# Presentation: 747270

## Learning (about) policy: Lessons for policy practitioners

- Heather Hill
- University of Michigan
- _[hhill@umich.edu](mailto:hhill@umich.edu)_

**Archived**** ****Information**

## Good news from a researcher (for a change)

- Policy _can_ change practice, improve teacher knowledge, and even improve student performance
- But only under certain conditions
- Policy not as efficient as possible
- _But_ we may improve efficiency

## Mathematics education policy: Two elementary school examples

- California Mathematics Frameworks  (1980s & 1990s)*
- California Mathematics Professional Development Institutes, 2000-2002**
- *Sponsored by NSF REC#
- *Sponsored by NSF REC#  0207649

**Notes:**
For each policy, will describe policy itself, the study that we launched to understand its effects, and its findings

## Case #1: Learning policy: When state education reform works

- David K. Cohen
- Heather C. Hill

## The policy

- 1985 and 1992 California Frameworks calling for more ambitious mathematics instruction
- Policy instruments
- Documents / frameworks
- Curriculum materials – “replacement units”
- Professional development
- CLAS – policy-aligned assessment

**Notes:**
Wanted less practice of computational skills, work on worksheets
More Making conjectures and exploring different methods to solve problems, discussing in small groups, writing in mathematics

## The study

- Survey of 595 K-5 teachers, 1993-94
- Survey asked about:
- Classroom mathematics practices
- Professional development experiences
- Curriculum use (especially replacement units)
- Experience with state assessment

## The analytic questions

- What were teachers doing?
- What led to teachers “doing” policy?
- What was the effect on student achievement?

## Findings: Learning Policy

- Teachers balanced their practice
- Teachers who reported more policy-aligned practice:
- Were using “replacement units”
- Had attended professional development around those replacement units
- Had used the state assessment as an opportunity to assess their own teaching and students’ learning

**Notes:**
Learning new forms of mathematics assessment has been valuable to my teaching
The mathematics CLAS has prompted me to change some of my teaching practices

## Findings: Learning Policy

- Teachers reporting more conventional practice:
- Had gone to “special topics” workshops
- Were using conventional mathematics texts
- Did not report using the assessment as an opportunity to revise their classroom practices
- May or may not have read official policy documents

## Effect on student achievement

- Student achievement on CLAS higher in schools where teachers learned about and used replacement units
- Student achievement on CLAS higher in schools where teachers reported learning from test

**Notes:**
Take home: This was a learning policy. When teachers had opportunities to learn about these grounded instruments of policy, they appeared to take up reformers’ ideas, and their students appeared to learn more. 

## Case #2: Mathematics Professional Development Institutes (MPDIs)

## The policy 

- MPDIs part of broader policy designed to improve content knowledge in reading and mathematics via professional development
- Cost: $40 million
- Multiple sites governed by University of California Office of the President

## At elementary mathematics sites 

- Instructors: Mathematicians and mathematics educators
- Focus was squarely on mathematics content
- 40-120 hours of professional development during summer + follow-up

## Hill-Ball study

- At K-6 Elementary Number and Operations sites
- Designed measures of teachers’ knowledge for teaching elementary mathematics
- Pre/post assessment, summer 2001 data

**Notes:**
Not going to go into the details on the measures we designed, because that’s a talk in and of itself. Brief synopsis is that these encompass not only basic K-6 content, such as adding decimals or dividing fractions, but also the specialized knowledge that teachers use in teaching mathematics. 

## MPDI teacher growth

- For all institutes for which we have data, teachers gained roughly one-half standard deviation
- Translates to 2-3 item increase on assessment
- Considered substantial gain

## Results from sample sites

## Improving teacher knowledge

- Length of institute predicts teacher gains
- 120-hour institutes most effective, on average
- But some 40-hour institutes very effective
- Focus on mathematical analysis, proof, and communication leads to higher gains

## Cross-case conclusions

- Policy _can_ change practice, improve teacher knowledge, and even improve student performance
- Policy itself has little traction
- Instruments of policy do have traction
- But only if they are sites for learning
- Effort is large, effect sizes small

## Cross-case conclusions

- Policy is not as “efficient” as possible
- e.g., MPDI sites where teachers did not learn
- _But_ we can improve efficiency
- Carefully design professional development itself
- Grounded in classroom practice, such as curriculum materials, video/lesson study, study of the mathematics teachers use; _long_
- Carefully design system of professional development
- Assure coherence of system
- Curriculum materials, in particular
- Support continued, rigorous research