media

  • Minneapolis Star Tribune

    Some high-poverty Minnesota schools are beating odds, while others struggle after pandemic (September 29, 2023)

    Chase Nordengren, principal research lead for effective instructional strategies at the Portland, Ore.-based Northwest Evaluation Association, said the strategies for classroom success fall into three categories: empowering students, exposing them to more content, and teachers optimizing their instructional time.

    ...

    "The strategies are really looking at how to understand that a teacher can't be in 35 places at once," he said. "How do you maximize their time?"
  • The Hill

    Curriculum changes to counter learning loss create necessity of bringing teachers up to speed (September 9, 2023)

    While these new strategies could be useful tools against decades of progress lost in reading and math, educators are going to need time and resources to learn how to properly implement the changes in order for them to work, according to experts.

    “We are grateful that districts are revisiting curriculum, but there’s another under-addressed or under-appreciated component of this equation, which is getting from the what we are teaching to the how we are teaching it,” said Chase Nordengren, principal research lead for Effective Instructional Strategies at NWEA, an educational research organization.
  • CBS News

    Primetime with John Dickerson: How important are test scores for measuring school success? (August 3, 2023)

    Test scores are a flashlight on the health of our systems, how schools and districts are doing overall and how individual students are doing across their educational career. What test scores are less good at, what they aren't really designed for is talking about what students are ready to learn next, what they should be focusing on over the next week or the next month. I often compare it to using a map. A map of the United States is a very useful tool for a lot of purposes. It doesn't tell you how to get from your home to the grocery store.
  • Associated Press

    Test scores show American students slipping further behind despite recovery efforts (July 11, 2023)

    There are ways schools can take better advantage of their limited resources and time to boost learning, said Chase Nordengren, the group’s lead researcher for instructional strategies. He said schools could group students based on their needs and provide targeted instruction, for example, adjusting groups as individuals progress.

    “We’ve been trying to send the message that this is a multiyear, if not decades-long recovery period and is going to require some fundamental rethinking of the ways that not only we educate students but we think about how students are grouped and how we think about their learning,” he said.
  • K-12 Dive

    These 10 classroom practices support high-growth learning (June 9, 2023)

    Teachers using these and other practices also balance students’ individual learning needs while providing grade-level content and high expectations. Flexible instructional strategies allow them to make in-the-moment pivots to meet those needs.

    However, this can be difficult when a classroom has 30 diverse learners, said Chase Nordengren, author of the study and principal research lead for effective instructional strategies at NWEA.

    “From my perspective, the core of improving learning is really about improving the quality of that [student-teacher] interaction, changing that interaction in ways that produce more learning for students, that engage them more, that make them feel more empowered and comfortable,” Nordengren said.