Background
The material Simplifying Teaching: A Field Experiment with “Off-the-Shelf” Lessons starts with an abstract where the document’s background and purpose are described. In particular, the author states that the experiment with the middle-school math teachers was made in unique settings with students. The main idea was to conduct an online lesson but put teachers in the traditional classroom environment (Graduate Student, 2019).
Further, in the introduction, the author stresses and identifies the impact that teachers have on students in a long-term perspective. However, the lack of effective policies for teachers’ development and increasing their teaching abilities has been underlined as a problem. Considering this fact, the author stresses that it is the purpose of conducting the study and using special anchor lessons that will give students new concepts of learning math (Graduate Student, 2019). As Graduate Student (2019) states, “During these anchor lessons, students are guided by the teacher to think creatively and critically about the real world” (p. 3). Consequently, as an essential part of the discussion, the author compares classical math lessons and the anchor classes by considering the second’s advantages.
Specifications of the Anchor Lesson
Throughout the paper, the author explores the peculiarities of the applied lesson approach. Therefore, it is vital to state some of its main characteristics. This lesson assumes the job simplifying technology is from the Mathalicious curriculum, which has the 6 through 12 grounded topics contextualized in real-world situations (Graduate Student, 2019). In addition, these lessons maintain the teaching through problem-solving, where the teacher asks students complex and logical questions. Given all the above-mentioned characteristics of the anchor lesson, the material further discusses the specific experiment’s conduct.
The Experiment
The experiment was conducted in three Virginia school districts using anchor lessons to study its effects. In Chesterfield, Henrico, and Hanover, public schools enrolled 59,186, 50,569, and 18,264 students accordingly (Graduate Student, 2019). The experiment was conducted in the 2013-2014 school year, and the teachers were assigned to the classes following three main specifications. There was full treatment, license-only treatment, and control condition (Graduate Student, 2019).
Further, to model teachers’ behavior and their impact on students, the researchers used graphics and statistics to summarize obtained information and provide understandable results. Moreover, the modeling was conducted in accordance with five predictions regarding the study’s outcomes.
Results of the Study
The primary purpose of the research is to achieve particular results regarding the changes in students’ success after applying the anchor lessons. To measure students’ knowledge in math, the Virginia Standards of Learning assessment was applied (Graduate Student, 2019). In addition, other methods of analyzing the results were considered, such as teacher surveys.
As a result, the specification of the educational process, as well as the role of the teacher, were explored. In particular, there was a difference between the number of lessons teachers of different treatments conducted during the experiment. For example, teachers with full treatment held more lessons than teachers with other types of treatment. Moreover, teachers with full treatment had a more positive effect on students’ performance during training than other teachers.
Detailed results of the study are presented in graphics and tables in the material. The perception and attitude of students toward their teachers were considered. Consequently, according to Graduate Student (2019), “Students from the full treatment group are 0.182σ (p-value<0.05) more likely to agree that their math teacher promotes deep understanding” (p. 19). The results were crucial regarding the study’s question and its purposes.
Reference
Graduate Student. (2019). Simplifying Teaching: A Field Experiment with “Off-the-Shelf” Lessons.