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Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) is a teacher PD program that has been found to have a potentially positive impact on student learning in mathematics through randomized controlled trials. Through a series of grant-funded projects led by FSU, approximately 2,000 Florida teachers have participated in CGI-based professional development in the past 8 years. This paper describes the core features of the CGI-based PD programs that were implemented in Florida during that time period. We provide this information to help researchers and practitioners to understand the context in which the associated research studies occurred and interpret the available and forthcoming findings related to the impacts of the interventions.

This report provides a description of the development process, field testing, and psychometric properties of the fall 2015 grades 3-5 Elementary Mathematics Student Assessment (EMSA), a student mathematics test designed to be administered in a whole-group setting to students in grades 3, 4, and 5. The test was administered to 2,614 participating grade 3, 4, and 5 students in 266 classrooms located in 10 public school districts in Florida during fall 2015. Focused on number (including whole number and fractions), operations, and algebraic thinking, the student assessment was designed to serve as a baseline measure of student achievement for use as a covariate in a randomized controlled trial evaluating the impact of a teacher professional development program on student learning. [This report was prepared by the Florida Center for Research in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (FCR-STEM) within the Learning Systems Institute.]

Mathematics teacher professional-development (PD) programs based on Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) have been developed and implemented with tens of thousands of elementary mathematics teachers worldwide since the 1980s. Starting with a focus on addition and subtraction on whole numbers in the first CGI PD program, the content of these courses has expanded over time. In this study, we used a multisite cluster-randomized trial to estimate the impact of the first year of a three-year CGI teacher professional-development program. This CGI PD program designed for grades three, four, and five teachers. The content of the program focused on fractions concepts and operations on fractions, multiplication and division on whole numbers, and algebraic thinking. The randomized sample included 149 teachers and their students, representing 32 schools in nine public school districts in Florida. Student outcomes were measured by the Elementary Mathematics Student Assessment (EMSA). The CGI 3-5 PD program was found to significantly impact student performance on the EMSA test (p = 0.007) in the first year of the three-year program. The point estimate of the main effect of the CGI program on student achievement (g = 0.18) was greater than many of the most effective teacher professional-development programs that have been subjected to rigorous evaluation.

The Early Fractions Test is a paper-pencil test designed to measure mathematics achievement of third- and fourth-grade students in the domain of fractions. The purpose, or intended use, of the Early Fractions Test is to serve as a student pretest covariate and a test of baseline equivalence in the larger study. In this report, we discuss our exploration of options for scoring and data modeling and make recommendations for optimal scoring and data modeling procedures. We also report on the results of data modeling, including analyses of dimensionality, scale reliability estimates, the intraclass correlation coefficient for the 66 schools represented in the sample, and the percentage of the variance in student achievement as measured by the end-of-year mathematics test that is explained by their scores on this beginning-of-year test.

This report provides a description of the development process, field testing, and psychometric properties of a student mathematics test designed to assess grades K, 1, and 2 student abilities. The test was administered to 4,535 participating grade K, 1, and 2 students in 66 schools located in 9 public school districts in Florida during spring 2016. Focused on number, operations, and equality, the student assessment was designed to serve as a baseline measure of student achievement in a randomized controlled trial evaluating the impact of a teacher professional development program called Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) on student learning.

This report describes efforts to measure teachers' knowledge of their own students' abilities in mathematics and offers preliminary findings. It provides a description of the sample, a description of the study design and its realization, and descriptive statistics for teacher judgment accuracy. The work described here was completed as part of a randomized controlled trial evaluating the implementation and impact of a teacher professional-development program called Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI). The analytic sample for the spring 2014 wave of data collection involved grade 1 and grade 2 students (n = 504) and their mathematics teachers (n = 146). The analytic sample for the 2015 wave of data collection included a larger sample of students (n = 785) and their teachers (n = 200). During each wave of data collection, teachers were shown a set of problems from the interview and were told which students would be attempting to solve the problems. For each student and item, the teachers predicted whether the student would solve the item correctly. Overall, teachers accurately predicted their students' performance about 60% of the time. Overprediction was more common than underprediction. The authors anticipate data generated with the TAPSS instrument will be used to determine the effects of the teacher professional-development program on teacher judgment accuracy and the extent to which this type of knowledge is associated with student learning. The TAPSS instrument and the sample described here represent several advancements in the field of measuring teacher judgment accuracy, including the iterative development of a new instrument available to researchers and program evaluators. The authors expect that teacher judgment accuracy will ultimately yield important insight into the elusive link between teacher knowledge and student learning.

