Andrew Avitabile

Why do some journals make you submit word documents 😭

useful_data_resources

FYI: I've updated my list of Useful Data Resources, primarily with a bunch of (20-ish?) new links to state-specific public school datasets and data repositories.

go.illinois.edu/UsefulDataRe...

Suggestions/corrections are always welcome.

Out of curiosity, how do you think policy evaluation work falls into all this? I feel like we have a good base of evidence on things like performance pay, but probably still worth evaluating as we implement things. Maybe it’s just a matter of not overselling contributions?

Leave my grandpa out of your housing policy 👴🏼

New working paper from me and a great group of coauthors: The Effects of the Four-Day School Week on Teacher Recruitment and Retention

caldercenter.org/publications...

Read on to see what's different about this vs. some of my prior work 🧵⬇️

All their dairy products are really good, but imo their parmesan is the best I’ve had from a grocery store 🧀

It should at least get you pre-check

📢 #EdWorkingPapers: Supervisor feedback for preservice teachers often lacks next steps.

@andrew_avit, Brendan Bartanen & Andrew Kwok find that classroom management critiques are common and tied to lower scores and return rates.

📄 bit.ly/3ZCKChV

A remarkable waste of taxpayer $ that instead could go towards meeting the state’s constitutional obligation to provide a sound and basic public education. NC Public school kids are still being denied what they are owed under the Leandro case.

Yesterday, June 2, was an interesting day at work. I was reporting a story about how the Education Department hadn't delivered a report to Congress on the Condition of Education, despite the June 1 deadline mandated by law. 🧵 (1/9)

This provocative, data-infused essay by James Wyckoff — edworkingpapers.com/ai25-1197 — serves as a reminder that fully understanding the declines in student achievement requires us to look well before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Using Large Language Models to Analyze Preservice Teacher Feedback and Reflections During Clinical Teaching Clinical teaching is vital for preservice teacher (PST) development, yet field supervisors’ roles are understudied. This study analyzes over 11,000 supervisor evaluations and PST reflections from a Te...

[12/12]
If you're interested in teacher ed, K-12 ed policy, or exploring LLMs in research—this paper is for you!

📄 Read here: edworkingpapers.com/ai25-1203

We'd love your feedback!

GitHub - avitabilea/ChatGPT-Qual-Example: Example of how to use ChatGPT to code qualitative data Example of how to use ChatGPT to code qualitative data - avitabilea/ChatGPT-Qual-Example

[11/12]
We also show how LLMs can help analyze and code large text datasets. Our method reliably extracts feedback elements and teaching skills—replicable, fast, and validated against human coders.

If you're interested, I’ve got a toy example available on my github: github.com/avitabilea/C...

[10/12]
Key Takeaways:

1️⃣Feedback during the clinical teaching experience quality is uneven and often low-quality
2️⃣ PST skill gaps—esp. classroom management—predict lower scores and weaker job outcomes
3️⃣ Low-cost fixes like better prompts or supervisor training could help a lot

[9/12]
We also find that PST skill gaps are related to more distal labor market outcomes:

1️⃣ PSTs flagged for lesson planning score worse on certification exams
2️⃣ PSTs flagged for classroom management or student engagement are less likely to return to their placement school as teachers.

[8/12]
These areas for improvement are related to PST clinical performance:

📉 Classroom management feedback → lower observation scores
📈 Differentiation feedback → higher scores

[7/12]
When feedback includes an area for improvement (which it often doesn’t), supervisors and PSTs focus on different things:

🔶 Supervisors emphasize classroom management
🔷 PSTs focus on lesson planning

[6/12]
Feedback quality also varies considerably by…

1️⃣ Observation order
📉 Certification area
🚨 Placement school disciplinary climate
🧑‍🏫 Supervisor leniency

📊 Table 1 has the details, but I’ll spare you the regression output here.

[5/12]
Feedback quality isn’t random.

➡️ Some supervisors never give areas for improvement, while others always do.
📊 A big chunk of the variance in feedback quality comes down to who your supervisor is.

[4/12]
What do we find?

❌ Fewer than half of supervisor evaluations include areas for improvement or next steps.
✅ In contrast, PST reflections usually include all four quality indicators.

[3/12]
Do do this, we process 11,000+ supervisor evaluations & PST reflections using LLMs (i.e., ChatGPT) to flag:

✅ PST Strengths
✅ Specific examples
✅ Areas for improvement
✅ Actionable next steps

And when areas for improvements are flagged—which teaching skills are discussed?

[2/12]
Why does this matter?
Clinical teaching is critical for new teacher development. But while we focus a lot on mentor teachers, the role of program supervisors—who give feedback during field observations—is understudied. We help fill this gap.

Using Large Language Models to Analyze Preservice Teacher Feedback and Reflections During Clinical Teaching Clinical teaching is vital for preservice teacher (PST) development, yet field supervisors’ roles are understudied. This study analyzes over 11,000 supervisor evaluations and PST reflections from a Te...

🚨New paper out! We use large language models to analyze 11,000+ pieces of preservice teacher (PST) feedback and reflections from a Texas teacher prep program. What did we learn about supervisor feedback quality? 🧵 👇

📄: edworkingpapers.com/ai25-1203
✍️: Me, Brendan Bartanen, and @profkwok.bsky.social

This is how we’ll soon all be coding 🤯

The Education-to-Workforce Framework Data Tool Explore data on education and workforce outcomes, and compare data by geography, income, race, ethnicity, and more.

Need more #education -to-workforce data? Access insights for your #community today using a new Urban Institute #data tool.

I've said it before, but my Stevie rule is simple. Somebody mentions "As" and I am contractually obligated to take a break and play it.

🥲

Big congrats, Wes! 🎉

The Higher Education Randomized Controlled Trial | MDRC For The Higher Education Randomized Controlled Trial project (THE-RCT), MDRC has created the largest individual-participant database from higher education randomized controlled trials to date. THE-RCT...

Not one, but folks at MDRC have compiled a dataset from over 25 RCTs with over 65000 individuals. More info here:

www.mdrc.org/work/project...