Ideas & News

TeachingWorks Director Deborah Loewenberg Ball was interviewed about mathematics teaching and learning in an October 6, 2025, article in El Mercurio, a newspaper in Santiago, Chile. In “A menudo intentamos mejorar el aprendizaje mediante medios que no se centran en los profesores [We often try to improve learning through means that do not focus on […]

TeachingWorks Deputy Director Francesca Forzani was interviewed about the demands of practice-based teacher education in a September 22, 2025, article in La Tercera, a daily newspaper in Santiago, Chile. In “Cómo son los profesores de excelencia: la académica de EEUU que aboga por un cambio profundo en la docencia [What excellent teachers are like: the […]

It’s that time of the year. Schools around the country are launching a new year—and with a new school year comes beginning-of-the-year professional development. I, like you, am friends with a huge number of teachers, so this is the time of year when my social media feed is overloaded with what one might call “PD […]

It’s August! After so many years of teaching, I still get nervous before the school year starts. Who will be my students? How will we get to know one another? How do I (re)create the learning environment of my class this fall for these young people? I know I am not alone in feeling nervous […]

The National Center for Teacher Quality (NCTQ) has been lambasted for the approach it takes to evaluating teacher preparation programs since it released its first report in June 2013. Teacher educators throughout the country immediately took issue with the organization’s lack of transparency and reliance on course syllabi to conduct its review (see, for example, […]

Video of TeachingWorks Director Deborah Loewenberg Ball featured in Smart Talks with IBM podcast The May 20, 2025, episode of the Smart Talks with IBM podcast opens with an exploration of a video of TeachingWorks Director Deborah Loewenberg Ball teaching her third-grade class in 1990. The referenced video shows 10 minutes of a longer discussion […]

The goal of mathematics teaching is to support young people to learn and grow into adults who can use mathematics and mathematical reasoning to make sense of the world around them, solve problems, engage in their community, and see themselves as people who can do and use math. But this learning and growth toward mathematical […]

At a statewide numeracy conference on May 13, 2025, TeachingWorks and the New York State Education Department released a set of eight briefs focused on supporting evidence-based P–12 mathematics teaching practice. The briefs, developed and written by TeachingWorks (led by Director Deborah Loewenberg Ball and Associate Director Nicole Garcia), are grounded in peer-reviewed, evidence-based research […]

Everywhere you look these days, you see stories focused on the woeful state of public education in the U.S. From stories about pandemic learning loss questioning whether we’ll ever recover to stories purporting that education is “bleak.” But is this an accurate picture of what’s happening in U.S. education? And what do such claims mean […]