This applied research study is focused on the Visual Access to Mathematics professional development program (VAM PD), an eight-month online and face-to-face professional learning experience designed to support middle grades mathematics teachers who have both multilingual learners and monolingual students in their classes. Specifically, the study will investigate how VAM PD impacts teachers’ ability to analyze students’ mathematical thinking and their content knowledge related to proportional reasoning and the impacts of teachers’ participation in VAM PD on their students’ proportional reasoning problem-solving ability, facility in using visual representations in the problem-solving, and mathematics attitudes.

REL Northeast & Islands is developing a toolkit to build educators’ knowledge of and ability to implement recommendations from the new What Works Clearinghouse Practice Guide, Assisting Students Struggling with Mathematics: Intervention in the Elementary Grades.The toolkit will provide extensive resources to support districts in providing in-depth professional development to educators on how to implement the recommendations using specific instructional practices. Educators will learn to use these evidence-based practices effectively, helping them to optimize intervention time to improve student learning.

This project will enhance the knowledge and skills of Connecticut district and school leaders so they can make plans and enact strategies to strengthen middle grade math instruction for multilingual learners (MLLs)—sometimes labeled English learners—in their districts. Through a series of workshops during the 2022/23 school year, mathematics coaches, MLL specialists, math department heads, curriculum directors, and other leaders with responsibilities for supporting middle grade math teachers will create logic models, analyze district data, learn about evidence-based practices, and create district action plans to support improvements in the mathematics learning experience for middle grade MLLs.

Maine launched the Rethinking Responsive Education Ventures (RREV) program in 2020 to develop innovative learning models to ensure that all students have equitable access to high-quality learning opportunities aligned with their needs. Through this project, REL Northeast & Islands will support eight districts participating in RREV, helping them better understand how to use research and data to assess and improve innovation implementation.

The Massachusetts Dyslexia Guidelines were published in 2021 to support districts’ development of screening procedures for identifying dyslexia and other neurological learning disabilities. After their publication, Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) received feedback from stakeholders that the guidelines do not adequately address considerations for multilingual and bidialectal learners. In response to this feedback, this project will gather stakeholder and expert feedback, review existing state dyslexia guidelines for content on dyslexia screening for these student groups, and review additional research to revise and expand the chapter of the guidelines which focuses on multilingual and bidialectal learners. A slide deck based on the new chapter will be created to support Massachusetts DESE in training its staff and state stakeholders on the new chapter content. The project will also provide training to DESE staff on the content and resources of the revised chapter.

In this series of training, coaching, and technical support activities, REL Northeast & Islands is supporting the Puerto Rico Department of Education (PRDE) in building the capacity of leaders and educators to design and implement clear, data-driven communication with families about students’ academic and behavioral progress. The REL Northeast & Islands team is supporting PRDE in developing goals and identifying evidence-based strategies to effectively involve families in their students’ learning and incorporate those strategies into action plans. These action plans will include the district’s professional development needs (such as teacher planning time), family engagement practices, the infrastructure needed to support the new practices, and ways to monitor these practices.

REL Northeast & Islands is collaborating with partners to inventory available data elements and how they can be used to address policy decisions about Vermont’s career and technical education (CTE) and work-based learning (WBL) pathways. This project is helping the partnership achieve its goals of assessing the quality and completeness of data currently collected about CTE and WBL access, participation, and success, and using those data to identify inequities and barriers. The project also aims to develop policies and guidance to support improved data collection about student CTE and WBL participation and success. Through a series of workshops, this project is bringing together a small working group consisting of Vermont Agency of Education staff from the divisions of Data and Analysis and Student Pathways, as well as several WBL Coordinators based in comprehensive high schools and regional CTE Centers around the state.

This coaching project is intended to support districts with effective implementation of Multi-tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) approaches to support student wellbeing and mental health. In five sessions, participants from school districts across the Northeast & Islands Region will meet virtually to learn about, identify, and share best practices for implementing such a framework, as well as to work together to address common problems of practice.

This project brings together key stakeholders from the state, districts, and schools to improve students’ access, participation, and success in early college programs. This project is broken into two different strands: (1) workshops on effective use of early college data, and (2) technical support on collecting and implementing data dashboard feedback. The purpose of the effective data use workshops is to introduce participants to the data inquiry cycle through which they will review available data sources and identify action steps to address barriers to access and participation in early college programs for historically marginalized groups of students. The dashboard feedback sessions aim to provide the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) with a better understanding of how different audiences are interacting with the dashboards. Subsequent training for the RIDE team will build RIDE’s capacity to use a structured process to gather and implement user feedback.

This study examines the cost per outcome for each of Rhode Island's three early college programs separately—dual enrollment, concurrent enrollment, and Advanced Placement. Rhode Island K–12 and higher education leaders expressed a need for this type of information to provide an additional source of evidence as they make decisions about investments in the specific resources needed for each of the three early college programs.

This project supports the implementation of New Hampshire’s play-based kindergarten legislation by developing a strategy and tools for measuring kindergarten teachers’ familiarity with and implementation of play-based learning. The team will first conduct a review of the literature on measuring play-based learning practices in kindergarten classrooms. Then, in collaboration with partnership members, they will identify relevant data that is already collected in New Hampshire and support the development and administration of new instruments and data collection processes. In addition, the team will assist with the analysis of existing and new data to better understand kindergarten teachers’ familiarity with and implementation of play-based learning practices.

This study will use data generated by the implementation measurement project to describe play-based learning practices in kindergarten classrooms across New Hampshire. Specifically, it will provide decision-makers with information about kindergarten teachers’ familiarity with and implementation of play-based learning practices in their classrooms and about administrators’ familiarity with and support for play-based learning in their schools. District and state leaders will use the study results to make decisions about how to design and allocate coaching and professional development resources to strengthen play-based learning practices across the state or in areas of greatest need.

This project builds on a previous project that produced three micro-credential modules focused on playful learning. To help build knowledge of and support for the modules, REL Northeast & Islands will curate a packet of materials on joyful learning that can be shared with parents, administrators, and other USVI stakeholders. In addition, the project will develop supports for administrators who are interested in creating group learning opportunities in which teachers can complete the modules and discuss the content and implementation of the recommended practices in their classrooms, including a brief facilitators guide.