for a Changing World program, the ethnographers, Kathleen Hall and Jaskiran Dhillon, together with documentary photographer Harvey Finkle and Project H.O.M.E.’s Director of Education and Public Policy, Laura Weinbaum, worked with members of the Project H.O.M.E. community to explore how leadership is understood, experienced, and enacted in everyday practice. Our research took an appreciative inquiry stance, in which we, as researchers, participated with members of the Project H.O.M.E. community to explore and learn lessons from the meanings they gave to their leadership work. Therefore, our account weaves their stories together with an analytic thread that illuminates the lessons the stories provide. For more information on Project H.O.M.E., go to www.projecthome.org. For information on the photographs, go to www.harveyfinkle.org.Publication Turnover Among Mathematics and Science Teachers in the U.S.(2000-02-01) Ingersoll, RichardFor some time educational policy analysts have been predicting that shortfalls of teachers resulting primarily from increases in student enrollment and teacher retirements will make it very difficult for schools to find qualified teachers and, in turn, will hurt school performance. Moreover, analysts have argued that shortages will be worse for particular fields, such as math and science, because of difficulties in recruiting qualified candidates. This paper summarizes what the best available nationally representative data reveal about the rates of, and reasons for, teacher turnover for both math/science and other teachers. The data show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the problems schools have adequately staffing classrooms with qualified teachers are not primarily due to teacher shortfalls, stemming from either increases in student enrollment or increases in teacher retirement. Rather, the data show that school staffing difficulties are primarily a result of a "revolving door" where large numbers of teachers depart teaching for other reasons, such as job dissatisfaction and in order to pursue better jobs or other careers. These findings have important implications for educational policy. Teacher recruitment programs - the dominant policy approach to addressing school staffing inadequacies - will not solve the staffing problems of schools, if they do not also address the problem of teacher retention. In short, the data indicate that recruiting more teachers will not solve teacher shortages if large numbers of such teachers then prematurely leave.Publication Until All Of Us Are Home: The Process of Leadership at Project H.O.M.E.(2006-03-01) Hall, Kathleen D"None of us are home until all of us are home." This is the motto of the not-for-profit organization Project H.O.M.E. (Housing, Opportunities for Employment, Medical Care, Education). These words, expressing the organization's commitment to solidarity in struggle, are permanently inscribed in a beautiful stone mosaic just inside the golden doors at the entrance of 1515 Fairmount, one of Project H.O.M.E.'s eleven residential facilities for formerly homeless men and women and the site of the outreach program and many of the administrative offices. Their motto is emblazoned on a banner raised high between the outstretched arms of a man and woman who stand before the golden doors of 1515 Fairmount. Above them is the skyline of Philadelphia, and below are listed the names of the many organizations - legal and governmental largely - that helped Project H.O.M.E. win its NIMBY ("Not in My Backyard") legal battle against neighborhood and city opposition to the opening of a residence for the formally homeless at 1515 Fairmount. "In gratitude to the efforts of these people," read the words at the bottom of the long list of law firms, businesses, and government officials, including "The Honorable Henry Cisneros, Secretary, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development."Publication Teacher Turnover and Teacher Shortages: An Organizational Analysis(2001-09-01) Ingersoll, RichardContemporary educational theory holds that one of the pivotal causes of inadequate school performance is the inability of schools to adequately staff classrooms with qualified teachers. This theory also holds that these school staffing problems are primarily due to shortages of teachers, which, in turn, are primarily due to recent increases in teacher retirements and student enrollments. This analysis investigates the possibility that there are other factors - those tied to the organizational characteristics and conditions of schools - that are driving teacher turnover and, in turn, school staffing problems. The data utilized in this investigation are from the Schools and Staffing Survey and its supplement, the Teacher Followup Survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics. The results of the analysis indicate that school staffing problems are not primarily due to teacher shortages, in the technical sense of an insufficient supply of qualified teachers. Rather, the data indicate that school staffing problems are primarily due to excess demand resulting from a "revolving door" - where large numbers of qualified teachers depart their jobs for reasons other than retirement. Moreover, the data show that the amount of turnover accounted for by retirement is relatively minor when compared to that associated with other factors, such as teacher job dissatisfaction and teachers pursuing other jobs. The article concludes that popular education initiatives, such as teacher recruitment programs, will not solve the staffing problems of such schools if they do not also address the organizational sources of low teacher retention.Publication INFORMATION GAP TASKS: Their Multiple Roles and Contributions to Interaction Research Methodology(2006-04-21) Pica, Teresa; Kang, Hyun-Sook; Sauro, ShannonThis article describes how information gap tasks can be designed as instruments for data collection and analysis and as treatments in interaction research. The development of such tasks is illustrated and data are presented on their role in drawing learners' attention to second language (L2) forms that are difficult to notice through classroom discussion alone. Because the tasks presented here are closed-ended and precision oriented and require the exchange of uniquely held information, they promote modified interaction among participants and orient their attention to form, function, and meaning. These processes can be observed by the researcher during task implementation. Thus, the tasks reduce researcher dependence on externally applied treatments and analytical instruments not integral to the interaction itself. To illustrate this methodology in use, we report on a study in which six pairs of intermediate-level English L2 learners carried out three types of information gap tasks in their classrooms. They first read passages on familiar topics, whose sentences contained L2 forms that were low in salience and difficult to master but developmentally appropriate. To complete the tasks, the learners were required to identify, recall, and compare the forms, their functions, and their meanings. Data revealed close relationships among learners' attentional processes, their recall of form, function, and meaning, and the interactional processes that supported their efforts.