Use positive-deviance school identification and engagement process indicators to target supports and future research on growth variation¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The article outlines a research-and-practice strategy of identifying positive-deviant schools to learn from their instructional and leadership practices, and of building process indicators of student engagement with online learning systems (e.g., how consistently students access the system, how soon they engage with assigned lessons) to alert educators to students needing targeted interventions. It notes student-level data can be aggregated to school level when within-school variation is absent.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Online learning system usage data
• School-level growth estimates with confidence bounds

Constraints¶

• Engagement indicators are proposed for future research, not yet tested; regular school-wide use may eliminate student-level variation

Target Learners¶

• Grade 1–3 students and their schools

Target Learning Goals¶

• Accelerating mathematics growth and reducing persistent initial disparities

Claims¶

Related Strategies¶

• Build early-warning indicators and leverage online-learning-system process data to support students before gaps widen in Grade 3
• Investigate schools that sustain outperformance or beat the odds using qualitative methods and engagement data to identify amenable growth factors

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Hiroyuki Yamada. (2024). New Normal in Early Elementary Mathematics Learning: Part I - Initial Findings on Growth and Domains in Grade 1 through Grade 2. E4 Center, Northwestern University. https://e4.northwestern.edu/2024/06/25/new-normal-in-early-elementary-mathematics-learning-part-i-initial-findings-on-growth-and-domains-in-grade-1-through-grade-2/