Effective Teaching

Each year the Curry School of Education graduates over 160 bright, caring teachers who are well-prepared to create rich, supportive learning environments for their students and to meet the needs of the diverse population of students they will face. These new teachers are a critical component of our effort to solve the problems faced by the nation’s schools.

A recent study by Curry School dean Robert Pianta, however, showed that the typical child has a 1 in 14 chance of learning in a rich, supportive environment. The study concluded that “3 out of 4 classrooms are dull, bleak places devoid of any emphasis on critical reasoning or problem-solving skills” – a significant problem Dean Pianta’s work in the area of teacher effectiveness is already beginning to change.

This Campaign will help us leverage our century of experience preparing the best teachers and our research into the nature of effective teaching. We are sponsoring an assortment of centers, research projects, and training initiatives to develop, evaluate, and disseminate new models for preparing and supporting teachers so they can best promote the achievement and well-being of all students.

We plan to further extend our experience and research by partnering with other teacher education programs and by using technology as an interface to provide support to teachers in the field.