The research will conduct field surveys of current curriculum practices that support bilingual education in South Texas through qualitative observations and also content analysis of written curriculum. The research will also conduct regression analysis of state-level data on the linguistic and academic proficiency of Texas' Latino and LEP populations, separately and combined, taking into account school-level variables, such as program types; teacher quality; class size; and demographic composition across rural, urban, and suburban contexts.
Employ sophisticated statistical tools to examine the individual attributes of principals that may be associated with measures of teacher quality and student achievement.
The goal of the Bridging the Gap in Science is to determine if the Bridging II TAKS model of professional development influences student achievement in elementary science, influences teacher practice in elementary science, and if contrasting models of professional development delivery by campus have differential effects on student achievement or teacher practice.
High-achieving, high-poverty schools will be identified through their state rating and Title I status. Three schools will be randomly selected that achieve the "Recognized" status and three that do not. Study questions include: 1) How do educators in recognized Title I schools use student data for school improvement, and do these methods differ from educators in the comparison group? 2) What needs do educators in recognized Title I schools express regarding student data use, and are these needs different from educators in the comparison group?
To assist researchers and practitioners in gaining a better understanding of the relationship between high school preparation, college choices, and postsecondary outcomes, the study tracks graduating Houston Independent School District (HISD) students through the process of postsecondary decision making and college matriculation. Primary research questions are: 1) What are the college attendance rates and patterns of Houston area graduates, 2) How do preparation and qualifications affect postsecondary choices of Houston area graduates, 3) What are the graduation rates of Houston area alumni in 2- and 4-year colleges, and 4) What additional qualitative aspects impact Houston area college attendance rates and patterns.
To assist school districts in meeting the demand for quality engineering teachers, the UTeachEngineering program provides a combination of courses for pre-service teachers and graduate students, as well as summer training institutes for current teachers wishing to learn effective engineering pedagogy. The model is based on the successful UTeach Science program and over the next five years, will train over 650 teachers to use design- and challenge-based engineering curriculum instruction. The research evaluates the benefit of the UTeachEngineering curriculum and strategies to teachers and students, under the hypothesis that the program produces high quality teachers who are able to implement rigorous and meaningful learning experiences and foster a lasting knowledge of engineering principles in high school students.
Determine the descriptive differences, over time, in key outcomes such as persistence, transfer, time to degree, for low-income, at-risk, Latino and non-Latino students who begin their postsecondary experiences at one of the thirty-two "less-selective" universities in Texas, in comparison to those students who begin their experiences at a community college. Ascertain the relative contribution of this decision on the likelihood that a student will eventually attain a Bachelors degree.