Pearson's Learning Teams Boosts Student Performance: Report

Educators have better results with students when they work together in learning teams to identify student problems and devise solutions, a new study in The American Educational Research Journal found.

 

And Pearson Learning Teams, part of Pearson’s Teacher Education and Development Group, a group that supports the education and professional development of teachers, has implemented that very concept at more than 175 schools across the United States.

 

A five-year study of 15 Title I schools serving 14,000 students by researchers William M. Saunders, Claude N. Goldenberg and Ronald Gallimore, found that student achievement rose by 41 percent after schools converted routine meetings into teacher learning teams that targeted what students had trouble learning. As a result, only schools that used learning teams only required only two to three hours of instructor meeting time a month and administrators and teacher leaders meeting required an additional two hours a month.

 

In comparison, schools officials that made no changes in grade-level meetings saw no achievement gains, the study said.

 

“The AERJ study provides independent, research-based evidence that our Pearson Learning Teams model leads to significant gains in student performance,” Beth Wray, president of Pearson Learning Teams, said in a statement. “For school administrators, these results are especially meaningful as the Race to the Top education reform efforts are focusing increased attention and funding toward teaching effectiveness and strategies that improve student performance.”

 

“Teachers in schools using Pearson Learning Teams meet regularly to analyze assessment results and discuss student learning problems,” Wray said. “Then, as a team, they develop possible solutions which the teachers try out in their individual classrooms. If a solution works, the team moves on to a new student learning problem. If the solution doesn’t work, the teachers go back to work as a team until they find a solution that does work, as measured by ongoing assessment of student data.”

 

School officials said the study, “Increasing Achievement by Focusing Grade Level Teams on Improving Classroom Learning: A Prospective, Quasi-experimental Study of Title 1 Schools,” marks an important milestone because the schools involved in the research were challenged by low achievement, a large numbers of English learners and a high percentage of students that received free or reduced-price lunch aid.

“An important feature of the model used in the AERJ study was direct and ongoing school-level training and assistance provided to administrators and teacher leaders,” Dr. Brad Ermeling, senior director for Pearson Learning Teams, said. “Pearson Learning Teams provides the same design for school-site assistance which distinguishes our approach from others. Another critical distinction is our use of the same AERJ study protocols derived and tested over decades. These protocols provide structure and continuity for sustaining continuous improvement and data-driven decision making.”

 

Pearson reportedly is the only education company that offers districts a scientifically-based teacher professional development program based such research. Nearly 4,000 teachers at 175 schools nationwide are using Pearson Learning Teams to improve instruction and student achievement.