Andrea Beesley

Within and beyond the U.S., access to advanced technology for students and teachers is held out as a path toward educational transformation. However, in historically underserved schools and communities, this promise remains elusive. Many schools do not have access to the technologies that can open new learning opportunities for teachers and students (the digital-access divide). Even with increased access to technology, the use of that technology in active and creative ways does not automatically follow in schools serving high concentrations of students facing socioeconomic barriers (the digital-use divide). This report explores the dual digital divides of disparities in access to technology and its use in instruction through the lens of the Apple and ConnectED Initiative, which has been the focus of a rigorous 6-year research study. It is one of a series of reports on the Apple and ConnectED research that address different aspects of implementing 1:1 programs that provide each student with access to a technological device.

Launched in 2014, the Apple and ConnectED Initiative supported 114 participating schools across the United States. The initiative provided schools with iPad devices for each student, Apple technology for each teacher, and 17 days of teacher professional learning in the first year. In designing the initiative, Apple also included services that are essential, but rare, in widescale technology initiatives: school connectivity infrastructure upgrades and a dedicated team of support professionals that offered project management, tools, and coaching for school leaders. This allowed many of the participating schools to quickly begin to use devices and explore the learning opportunities they could bring to their students. Recognizing the diversity of the participating schools, the initiative also customized both implementation timelines and professional learning approaches to meet the unique needs of each school. The ConnectED schools ranged from pre-K to secondary and served urban, rural, migrant, and Native American communities. As a requirement to apply to the program, 96% or more of each school’s students had to qualify for free or reduced-price meals. The initiative thus offered a unique opportunity to study technology adoption across a wide range of traditionally under-resourced communities. These case stories describe ConnectED in Compton, California; Tuskegee, Alabama; and Orondo, Washington. They are part of an independent 6-year research study conducted by SRI International that investigates both implementation and outcomes of the Apple and ConnectED Initiative. Fifteen of the 114 schools were selected for site visits from spring 2016 to fall 2017 (wave 1) and then from fall 2018 to spring 2019 (wave 2). The three schools whose stories are presented here were part of that group of 15. Quotes in the stories are from site visit interviews and phone interviews with teachers, principals, and other school staff, unless otherwise noted.

Schoolwide technology initiatives such as 1:1 programs have the potential to catalyze meaningful changes in school climate, instructional practices, and students’ educational experiences. Implementing these programs can focus the school community around a shared vision, create opportunities for professional learning and leadership, and lead to more personalized, engaging, and empowering classroom experiences for students. The Apple and ConnectED Initiative, launched in 2014, has supported 114 participating schools ranging from pre-K to secondary with an iPad® for every child. Schools received a host of programmatic support including extensive professional learning opportunities for teachers and leaders, technology infrastructure upgrades, and process management. The initiative and this research are explicitly situated in a diversity of schools serving under-resourced communities across the country, from the inner city to rural migrant communities to Native American villages. Experience has shown that sustaining the progress of 1:1 programs in schools serving underresourced communities is hard, as technology requires upkeep and the initial burst of focused energy sparked by new initiatives can dissipate. ConnectED was designed with an intentional approach to building a foundation for continued use of technology and to create conditions that would set school communities on a new learning trajectory, leading to continued deepening and expansion of technology use in classrooms. This vision of sustainability involved ramping up the provision of technology and integration support as schools were ready and then removing these scaffolds gradually to allow schools to assume local ownership of their 1:1 programs. Through SRI International’s (SRI) 6-year study of the initiative, the Apple and ConnectED Initiative provided a unique opportunity to observe how sustainability played out across many schools over an extended time period. This report describes findings from the research about the strategies that schools used to address inevitable challenges to sustainability and what factors and conditions appeared to make a difference. It further addresses the dynamic relationship among these factors and conditions, which can lead to positive reinforcement.

the value of programming. To satisfy these demands and make the most of funding opportunities, practitioners must develop strong partnerships with external evaluators. However, developing afterschool evaluation partnerships that work well for all parties is often far more difficult than program directors or evaluators anticipate. When research is conducted in K–12 schools, educators often bring some experience in assessment methods, and researchers often have at least a basic knowledge of pedagogy. In contrast, in the out-ofschool time (OST) field, program directors with little formal research experience are frequently paired with evaluators who lack experience in OST programs. This research-practice gap, if not addressed, can translate

