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A new study by the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) Project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, finds that students’ perceptions of their teachers correlate with the teachers’ value-added scores; in other words, “students seem to know effective teaching when they experience it.” The correlation is stronger for mathematics than for ELA; this is one of many discrepancies between math and ELA in the study. According to the authors, “outside the early elementary grades when students are first learning to read, teachers may have limited impacts on general reading comprehension.” This peculiar observation should raise questions about curriculum, but curriculum does not come up in the report.

But should teachers target instruction based on perceptions of students' strengths? Several psychologists say education could use some "evidence-based" teaching techniques, not unlike the way doctors try to use "evidence-based medicine."

"Mixing things up is something we know is scientifically supported as something that boosts attention," he says, adding that studies show that when students pay closer attention, they learn better.

esearchers found was that acceptance of Web 2.0 has increased since 2009--the first year of the survey--but that there are still some barriers to adoption, including some lingering perceptions of student "safety" risks, lack of technical support (including technical personnel), and lack of knowledge on the part of teachers of the effective use of Web 2.0 technologies. This last was, according to the researchers, "the most frequently cited human-related barrier to adoption."

more schools are reporting that significant portions of their teaching staff are creating their own content online.