What matters most here
| Rank | Practice | Grade |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Daily small-group tutoring during school for students behind (principle 12) | Evidence grade: Proven in classrooms Proven; two Chicago trials with 9th and 10th graders found 0.18 to 0.40 SD gains (Guryan et al.(opens in a new tab)) |
| 2 | Worked examples, faded as students improve (principle 3) | Evidence grade: Strong Strong; the effect was first found with algebra |
| 3 | Cumulative quizzing and mixed review (principles 6–8) | Evidence grade: Strong Strong; mixed-practice trials were in middle school |
| 4 | Problem-solving before instruction, for students who already have the basics | Evidence grade: Promising Promising and contested (summary(opens in a new tab)) |
A lesson in this room
Warm-up mixing linear, quadratic, and exponential problems. Teacher works one new example with each step labeled. Students try twins on whiteboards. Weekly cumulative quiz on Fridays.
Leader look-fors
- Tutoring scheduled as a class period for students behind
- Worked examples before independent practice
- Old units on quizzes
Stop doing
Optional after-school tutoring as the main plan for students far behind. In-school, scheduled tutoring had larger effects (Nickow et al.(opens in a new tab)).
Where the evidence runs out
Few trials of classroom practices in high school math specifically. Productive failure is the main open debate for advanced students.
Principles
Sources
- Guryan et al. 2023 (opens in a new tab)
voices.uchicago.edu
- Sinha & Kapur 2021, productive failure (summary) (opens in a new tab)
futurity.org
- Nickow, Oreopoulos & Quan 2024 (opens in a new tab)
nssa.stanford.edu