Initial Funding:

Center to Support Excellence in Teaching, Stanford University

Research on teaching practice has recently gained attention as an effective lever for improving student engagement and achievement. Recent studies have shown that even more than years of teaching experience or degree held, the instructional practice that occurs in K-12 classrooms is the best predictor of student learning. Given the limited amount of time and resources available for preparing new teachers, identifying and helping novices take up a small set of effective, content-specific practices, has great potential for improving the education of students in our nation's schools.

Funded by Stanford University's Center to Support Excellence in Teaching, Matt Kloser and Brad Fogo conducted expert Delphi panel studies to identify candidates for science and history core teaching practices, respectively. The science-focused study resulted in consensus on nine candidate core teaching practices. In conjunction with core science teaching practices already identified in the literature, current research is focused on developing instruments and tools for both measuring teachers' practice as well as providing resources for professional development.

Furthermore, core teaching practice research and development across the disciplines is occurring through the Core Practice Consortium - a group of researchers from a variety of institutions including:

• Stanford University
• University of Washington
• University of Michigan
• UCLA
• University of Notre Dame
• University of Wisconsin
• University of Colorado
• The Boston Teacher Residency

The consortium is currently planning cross-institutional and cross-content area research on defining core teaching practice elements and enacting pedagogies that best foster the development of core teaching practices for novice teachers.