Public education in the United States must meet the needs of nearly ten million children attending schools in rural communities across the country. This comprises about 20 % of the nation’s student population and over 23 % of state expenditures on education. Since the 1990s there has been an increasing emphasis on examining rural education—policy, practice, and student outcomes—in research and in the programs of the U.S. Department of Education. In this chapter we describe the most frequent rural education issues addressed in recent research literature, and propose a research agenda for the next generation of work on rural issues. This book grew out of the 2013 Connect-Inform-Advance rural conference hosted by the National Center for Research Rural Education that was intended to take stock of what is known about rural education, how we have come to know it, and what will be important to learn more about in the coming years. The chapters of this book represent a natural extension of the conference discussion themes of defining and describing rural context and culture in research, examining influences on student outcomes, the use of interdisciplinary research partnerships, and future directions for conducting and disseminating rural education research results.

Full text at https://rdcu.be/cKfGi This study presents findings from a randomized controlled trial of an afterschool program intended to develop mathematics identity for students from grades 4 and 5 in groups underrepresented in STEM. Mathematics identity refers to the ways that students think about themselves in relation to mathematics and the extent to which they have developed a commitment to, and have come to see value in, mathematics. While the impact analyses showed no effects of the intervention on mathematics identity or achievement, the exploration of the longitudinal data collected over 2 years provided several insights. On average, student mathematics identity remained constant over the study period; however, the overall averages mask large variations in individual students and sites. Some students saw improvement in mathematics identity, while others saw decreases. Counter to findings in previous literature, we found no overall differences by gender suggesting that boys and girls report similar mathematics identity. Importantly, we found a positive relationship between mathematics identity and achievement. This finding holds in both directions and suggests that boosting mathematics identity could lead to improving mathematics achievement and vice versa. This study contributes to our understanding of mathematics identity, how it is measured, how it evolves over time, what relationship it has to mathematics achievement, and what its potential for development in afterschool environments could be.

Schoolwide technology initiatives such as 1:1 programs have the potential to
catalyze meaningful changes in school climate, instructional practices, and
students’ educational experiences. Implementing these programs can focus the
school community around a shared vision, create opportunities for professional
learning and leadership, and lead to more personalized, engaging, and
empowering classroom experiences for students.

The Apple and ConnectED Initiative, launched in 2014, has supported 114 participating schools ranging from pre-K to secondary with an iPad® for every child. Schools received a host of programmatic support including extensive professional learning opportunities for teachers and leaders, technology infrastructure upgrades, and process management. The initiative and this research are explicitly situated in a diversity of schools serving under-resourced communities across the country, from the inner city to rural migrant communities to Native American villages.

Experience has shown that sustaining the progress of 1:1 programs in schools serving underresourced communities is hard, as technology requires upkeep and the initial burst of focused energy sparked by new initiatives can dissipate. ConnectED was designed with an intentional approach to building a foundation for continued use of technology and to create conditions that would set school communities on a new learning trajectory, leading to continued deepening and expansion of technology use in classrooms. This vision of sustainability involved ramping up the provision of technology and integration support as schools were ready and then removing these scaffolds gradually to allow schools to assume local ownership of their 1:1 programs.
Through SRI International’s (SRI) 6-year study of the initiative, the Apple and ConnectED Initiative provided a unique opportunity to observe how sustainability played out across many schools over an extended time period. This report describes findings from the research about the strategies that schools used to address inevitable challenges to sustainability and what factors and conditions appeared to make a difference. It further addresses the dynamic relationship among these factors
and conditions, which can lead to positive reinforcement.

Technology, such as iPad™ devices for students and teachers, has the potential to energize classrooms and bring substantially new types of learning opportunities to children of all ages. These changes are not an automatic result of adding technology to education, and they often take place over a long period of time. This report asks the questions, what does a promising start look like and what types of support can enable conditions for success?
We ask these questions through the lens of the Apple and ConnectED Initiative, which has been the focus of a rigorous 6-year research study. Launched in 2014, the Apple and ConnectED Initiative has supported 114 participating schools across the country with an iPad for every student. Schools received a host of programmatic supports including extensive professional learning opportunities for teachers and leaders, technology infrastructure upgrades, and process management.
The initiative and this research are explicitly situated in a diversity of traditionally under-resourced communities, with schools ranging from pre-K to secondary and from the inner city to rural migrant communities to Native American villages. This report focuses on the first year of iPad use across these schools to describe the initial changes that might be expected to appear when sufficient support is in place to lower common barriers to its adoption.

