A multiple-baseline design study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of strategy instruction in persuasive writing with eighth-grade students who attended a public day school for students with severe emotional and behavior disabilities. Students were taught to plan and write persuasive essays using the Self-Regulated Strategy Development model. Following mastery of the strategy, students were taught to apply the learned strategy to write fluently in 10 min. After more than 4 months of instruction, findings indicated that all students had mastered the components of effective persuasive essay writing and increased from baseline to postinstruction and fluency phases in length and quality of essays. Effects were also noted on maintenance and generalization essay probes administered over 11.5 weeks after fluency testing. Observed on-task behavior was significantly correlated with a number of fluency, maintenance, and generalization outcomes. Implications for teaching and further research are discussed.
This study examines professional development activities provided for mathematics and science teachers in the National Science Foundation's Math and Science Partnership Program by analyzing a cross-sectional sample of over 2000 professional development (PD) activities in the program. Data were gathered from secondary source documents and surveys to examine core and structural features of professional development offerings (i.e. form, collective participation, content, duration and outcomes). The results from this sample of PD activities for mathematics and science teachers were mixed. There was evidence of researchbased practices, including the collective participation by teachers at the same grade levels, a focus on content-specific training and sufficient duration. However, courses and workshops continued as the dominant form of PD delivery, there are few measures used to assess the PD activities, and the partnerships did not connect PD efforts for mathematics and science teachers with classroom practices and student achievement outcomes. These findings indicate that the delivery of PD has adopted important research-based strategies, but that the partnerships need to design better methods for documenting growth in teacher knowledge and connecting that growth with student outcomes.
Twelve seventh- and eighth-grade students with emotional disturbance participated in a multiple probe, multiple baseline design two-phase intervention study to improve persuasive writing skills. The first phase after baseline taught students to plan and write persuasive essays including counterarguments. In the second phase, students were taught to plan and write fluently in 10 min. Students were assessed on their essay writing, the Woodcock–Johnson Fluency subtest, writing probes, and were interviewed post instruction. Findings revealed that all students mastered the components of effective persuasive essay writing, included counterarguments, and improved from baseline to postinstruction and postfluency phases in length and essay quality. Although students’ performance decreased slightly on surprise maintenance and generalization measures, results remained substantially higher than baseline. Strategy reports revealed all students enjoyed using and seeing the benefits of instruction. Findings are discussed for future research and practice for students with emotional disturbance.
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