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Teaching Really Does Matter:
Students Learning with Hands-On Activities Outperform Their Peers

Highlights from "How Teaching Matters: Bringing the Classroom Back Into Discussions of Teacher Quality"

The Educational Testing Service recently released a report entitled, "How Teaching Matters: Bringing the Classroom Back Into Discussions of Teacher Quality" based on an analysis of 7,146 eighth graders who took the NAEP mathematics assessment in 1996.

Some notable points from the Executive Summary follow:

"This study represents a first step toward linking classroom practices to student academic performance." (p. 6)

"Students whose teachers conduct hands-on learning activities outperform their peers by more than 70% of a grade level in math and 40% of a grade level in science." (p. 7)

"In math, students whose teachers emphasize higher-order thinking skills outperform their peers by about 40% of a grade level." (p. 7)

One of the recommendations to policymakers:

"... teachers should be encouraged to convey higher-order thinking skills [and] conduct hands-on learning activities ... " (p. 7)

Despite what some critics think, teaching does matter. And teaching based on the recommendations of the mathematics reform movement does make a positive difference.

How Teaching Matters: Bringing the Classroom Back Into Discussions of Teacher Quality. A Policy Information Center Report from the Educational Testing Service Report written by Harold Wenglinsky, October 2000. The full report is available at www.ets.org/research/pic/teamat.pdf in Portable Document Form (PDF):

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