PROJECT OVERVIEWS

DSG, for the U.S. Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences’ What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Preschool-to-Postsecondary Evidence Synthesis Task Orders (or PESTO), and as a subcontractor to the American Institutes for Research, is organizing and differentiating instruction in kindergarten through eighth grade, by helping AIR prepare publications that are informed by a systematic review of evidence on the impacts of instructional practices and routines that promote student learning and engagement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (or STEM).

Under a second PESTO task order, DSG is helping AIR produce a practice guide and an evidence guide that are informed by a systematic review of evidence on the impacts of classroom practices that promote student academic readiness, knowledge, and skills as well as favorable social, emotional, behavioral, and mental health outcomes in students in grades 9 through 12.

For the first task order (kindergarten through eighth grade), three examples of instructional practices and routines to promote student learning and engagement in STEM are

• How educators allocate their time during instruction 
• Activities that students participate in during instruction 
• How students are grouped or collaborate with one another during instruction

The primary target audiences for publications and products prepared under this task order are classroom teachers, instructional coaches, special education teachers, paraprofessionals, school leaders, teacher educators, technical assistance providers, and school district personnel responsible for preservice or in-service training of educators.

In this first task order, DSG is

• Completing WWC reviews, which include coordinating the reviews, completing the reviews, completing Study Review Guides and Master Review Guides, developing and managing author queries when needed, making edits to the reviews in response to peer reviewers’ feedback, and summarizing studies that meet WWC standards. 
• Leading the development of a 1-page and a 15-page summary of each practice guide, written for nontechnical audiences and drawn from the text and images included in the approved practice guide.

Under the second task order (grades 9–12), the practice guide and evidence guide will be based on research on interventions that include both classroom components and schoolwide components, or support from staff in addition to classroom teachers, such as school psychologists or special education personnel.

The practice guide will provide actionable recommendations for classroom teachers, instructional coaches, special education teachers, paraprofessionals, school leaders, teacher educators, technical assistance providers, and school district personnel responsible for preservice or in-service training of educators.

The evidence guide will highlight—for program administrators, program developers, researchers, and funders of research—where evidence identified through the systematic review of research meets WWC standards and covers particular outcomes, student populations, instructional settings, and categories of interventions. The evidence guide also will document the interventions for which the WWC found favorable effects on student outcomes or other outcomes relevant to education and will identify areas where evidence on relevant topics that meets WWC standards is lacking.

DSG will participate in three specific tasks for this task order:

• DSG will send one representative to participate in all formal panel meetings. 
• DSG will lead the development of the topic area review protocol, which defines both the scope of the literature search and the subsequent systematic review process. The topic area review protocol also specifies which kinds of studies, populations, interventions, and outcomes are of interest for the topic area review. 
• DSG will conduct WWC reviews of half of the studies that are eligible for review, which includes coordinating the review in the Online Study Review Guide system, reviewing the studies, managing the author query process, finalizing study reviews, oversight by review team leadership, and providing edits to the reviews based on peer review feedback.

CONTACT US ABOUT THESE PROJECTS

For more information about our work reviewing educational studies, contact Project Director Fran Harmon at [email protected] or 301.951.0056.