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Through a review identifying 105 studies meeting What Works Clearinghouse standards, it shows that applying a concise set of evidence-based practices at the right time and in the right way can produce learning gains equivalent to months or years, while helping close achievement gaps.",{"@graph":14,"@context":72},[15,34,55],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & 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learning, close achievement and opportunity gaps, and ensure more equitable outcomes for all students, there’s likely no better place to begin than best first instruction.  \nBy Bryan Goodwin  \nUnleashing the Power of First Instruction 1  \nAbout the Author  \nBryan Goodwin, president and CEO of McREL, thrives on translating insights from education research into practical strategies and professional learning for effective teaching and school leadership. He isthe author or co-author of several McREL books, including The New Classroom Instruction That Works, Learning That Sticks, Building a Curious School, and Instructional Models. Before joining McREL in 1998, Bryan was a college instructor, a high schoolteacher, and a business journalist.  \nAcknowledgements  \nMany thanks go to the team at McREL who supported the research, analysis, development, and writing of content for this paper and the manuscript for The New Classroom Instruction That Works (Goodwin et al., in press), including authors Dr. Kris Rouleau, Cheryl Abla, Dr. Karen Baptiste, Tonia Gibson, and Michele Kimball, and editors Michelle Askeland and Roger Fiedler.  \nAbout McREL  \nMcREL is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research, development, and service organization that helps schools, districts, and education agencies improve outcomes for all students. We provide:  \n• Analysis and alignment of curriculum, instruction, assessment, and standards  \n• Professional development, learning, and coaching for teachers, principals, and system leaders  \n• Research, data analysis, logic models, and program evaluations  \n• School improvement recommendations, action planning, implementation support, and technical assistance  \n© McREL International. All rights reserved.  \nTo use a portion of this document for non-commercial purposes, please cite as follows:  \nGoodwin, B. (2022) . Unleashing the power of best first instruction. McREL International.  \n4601 DTC Boulevard, Suite 500, Denver, CO 80237  \n[www.mcrel.org](www.mcrel.org | 800.858.6830 | info@mcrel.org)[ | 800.858.6830 |](www.mcrel.org | 800.858.6830 | info@mcrel.org)[ info@mcrel.org](www.mcrel.org | 800.858.6830 | info@mcrel.org)  \n20221019  \nUnleashing the Power of Best First Instruction  \nBy Bryan Goodwin  \nOver the years, policymakers and educators have attempted to “reform” or fix schools in myriad ways. They’ve attempted to raise expectations for students with curriculum standards and high-stakes assessments. They’ve crafted complex teacher evaluation systems in an effort to raise teacher quality. And they’ve spent billions on technology to modernize classrooms. Yet studies suggest these reforms have produced, at best, mixed results (Fullan, 2011; Taylor & Tyler, 2012; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2015) and did little to close racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps (Reardon et al., 2013) .  \nThat’s perhaps because, as education historian Larry Cuban has noted, so-called school reform efforts often resemble a hurricane at sea—there’s lots of bluster from policymakers“whipping up the waves on the surface,” yet“deep down on the ocean floor, life goes on, undisturbed by the roiling waters and huge waves on the surface”(2013, p. 16) . In short, these so-called sweeping reforms dolittle to effect real change where it matters most—the daily interactions between teachers and students in the classroom.  \nThe power of best first instruction  \nThat’s the bad news. Here’s the good news: Through a review of rigorous scientific studies of teaching strategies in classrooms with diverse learners, a team at McREL International has discovered (or perhaps  \nre-discovered) that best first instruction has tremendous impact on student learning—equivalent to months or years of additional learning while closing achievement gaps. Over two years, our team examined hundreds  \nof research studies and identified 105 that met the U.S. Depa","cbCaimoTbL20Sxip","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaimoTbL20Sxip","pdf",868661,12,"English","# Purpose and premise\n# What the research review found\n## Defining “best first instruction”\n# Implications for classroom practice","[{\"question\":\"Why do many school reform efforts often produce only mixed results?\",\"answer\":\"The paper argues that reforms can resemble superficial change and fail to affect the daily teacher-student interactions that matter most in classrooms.\"},{\"question\":\"How did the McREL team evaluate the evidence for best first instruction?\",\"answer\":\"The review examined hundreds of research studies and identified 105 that met U.S. Department of Education What Works Clearinghouse evidence standards.\"},{\"question\":\"What impact does best first instruction have on student learning and achievement gaps?\",\"answer\":\"When implemented at the right time and in the right way, a limited set of evidence-based practices can produce large learning gains and help close achievement gaps for marginalized students.\"}]","Unleashing the Power of Best First Instruction | PDF",1792055899]