Our mission is to help students succeed by supporting effective teaching practice.

To that end, we're currently involved in several research initiatives pertaining to teacher effectiveness — the results of which may prove to be of great value and interest to your education students and instructors.

One such initiative is the "Understanding Teaching Quality" project, which ETS is spearheading with the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research and the RAND Corporation. The three-year study is investigating how certain core school phenomena (e.g., teacher knowledge, instructional methods, classroom climate, emotional support for students, etc.) affect student learning and engagement. The project aims to provide an empirical and methodological base for the development of robust teaching evaluation systems.

Another critical study in which ETS is involved is the "Measures of Effective Teaching" (MET) project, sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Its goal is to develop an array of measures that will become credible indicators of effective teaching. One part of the study involves teachers videotaping their lessons and providing commentary on their learning objectives. That material is then scored according to measures created by leading academics and professional development experts. The MET project will be issuing an initial-findings report shortly, with a final conclusion scheduled for winter 2011–2012.