Within and beyond the U.S., access to advanced technology for students and teachers is held out as a path toward educational transformation. However, in historically underserved schools and communities, this promise remains elusive. Many schools do not have access to the technologies that can open new learning opportunities for teachers and students (the digital-access divide). Even with increased access to technology, the use of that technology in active and creative ways does not automatically follow in schools serving high concentrations of students facing socioeconomic barriers (the digital-use divide).

This report explores the dual digital divides of disparities in access to technology and its use in instruction through the lens of the Apple and ConnectED Initiative, which has been the focus of a rigorous 6-year research study. It is one of a series of reports on the Apple and ConnectED research that address different aspects of implementing 1:1 programs that provide each student with access to a technological device.

Launched in 2014, the Apple and ConnectED Initiative supported 114 participating schools across the United States. The initiative provided schools with iPad devices
for each student, Apple technology for each teacher, and 17 days of teacher professional learning in the first year. In designing the initiative, Apple also included services that are essential, but rare, in widescale technology initiatives: school connectivity infrastructure upgrades and a dedicated team of support professionals that offered project management, tools, and coaching for school leaders. This allowed many of the participating schools to quickly begin to use devices and explore the
learning opportunities they could bring to their students. Recognizing the diversity of the participating schools, the initiative also customized both implementation timelines and professional learning approaches to meet the unique needs of each school.

The ConnectED schools ranged from pre-K to secondary and served urban, rural, migrant, and Native American communities. As a requirement to apply to the program, 96% or more of each school’s students had to qualify for free or reduced-price meals. The initiative thus offered a unique opportunity to study technology adoption across a wide range of traditionally under-resourced communities.

These case stories describe ConnectED in Compton, California; Tuskegee, Alabama; and Orondo, Washington. They are part of an independent 6-year research study conducted by SRI International that investigates both implementation and outcomes of the Apple and ConnectED Initiative. Fifteen of the 114 schools were selected for site visits from spring 2016 to fall 2017 (wave 1) and then from fall 2018 to spring 2019 (wave 2). The three schools whose stories are presented here were part of that group of 15. Quotes in the stories are from site visit interviews and phone interviews with teachers, principals, and other school staff, unless otherwise noted.

Public education in the United States must meet the needs of nearly ten million children attending schools in rural communities across the country. This comprises about 20 % of the nation’s student population and over 23 % of state expenditures on education. Since the 1990s there has been an increasing emphasis on examining rural education—policy, practice, and student outcomes—in research and in the programs of the U.S. Department of Education. In this chapter we describe the most frequent rural education issues addressed in recent research literature, and propose a research agenda for the next generation of work on rural issues. This book grew out of the 2013 Connect-Inform-Advance rural conference hosted by the National Center for Research Rural Education that was intended to take stock of what is known about rural education, how we have come to know it, and what will be important to learn more about in the coming years. The chapters of this book represent a natural extension of ...

BACKGROUND Fourth-degree perineal lacerations are an uncommon, unpredictable injury that family physicians may face. METHODS After a needs assessment and feasibility review, we developed goals, objectives, instructional tools, and a feedback survey for a curriculum using a novel model to simulate perineal laceration repair. RESULTS Fifty-six learners evaluated the session, expressing increased confidence with perineal laceration repair, the usefulness of the model, and their desire to see it included in the Advanced Life Support in Obstetrics course. CONCLUSIONS The "sponge perineum" is an inexpensive, effective tool to teach perineal laceration repair. Further study is needed with actual patient experiences.

In the transition to middle school, and during the middle school years, students’ motivation for mathematics tends to decline from what it was during elementary school. Formative assessment strategies in mathematics can help support motivation by building confidence for challenging tasks. In this study, the authors developed and piloted a professional development program, Learning to Use Formative Assessment in Mathematics with the Assessment Work Sample Method (AWSM) to build middle school math teachers’ understanding of the characteristics of high-quality formative assessment processes and increases their ability to use them in their classrooms. AWSM proved to be feasible to implement in the middle school setting. It improved teachers’ practice of formative assessment, especially in their feedback practices, regardless of their pedagogical content knowledge at entry. Results from focus groups suggested that teachers were better able to implement ungraded practice and student selfa...

