For more than three decades, analyses of non-experimental data have reported considerable heterogeneity in teacher impacts on student achievement. We use data from a random-assignment experiment in Los Angeles Unified School District to test the validity of various non-experimental specifications. To do so, we first generated estimates for a group of teachers during a pre-experimental period an...

Low-income preschoolers begin Kindergarten behind their middle and high-income peers in mathematics, and these achievement differences grow as they progress through school. Technology can provide cost effective and scalable solutions to improve young children's mathematics outcomes (Levin, Glass, & Meister, 1987; Slavin & Lake, 2008). The aim of this study was to test Math Shelf, a tablet compu...

This article explores the development of psychosocial competence in boys of color (BOC; 226 African Americans and 109 Latinos). Changes in competence were assessed over 2 years in cohorts of low-income BOC beginning in pre-K, kindergarten, or first grade. Psycho-social competence was assessed in terms of self-regulation, interpersonal skills, and positive relationships with peers and teachers. ...

Very little is known about the relative influence of cognitive performance-based executive functioning (EF) measures and behavioral EF ratings in explaining differences in children's school achievement. This study examined the shared and unique influence of these different EF measures on math and spelling outcome for a sample of 84 first and second graders. Parents and teachers completed the Be...

When teachers gesture during instruction, children retain and generalize what they are taught (Goldin-Meadow, 2014). But why does gesture have such a powerful effect on learning? Previous research shows that children learn most from a math lesson when teachers present one problem-solving strategy in speech while simultaneously presenting a different, but complementary, strategy in gesture (Sing...

This paper studies the power of role models in changing beliefs, behavior, and outcomes for children who are struggling in school and who face negative stereotypes. We exploit random assignment of Chinese middle school students to classrooms to estimate how being assigned a female math teacher affects low performing girls. In our data, there is widespread belief that men are more able to learn ...

This paper presents an innovative approach to introducing pre-service early childhood teachers to math, science and technology education. The approach involves the creation of partnerships between pre-service early childhood and engineering students to conceive, develop, implement and evaluate curriculum in the area of math, science and technology by using robotics and the engineering design pr...

Over a four-year time span, several departments at North Carolina State University offered experimental sections of courses taken by freshman engineering students. The acronym IMPEC ~Integrated Math, Physics, Engineering, and Chemistry curriculum! describes which classes were involved. This paper discusses the physics component of the curriculum and describes the impact of the highly collaborat...

Preschool Pathways to Science (PrePS©) is a science and math program for pre-K children that has been developed by a team of developmental psychologists in full collaboration with preschool directors, teachers and other staff. The PrePS© approach is rooted in domain-specific theories of development, theories that assume that different areas of knowledge are organized into separate mental struct...