This volume offers insights from modeling relations between teacher quality, instructional quality and student outcomes in mathematics across countries. The relations explored take the educational context, such as school climate, into account. The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement’s Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) is the only international large-scale study possessing a design framework that enables investigation of relations between teachers, their teaching, and student outcomes in mathematics. TIMSS provides both student achievement data and contextual background data from schools, teachers, students and parents, for over 60 countries. This book makes a major contribution to the field of educational effectiveness, especially teaching effectiveness, where cross-cultural comparisons are scarce. For readers interested in teacher quality, instructional quality, and student achievement and motivation in mathematics, the comparisons across cultures, grades, and time are insightful and thought-provoking. For readers interested in methodology, the advanced analytical methods, combined with application of methods new to educational research, illustrate interesting novel directions in methodology and the secondary analysis of international large-scale assessment (ILSA).

PISA 2006: Science Competencies for Tomorrow’s World presents the results from the most recent PISA survey, which focused on science and also assessed mathematics and reading. It is divided into two volumes: the first offers an analysis of the results, the second contains the underlying data.

Raising students' math achievement doesn't mean ripping up your planning book and starting over. In Accessible Mathematics Steven Leinwand (author of Sensible Mathematics) shows how small shifts in the good teaching you already do can make a big difference in student learning. Steve focuses on the crucial issue of classroom instruction. He scours the research and visits highly effective classrooms for practical examples of small adjustments to your teaching that lead to deeper student learning in math. Some of his 10 classroom-tested teaching shifts may surprise you and others will validate your thinking. But all of them will improve your students' performance. Thoroughly practical and ever-aware of the limits of teachers' time, Steve gives you everything you need to put his commonsense ideas to use immediately. His extensive planning advice will help you streamline your teaching to get more from everything you do. Classroom examples from every grade level model teaching language and instructional moves. And his suggestions for professional learning help increase your effectiveness through the power of collaboration. Steven Leinwand shares your priority: raising the mathematical understanding and achievement of every one of your students. Read Accessible Mathematics, try his 10 suggestions in your practice, and discover how minor shifts in your teaching can put student learning into high gear.

This report is the third in a series based on findings about young children's early experiences with school from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K). Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, the ECLS-K study selected a nationally representative sample of kindergartners in the fall of 1998 and is following these children through the spring of their fifth-grade year. The study collects information directly from the children, their families, teachers, and schools. This report looks at children's school performance during first grade in terms of their reading and mathematical knowledge and skills by relating them to child, family, and school characteristics. The report finds that some of the differences in children's reading and mathematics knowledge and skills by child, family, and school characteristics that are present as they enter kindergarten persist into the spring of their kindergarten and spring of their first-grade year. For example, poor children consistently score below the national average in both reading and mathematics across the kindergarten year and into the spring of first grade. These findings also suggest differences that are beginning to emerge by children's sex. By spring of first grade, females are more likely to be reading (understanding words in context), whereas, males are more likely be proficient at advanced mathematics (multiplication and division). However, some differences do seem to wane. For example, in both reading and mathematics, Hispanic children's scores tend to move upward toward the national mean over these two school years. The longitudinal nature of the ECLS-K will enable researchers to track these differences in terms of children's third- and fifth-grade reading and mathematics performance. The report also notes that children who bring certain knowledge and skills with them to kindergarten are likely to be at an advantage in classroom learning compared to peers who do not possess such resources. The descriptive analyses of the report show that children who have specific cognitive knowledge and skills, are read to frequently, possess positive approaches to learning, and enjoy very good or excellent general health, perform better in reading and mathematics than those without these resources. (Includes data and standard error tables. Appended is a table of regression coefficients for the relationship between children's resources and skills to their spring kindergarten and spring first-grade reading performance. Contains 18 references.) (HTH)

This edited collection describes how the Autonomous Learning Behaviours (ALB) model, formulated by Fennema and Peterson, specifically relates to gender differences in mathematics education, learning and performance. The book provides a background to the debate on gender differences; considers the interactions between internal beliefs and external influences, as well as their effects on learning math; and provides a summary of the latest research relevant to the ALB model. Gender differences in learning mathematics is examined from a variety of perspectives, strengthened by longitudinal studies and a cross-cultural American and Australian perspective..

An eyeopening look at how teachers can use literacy strategies to help students better understand mathematics.