From Research to Practice: Supporting Student Achievement through Academic and Personal Behaviors

Institute: Academic and Personal Behaviors (APB) Institute
Partner: New York City Department of Education’s Office of Postsecondary Readiness in partnership with Eskolta

From Research to Practice captures how the APB Institute has helped more than 250 teachers from 98 schools turn research about the importance of students’ academic and personal behaviors into real, everyday classroom practices through improvement science. Research on “noncognitive factors”—skills, habits, and beliefs students hold about learning—has shown that these often-overlooked elements are necessary for college readiness and lead to improved outcomes for students.

This report responds to four fundamental questions educators face about this work: 1) How do we make research come alive? 2) How do we adapt these practices for students? 3) How do we learn from others? 4) How do we know if it’s working? In response to these questions, the report explores the solutions four school teams developed and the impact of these practices on student outcomes.

Key outcomes:

• At North Queens Community High School, school leaders used research about academic mindsets to build persistence and engagement in math, increasing their school’s New York State Algebra Regents pass rate from 30 percent to 80 percent.
• At KAPPA International High School, teachers explored why students were failing to meaningfully revise their work, ultimately increasing revision completion from 9 percent to 60 percent.