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.

This study will use data generated by the implementation measurement project to describe the implementation of play-based learning practices in kindergarten classrooms across the state. The study will also explore patterns in implementation by region, urbanicity, student, and teacher characteristics.

REL Northeast & Islands will work with the Virgin Islands Department of Education to design three evidence-based modules that will allow early childhood and elementary teachers to earn micro-credentials toward certification in early childhood so they will be eligible to teach in PreK–3. The micro-credential modules will be online, self-paced, evidence-based learning experiences for educators. REL Northeast & Islands is partnering with USVI to gather input from educators and administrators to ensure that the modules are responsive to the local context and meet the needs of USVI early childhood educators.

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.