A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Mission

To make a difference in the quality of education and learning for all through excellence in applied research, product development, and service. In carrying out its mission, McREL works collaboratively with its clients to improve educational policy and practice through the application of knowledge from research, development, and experience.

Key Initiatives

McREL is engaged in applied research, development, service, and dissemination initiatives designed to provide educators with the tools, strategies, and materials needed to "put the pieces of educational reform together" and to "scale up" systemic reform to encompass a broader range of diverse educational contexts and students.

Development. McREL develops knowledge synthesis and knowledge application products. Many of these products are developed in response to needs identified in McREL's long-term research sites, and are first used in those sites to promote school improvement and reform efforts. Upon completion of the development process, these materials, tools, and strategies are made available to districts and schools throughout McREL's region to "scale up" effective school improvement and reform. While many products are designed to be used as self-help tools, a number also are used by field services staff in their work with states, districts, and schools. McREL has developed a variety of standards-related products; professional development tools; materials designed to assist educators with the technical aspects of designing standards-based classrooms (aligning standards with curriculum and assessment); and tools for planning, designing, and monitoring systemic change and managing the involvement of key stakeholders as reforms are implemented.

Applied Research. McREL conducts both field-based action research with long-term research partners and applied research studies focused on critical and emerging issues in K12 education. McREL has formed partnerships with several districts throughout its region (long-term sites) where it is implementing an innovative approach for conducting research. The Laboratory brings together a team of professional researchers with expertise in curriculum, instruction, assessment, organizational development, and motivation to work with field services staff who has expertise in change processes and staff development. McREL also conducts a variety of applied research studies, some of which focus on issues related to its specialty area (curriculum, learning, and instruction) and others that focus on emerging issues in the field. McREL's applied research includes: studies of state curriculum-based reform efforts, the implementation of state-mandated reforms at district and school levels, district strategies for supporting comprehensive school reform, factors which promote or hamper comprehensive school reform, and studies related to the adoption of standards.

Services to State and Local Education Agencies. While McREL responds to many service requests from its region, the core of Laboratory's field services initiative is the long-term partnership established with the state education agency and a local education agency in each of the region's seven states. The work conducted in these strategic service sites focuses on a wide range of issues including technical assistance for the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration program, strategic planning, design of assessment systems, implementation of accreditation systems, support for a charter school start-up, and technology planning and implementation assistance. The lessons learned in these locations are documented and disseminated to other jurisdictions as part of McREL's scaling up initiative.

Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) Program. McREL provides technical assistance and training to states, districts, and schools in its region to facilitate their participation in the CSRD program. Initial work included helping to create state-specific CSRD plans, assisting states' development of CSRD program proposals, working with states to develop requests for proposals from local districts and schools, providing training to local districts and schools, and disseminating information about comprehensive school reform. Continuing work includes assisting districts and schools in moving from needs assessment to comprehensive school reform model selection and program development, to implementation in the classroom, to evaluation, to program institutionalization and ongoing monitoring. McREL also is collaborating with other Laboratories on nationwide product development. In new work, the organization is launching four research studies on (1) the changes in organization infrastructure necessary to successfully implement comprehensive school reform; (2) the factors fostering institutionalization of reform programs; (3) the contextual factors that must be considered when implementing comprehensive school reform programs in jurisdictions serving Native American populations; and (4) a policy study focusing on the characteristics of funded and unfunded CSRD proposals in the region.

Partnerships. McREL is working with other federally funded programs to create, implement, and maintain a comprehensive, nationwide system providing technical assistance and information to educators and education policymakers. This system will meet the needs of state and local education agencies and of teachers, administrators, and other stakeholders across the region and nationally. Participating organizations will synchronize their efforts to provide comprehensive and accurate information, coordinated support, quick responses, and easy accessibility through a variety of entry points. Toward this end, McREL communicates regularly with staff members in other Regional Educational Laboratories, Comprehensive Centers, Regional Technology in Education Consortia, Equity Assistance Centers, Eisenhower Math and Science Consortia, and Regional Resource and Federal Centers to create a system of ready resources and referrals.

Signature Programs

Over the past few years, McREL has been working to develop major programs that have broad application to K12 education and that hold promise for improving the educational performance and long-term success of students across the nation.

Comprehensive School Mathematics Program (CSMP). McREL's Comprehensive School Mathematics Program provides a complete K6 mathematics experience for students of all ability levels actively involving students in the content and application of mathematics, not simply drilling them in arithmetic. The material is sequenced in spiral form so that students continuously encounter each content area throughout the program. CSMP presently is used in schools in over 35 states.

Dimensions of Learning. Dimensions of Learning is a framework for organizing, describing, and developing research-based teaching strategies that engage students in five basic types of thinking involved in meaningful learning. Additionally, the framework offers a way of integrating the major instructional models by showing how they are connected and where the overlaps occur. Dimensions of Learning is used in all states and abroad and has been translated into Spanish.

Literacy Plus. Literacy Plus takes a holistic, integrated approach to teaching reading, writing, vocabulary and reasoning. A Resource Guide provides teachers with over 180 strategies that are appropriate to different stages of literacy development. Literature units are available at all K8 grade levels and are based on various genres and themes. Unique to Literacy Plus is a semantic cluster approach to vocabulary instruction. Literacy Plus is used in over 40 states.

Standards Implementation. McREL has modeled a process for using the federal investment in research to address local needs by developing products and services that assist states, districts and schools with standards implementation. Most notably, Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K12 Education is a database of 256 standards and nearly 4,000 accompanying benchmarks created by synthesizing more than 116 documents, reports and other materials compiled by professional education organizations. In its program, Designing Standards-Based Districts, Schools, and Classrooms, a McREL consultant typically works with school or district personnel over a period of 1 to 3 years, facilitating a locally developed approach to standards-based education.

Specialty Area

McREL places a special emphasis on Curriculum, Learning, and Instruction. To provide national leadership in this area, McREL is building on its prior efforts to synthesize and align standards. The Laboratory is developing and disseminating resource materials, monitoring and synthesizing research literature, providing staff development sessions, sponsoring conferences and workshops, participating in regional and national forums, and developing partnerships with Education Department-funded institutions and providers nationwide. McREL makes this body of knowledge available internationally by featuring a rich array of information, products and services on its Web site.

Selected Recent Products

Content Knowledge: A Compendium of Standards and Benchmarks for K12 Education synthesizes and aligns 256 standards and nearly 4,000 accompanying benchmarks from over 100 national- and state-level standards documents in 14 subject areas.

What Americans Believe Students Should Know reveals interesting — and somewhat surprising — answers to the question, "What academic content does the American public think K12 students should master?" Americans surveyed by the Gallup Organization for this McREL study consistently rated health information and work skills high on the list of content areas that "definitely" should be included in K12 curricula. The report notes that the time required for student mastery of standards is significantly greater than is currently available within K12 education. It suggests that decision-makers may have to consider prioritizing academic content.

A Theory-Based Meta-Analysis of Research on Instruction analyzes and synthesizes the results of more than 100 research reports on instruction. Many of these reports involved multiple studies, and in total they represent 1.2 million subjects. The study sought to synthesize the existing instructional research, using categories specific and functional enough to provide guidance for classroom practice. The publication presents findings of the meta-analysis and discusses effective teaching strategies for each level. Finally, it describes an emerging paradigm of an expert teacher.
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This page last modified 12 November 1999. (lvb)