How Teaching Matters is the first study to use national data to link a comprehensive set of classroom practices to student academic performance. Wenglinsky then linked these classroom practices, professional development and teacher inputs to student academic performance taking into account other possible influences, such as student background and average class size. The largest effects on student achievement derived from classroom practices. Students in this study whose teachers conduct hands-on learning activities outperform their peers by about 70 percent of a grade level in math and 40 percent of a grade level in science. Students whose teachers emphasize higher-order thinking skills outperform their peers by about 40 percent of a grade level in math.
Professional development follows as the next largest effect on student learning.
In science, students whose teachers received professional development in hands-on learning or lab experiments did better than their peers by about 40 percent of a grade level. In math, students whose teachers received professional development in higher-order thinking skills also did better by about 40 percent of a grade level. Of the teacher inputs, only majoring or minoring in the relevant subject is associated with improved student academic performance. However, these findings indicate that less attention needs to be paid to attracting certain kinds of people into teaching, and more attention needs to be paid toward improving what our current crop of teachers does in the classroom. Wenglinsky recommends that teachers be provided with more opportunities to receive professional development and that the training occur over an extended period of time.