This report provides a description of the development process, field testing, and psychometric properties of a student mathematics test designed to assess grades K, 1, and 2 student abilities. The test was administered to 4,486 participating grade K, 1, and 2 students in 67 schools located in 10 public school districts in Florida during fall 2015. Focused on counting, word problems, and computation, the student assessment was designed to serve as a baseline measure of student achievement for use as a covariate in a randomized controlled trial evaluating the impact of a teacher professional development program called Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) on student learning.

This report provides a description of the development process, field testing, and psychometric properties of a student mathematics test designed to assess grades 1 and 2 student abilities. The test was administered to 2,373 participating grade 1 and 2 students in 22 schools located in 2 public school districts in Florida during fall 2013. Focused on counting, word problems, and computation, the student assessment was designed to serve as a baseline measure of student achievement in a randomized controlled trial evaluating the impact of a teacher professional development program called Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) on student learning.

The subject of this report is a pair of written, group-administered tests designed to measure the performance of grade 1 and grade 2 students at the beginning of the school year in the domain of number and operations. These tests build on previous versions field-tested in fall 2013 (Schoen, LaVenia, Bauduin, & Farina, 2016). Because the tests are designed to be a measure of student achievement in elementary mathematics, we call them the Elementary Mathematics Student Assessment (EMSA) tests. The EMSA tests were designed to serve as a covariate for students' baseline performance in statistical models estimating the impact of a teacher professional-development program on student achievement in mathematics. This report is written for researchers and evaluators who may be interested in using the tests in the future or who wish to know about the psychometric properties of the tests. The 2014 EMSA tests were administered with 3,080 participating grade 1 and grade 2 students in 22 schools located in two public school districts in Florida during fall 2014. The tests were administered by classroom teachers in a whole-class setting using a paper-pencil format. The school districts were implementing a curriculum based on the Mathematics Florida Standards, which are very similar to the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. To generate overall test scores, we first regressed three first-order factors (i.e., Counting, Word Problems, Computation) onto a single second-order factor (i.e., Math). The second-order Math factor score is intended to serve as the overall achievement score on the test. Model fit statistics for the grade 1, second-order model are as follows: ?[superscript 2](149) = 1715.379, p < 0.001; RMSEA = 0.081, 90% Confidence Interval (CI) [0.078, 0.085]; CFI = 0.916; and TLI = 0.904. Grade 2 model fit statistics are: ?[superscript 2](167) = 532.780, p < 0.001; RMSEA = 0.038, 90% CI [0.035, 0.042]; CFI = 0.968; and TLI = 0.964. A composite reliability estimate for the Math factor based on ordinal forms of Cronbach's a was used to estimate reliability for the three subscales, resuting in a grade 1 math composite reliability estimate of 0.88 and a grade 2 math composite reliability estimate of 0.91. Regression results suggested that the fall 2014 EMSA Math score was a moderate to strong predictor of students' scores on the ITBS Math Problems test administered in spring 2015, where an R[superscript 2][subscript Adjusted] of 0.45 was found for grade 1 and an R[superscript 2][subscript Adjusted] of 0.55 was found for grade 2. The fall 2014 EMSA Math scores provided more modest predictive power with the spring 2015 ITBS Math Computation test, where an R[superscript 2][subscript Adjusted] of 0.28 was found for grade 1 and an R[superscript 2][subscript Adjusted] of 0.36 was found for grade 2. These relations were statistically significant at p < 0.001. The two test forms were not vertically equated, but vertical equating is a natural next step for test development. To maintain test security, the details of the mathematics problems posed to students are not provided in this report. Interested parties may contact the first author for more information.

This document updates "Accommodations: Assisting Students with Disabilities. A Guide for Educators," published by the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) in 2003. This document is written to assist school district personnel and parents when making decisions about the use of accommodations by students with disabilities in instructional situations. The first section includes information about the importance of providing access to the Next Generation Sunshine State Standards for students with disabilities. This section also describes legal requirements and eligibility considerations, along with a framework for making decisions about accommodations. The second section presents an explanation of four categories of accommodations and related student characteristics. As appropriate, accommodations allowed on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test® (FCAT), the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test® 2.0 (FCAT 2.0), and the Florida Alternate Assessment (FAA) are noted. The last section deals with implementing and monitoring the effects of using accommodations. The Appendix includes a quick reference guide to instructional accommodations.