Research in rural education is alive and well; the chapters in this book demonstrate that researchers are doing rural education work that is both rigorous and responsive to (and inclusive of) the communities in which it takes place. They are addressing a broad range of meaningful research questions and using multiple methods to approach the challenges inherent in rural research. In addition, these chapters call us to action to continuously improve our own research work and dissemination. In this final chapter we suggest some lessons for rural researchers taken from the work presented in the book, including the importance of explaining how rural is defined, describing the rural context of a study, addressing how the rural context affected the conduct of the research, considering multidimensional risk in rural environments, including a variety of stakeholders in research partnerships, trying rigorous designs even with small samples, being realistic about rural recruiting costs, and pr...

ABSTRACT The authors describe an impact study of Classroom Assessment for Student Learning (CASL), a widely used professional development program in classroom and formative assessment. Researchers randomly assigned 67 elementary schools to receive CASL materials or continue with regularly scheduled professional development. Teachers in CASL schools formed learning teams, trained with CASL materials, and implemented CASL in their classrooms under real-world conditions and without any involvement of, or requirements from, the researchers. Analysis of all schools and 9,596 students failed to yield statistically significant impacts of CASL on student mathematics achievement as measured by the statewide test. Impact analyses with 231 teachers yielded statistically significant positive impacts of CASL on teacher knowledge of assessment and the frequency of student involvement in classroom assessment. No statistically significant impacts were found on teachers' assessment practice. CASL implementation fidelity was below the CASL developer recommendations. Findings suggest potential of CASL for improving teacher outcomes.

This article reports on an exploratory study of the factors perceived by school personnel to contribute to success in high- performing, high-needs (HPHN) rural schools. It is based on earlier research in HPHN schools that identified 4 key com- ponents of success (leadership, instruction, professional community, and school environment) and explored the factors that comprise them and the relationships among

This article discusses the characteristics of rural versus nonrural principals in the High Plains states. It is based on data from the Schools and Staffing Survey, examining the differences in preparation and experience and the extent to which characteristics of the rural principalship (perceptions of autonomy, workload, etc.) predicted retention. In this study, significant differences were found between rural and nonrural principals on demographic variables. Rural principals reported greater influence over their curriculum, but less influence over the use of the school budget. Overall, rural principals had slightly lower perceptions of autonomy than did nonrural principals, and greater autonomy predicted greater rural principal retention.

Fourth-degree perineal lacerations are an uncommon, unpredictable injury that family physicians may face. After a needs assessment and feasibility review, we developed goals, objectives, instructional tools, and a feedback survey for a curriculum using a novel model to simulate perineal laceration repair. Fifty-six learners evaluated the session, expressing increased confidence with perineal laceration repair, the usefulness of the model, and their desire to see it included in the Advanced Life Support in Obstetrics course. The "sponge perineum" is an inexpensive, effective tool to teach perineal laceration repair. Further study is needed with actual patient experiences.

This article reports on an exploratory study of the factors perceived by school personnel to contribute to success in high-performing, high-needs (HPHN) rural schools. It is based on earlier research in HPHN schools that identified 4 key components of success (leadership, instruction, professional community, and school environment) and explored the factors that comprise them and the relationships among them. In this study, 21 central United States rural schools were identified whose assessment scores and free and/or reduced-price lunch rates indicated that they were high-performing but also high-needs. Principals from these schools were interviewed about the factors they associate with success. Five schools subsequently received site visits that included additional interviews and focus groups of educators, school board members, parents, and community representatives. From the site visits, case studies were created to further elaborate the schools’ stories. The most important perceived factors identified from telephone interviews were high expectations, focus on student learning, use of data, individualization of instruction, teacher retention and professional development, and alignment of curriculum with
assessment. The case studies revealed that although schools differed in context, they all reported a supportive relationship with their community, high teacher retention, and high expectations for students. The close relationship with the community was thought to help schools enact high expectations and facilitate principal leadership. Further work is needed to identify factors distinguishing high-performing, high-needs schools from low-performing, high-needs rural schools.