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Research Wednesday
Research Wednesday | July 23, 2025
This week’s update addresses one of the most important skills every teacher must have: effective classroom management. A frequent complaint from school leaders is that they spend more time dealing with disruptive students whose teachers cannot deal with them. Thus, the school administrator has less time for their most important role – instructional leadership. The evidence comes from Edutopia, July 7, 2025, with the title “8 Small But Impactful Classroom Management Shifts.”
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Research Wednesday
Research Wednesday | July 15, 2025
Here is a new view on how AI in the classroom could be positive, rather than the cheating machine that AI is often labeled. It comes from Dan Willingham of the University of Virginia.
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Blogs
Take a Closer Look at the “Mississippi Miracle”
Mississippi educators and leaders can take justifiable pride in the progress that students have made. Throughout the 80s and 90s, Mississippi, one of the poorest states in the Union, was a reliable last-place finisher in national education scores such as NAEP. But in recent years, the state has led the nation in reading gains.
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Research Wednesday
Gloria Mark and her book “Attention Span”
This week’s evidence comes from Microsoft researcher and University of California professor Gloria Mark in her book “Attention Span”.
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Research Wednesday
The Latest on the US Department of Education Funding and Enrollment Drops
The Latest on the US Department of Education Funding and Enrollment Drops
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Research Wednesday
An Unusual Take on Cheating with AI
An Unusual Take on Cheating with AI – Two interesting articles from May 2025 were published on cheating with AI.
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Research Wednesday
Teacher Education Programs and Evidence-based Teaching Practices
This week’s evidence, published on April 8, 2025, concerns teacher education programs and their use (and failure to use) of evidence-based teaching practices. It is interesting to contrast teacher education in Finland and Norway—the subjects of this study—with teacher education in the US.
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Research Wednesday
THE FAMILY DYNAMIC: A Journey Into the Mystery of Sibling Success, by Susan Dominus
In this provocative new book (2025), THE FAMILY DYNAMIC: A Journey Into the Mystery of Sibling Success, by Susan Dominus, the author examines the families of exceptional siblings, from those who excelled in medicine, chess, politics, and other fields.
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Research Wednesday
Student Engagement
Student engagement is a hot topic with many teachers despairing that students display an alarming degree of disinterest and disengagement in school. More than 130 studies in this meta-analysis revealed that engagement and academic achievement are very related.
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Research Wednesday
Take Care when Implementing the Science of Reading.
Take Care when Implementing the Science of Reading.
The science of reading has taken the nation by storm, with more than half the state legislatures mandating adopting a curriculum based on the science of reading.
In this April 29, 2025, article in Education Week, Scott Gaynor, the head of an independent school, suggests caution in several areas.
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Research Wednesday
Math Education
While the Thomas Fordham Foundation has been critical of me, especially about my writing on grading policies, I always try to learn from them, and this week was an especially good report on math education. Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin (Matt Giani, Ph.D., Franchesca Lyra, Adam Tyner, Ph.D.) studied the impact on students who took calculus or statistics.
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Research Wednesday
Fearless Leadership
Here is a quick excerpt from my new book, Fearless Leadership, that might be useful in your discussions with school and district leaders. It has to do with how leaders and governing board members can deal with public participation in board meetings:
We follow the principle to first seek to understand, and then seek to be understood.
Creative Leadership Blog
CLS colleagues regularly publish on relevant topics for busy educators. Whether it is a book, article, or blog, each contains facts and practical next steps for practitioners. As with all our resources, please share with colleagues and communities.