1. Christopher Schatschneider
Supporting Effective Instruction: Technology and Professional Development
Carol McDonald Connor
Frederick J. Morrison
Christopher Schatschneider
Barry Fishman

2. Coming to PD through the back door
Individualizing Student Instruction Study
RFT to test the impact of child characteristics-by-instruction interactions on student outcomes
Aptitude by treatment interactions

3. Designing the PD Protocol
Used the research base to develop a “state of the art” professional development protocol,
delivered to all treatment group teachers
We assumed that, with our coaching, the teachers would be able to implement ISI in the first experimental year with enough fidelity so that we could test our hypotheses
most PD research suggests that it takes 2 to 3 years for teachers to fully implement a new practice

4. What was the Intervention?
Created algorithms based on the HLM results in our Beyond the Reading Wars paper
Assessment to Instruction (A2i) software created to compute recommended amounts and types of instruction for each child
Embedded in planning software design to scaffold research-based reading practices

6. Multiple Dimensions of Instruction
Teacher Managed
Child Managed
Code Focused
Alphabet activities
Letter Sight-Sound
Phonological Awareness
Onset-rime, blending and
segmenting
Word Segmentation
Spelling
phonics worksheets, handwriting activities decoding activities
Meaning Focused
Vocabulary
Teacher Read Aloud
Student Read Aloud, Choral
Group Writing, Writing Instruction, Model Writing
Listening Comprehension
Discussion
Student Buddy Reading
Sustained Silent Reading
Reading Comprehension
worksheets
Student Individual Writing
Pair writing
HLM to computer

8. Algorithm Results TM-CF
TMCFa = ((End of Year Target - (.2* LW GE))/(.05 + (.05 * LW)))+13.
TMCF_Recommended = (TMCFa - (.82 * Month )).

9. Algorithm Results for CM-MF
CMMFa = ((3.76 – End of year target + (1.4 * Vocabulary AE))/(.30)) - 14.
CMMFsl = 10-(.24*CMMFa).
CMMF_Recommended= CMMFa + .5*(CMMFsl * Month).

14. PD Protocol
Focused on using A2i to plan instruction and then on implementing the recommended amounts for each child in the classroom
Grouping
small group rather than whole class
using A2i recommended groupings (homogeneous)
Classroom organization
Effective child-managed activities
Individualizing time, content, and delivery
no one way to individualize instruction
Research-based practice

15. Mentor or Coaching Model
“Research Partners”
classroom based – 2 hours bi-weekly
School level meetings
Individual meetings
Individualized
Same amount of time
Content and focus varied

16. Did the PD work? Evidence from child outcomes
Evidence from A2i software tracking
Evidence from changes in teacher knowledge
Evidence from classroom observations

17. Evidence from Child Outcomes HLM - Treatment versus Control Student Reading Comprehension Outcomes
Mean scores controlling for fall vocabulary, passage comprehension, letter-word reading, curriculum, FARL, and Reading First status. 464 = GE 1.8, 468 = GE 2.0, n = 616 students

18. Evidence from Software Tracking A2i Use and Reading Comprehension
AE = 8.2 years
AE = 6.0 years
HLM fitted growth curves controlling for fall vocabulary, letter-word reading, curriculum, FARL, and Reading First status. 464 = GE 1.8, 468 = GE 2.0,

19. Evidence from changes in Teacher Knowledge
Teacher Knowledge Test Descriptives and Reliability
Assesses teachers’ understanding of English phonology, orthography, and morphology, and concepts of literacy acquisition and instruction
34 multiple choice and 11 short answer items
Administered fall and spring
Cronbach’s alpha = .87.
Teachers in the treatment group had significantly higher spring TKS scores compared to control teachers
Controlling for school SES status, other PD opportunities, teacher credentials and fall TKS scores
standardize beta = .40
A2i and TKS correlations
Fall TKS and A2i total use did not correlate
Spring TKS and A2i correlation = .58

20. Importance of Teacher Knowledge
Scores on the TKS ranged from 9 to 36 (M = 23.45, SD = 7.27).
First Graders – end of year grade equivalent score of 1.9 = 428

21. Evidence from Classroom Observations
Child-managed
Pair
4.1. Literacy Codes:
Phoneme Awareness
Syllable Awareness
Morpheme Awareness
Onset/Rime Awareness
Word ID/Decoding
Word ID/Encoding
Fluency
Print Concepts
Oral Language
Print Vocabulary
Reading Comprehension
Text Reading
Writing
Library
Assessment
Phoneme Awareness
Phoneme Awareness
Blending
Elision/Initial
Elision/Final
Elision/Vowel
Elision/Medial
Substitution/Initial
Substitution/Final
Substitution/Vowel
Substitution/Medial
Segmenting/Counting
Here is a screenshot of our coding software, and, to give you a sense of the detail with which we are able to code, here is a list of our instructional categories. Each category is further broken down into specific activities. For example,…

22. TCM Small-group Code-focused

23. Teacher-Managed Instruction
Small Group
Descriptive Statistics
treatment Mean Std. Deviation N
TM-Whole Class-Code Focused
Total
TM-Whole Class-Meaning Focused
Total
TCM-Whole Class-Code Focused
Total
TCM-Whole Class-Meaning Focused
Total
Whole Class

24. Child Managed Instruction

25. Winter Observed – A2i recommended amounts
Distance From Recommendation Absolute Values *
Simple Differences

26. Effect of Distance from Recommendations
Winter TM-CF DFR
Winter CM-MF DFR
464 = 1.8, 470 = 2.1 about a 3 month difference in GE
450 = 1.9, 458 = GE or about a 5 and a half month difference in GE
464 = 1.8, 470 = 2.1 or about a 3 month difference in GE

27. HLM - DFR predicting student outcomes
Cumulative fall, winter and spring DFR for TM-CF and CM-MF
DFR Treatment teachers < DFR Control Teachers
Total Amounts of instruction did not predict student outcome growth (residualized change)
Cumulative TM-CF and CM-MF DFR negatively predicted both Passage Comprehension and Letter-Word Identification residualized change
TM-CF DFR amount and change fall to spring
CM-MF DFR amount

28. Discussion
Finding effective ways to change teacher practice quickly are critical
For Random Field Trials
Improving student learning
Why did our PD work?
Practice-based PD versus General Knowledge
Focus on A2i, which was designed to scaffold the kinds of instruction research suggests are more effective in improving students’ reading skills
Did the technology really make a difference?
We don’t know – and will need to conduct a RFT to find out