Learnerati has finally closed a couple of its older projects:

1. Formative benefits of from longitudinal studies
2. Professional Growth Systems

These projects contributed greatly to some of the ongoing research Learnerati conducts.

Results and lessons learned will assist in the development of new techniques and professional development opportunities addressing how schools use data effectively and how accountability needs to operate to support effective instruction.

Over the years, we have literally seen thousands of classrooms and hundreds of thousands of assignments and lesson plans. Across all of that, one common item stands out above all others. It stands out because it is so blatantly absent - evidence of instruction. We're not talking about how hard teachers or students work, or the personal sacrifices they makes to do a good job, or the academic successes and failures. Evidence of instruction is more of a philosophy of practice where learning produces a trail of evidence that can stand on its own it terms of educational benefit at a later date.

Consider a piece of notebook paper with 15 seemingly random numbers written next to what might be their original problem number. Beyond an immediate check against a known list of "expected numbers," this paper has little value and absolutely no long-term value to either the student of the teacher. The context between what was being asked, how it was being done, and the final result has been forever lost.

This project looks at the impact of evidence of instruction on teacher planning and methods to quickly, painlessly, and effectively add layers of evidence to normal classroom practices.