Marc Brodersen

Associated IES Content

report Descriptive Study

Examining the Mentoring Experiences of First-Year Teachers in Missouri

Jun 24, 2025
Publication number:
REL 2025-014
report Descriptive Study

Examination of the Validity and Reliability of the Kansas Clinical Assessment Tool

Although national assessments for evaluating teacher candidates are available, some state education agencies and education preparation programs have developed their own assessments. These locally developed assessments are based on observations of teaching and other artifacts such as lesson plans and student assignments. However, local assessment developers often lack information about the validity and reliability of data collected with their assessments. The Council for the Accreditation of E...
Jul 21, 2021
Blog

REL Central Study Shows the Importance of Career and Technical Education

In recent years, Career and Technical Education (CTE) options have experienced a resurgence in demand. The benefits of having high school students focus on classes related to a given industry or field are becoming more and more obvious. A major factor in this trend is the increased sophistication of CTE pathways, which enable students to hit the ground running toward their career of choice soon after graduation. The growing interest in CTE corresponds t...
Date published:
May 11, 2021
report Impact Study

The Impact of Career and Technical Education on Postsecondary Outcomes in Nebraska and South Dakota

Education leaders in Nebraska and South Dakota partnered with the Regional Educational Laboratory Central to examine how completing a sequence of career and technical education (CTE) courses in high school affects students' rates of on-time high school graduation and their rates of postsecondary education enrollment and completion within two and five years. The study found that CTE concentrators (students who complete a sequence of CTE courses aligned to a specific career field such as manufa...
May 11, 2021
Blog

Building a Better Understanding of School and District Postsecondary Achievement

Effectively measuring the success of students once they finish high school has become increasingly important to education leaders throughout the country in recent years. Postsecondary achievement is a valuable indicator of a given school's or district's efficacy, but there are factors beyond school/district administrators' control that can influence students' success. Contextual factors such as family background, community makeup, and technology access all play a rol...
Date published:
Apr 06, 2021
resource Fact Sheet/Infographic/FAQ

Measuring Civic Readiness: A Review of Survey Scales

This resource supports state and local education agencies in identifying, comparing, and contrasting survey scales that measure a variety of civic readiness categories. It describes the format and structure of survey scales, details the civic readiness categories measured by the scales, and summarizes the reliability and validity evidence associated with the scales.
Apr 05, 2021
resource Training Material

Exploring Implementation of Career Academies in Nebraska Schools- Training 2

Time: 9:00 am - 10:30 am MT Location: Virtual Description: REL Central and Nebraska Department of Education (NDE) partners will collaboratively review the project goals and overarching research questions. Next, REL Central will present case study design practices, including developing proposition statements and defining cases. Finally, we will facilitate review and development of data collection instruments and protocols. Partnership or Research Alliance: Nebraska School Improvement Research ...
Mar 12, 2021
resource Video

Steps to Develop a Model to Estimate School- and District-Level Postsecondary Success

This tool is intended to support state and local education agencies in developing a statistical model for estimating student postsecondary success at the school or district level. The tool guides education agency researchers, analysts, and decisionmakers through options to consider when developing their own model. The resulting model generates an indicator of a school's or district's contribution to the postsecondary success of its students after contextual factors are accounted for that migh...
Mar 01, 2021
resource Training Material

Training 3: Interpreting Research on Student Use of Flexible Time

Time: 8:30-11:00 a.m. CT Location: Virtual event Description: This training will focus on completing a Plan-Do-Study-Act continuous improvement plan for a schoolwide strategy in response to the findings of the Legacy High School flexible-time study (Brodersen et al., 2020). Partnership or Research Alliance: North Dakota Innovative Schools Research Partnership Audience: Legacy High School staff Speakers: Matt Eide, REL Central Mike Siebersma, REL Central Anne Butterworth, REL Central David Ya...
Feb 12, 2021
resource Training Material

Exploring Implementation of Career Academies in Nebraska Schools- Training 1

Time: 9:00 am - 10:30 am MT Location: Virtual Description: REL Central and Nebraska Department of Education (NDE) partners will collaboratively review the project goals and overarching research questions. Next, REL Central will present case study design practices, including developing proposition statements and defining cases. Finally, we will facilitate review and development of data collection instruments and protocols. Partnership or Research Alliance: Nebraska School Improvement Research...
Feb 12, 2021
resource Fact Sheet/Infographic/FAQ

Integrating an American Indian Student Needs Assessment Survey Into Your Current or New Initiatives

There is growing attention to personalizing education to provide students with more flexibility in their education experiences and more time to master academic content (Pane, Steiner, Baird, & Hamilton, 2015). To personalize education, Legacy High School in Bismarck Public Schools, North Dakota, has implemented a schedule that allows students some choice in how they spend a portion of the school day outside of their regularly scheduled classes. Students can choose to use this flexible time, c...
Jan 01, 2021
Blog

The Growing Importance of College and Career Readiness Indicators

While K-12 educators nationwide are continuing to deal with an unconventional back-to-school season and what promises to be a unique 2020/21 academic year, it's important to remember that preparing students for life after high school is a key component of their learning process. Postsecondary education continues to be important to students' career prospects. This has led many education leaders throughout the country to establish frameworks to more accurately assess h...
Date published:
Nov 01, 2020
Blog

New Study Finds Students' Academic Use of Flex Time May Need Encouragement

To complement the personalized learning strategy, school leadership instituted a system of flexible learning, a concept that helps students build decision-making and life skills by providing them choice in the use of their time.
Date published:
Jul 21, 2020
report Descriptive Study

How Legacy High School Students Use Their Flexible Time

There is growing attention to personalizing education to provide students with more flexibility in their education experiences and more time to master academic content (Pane, Steiner, Baird, & Hamilton, 2015). To personalize education, Legacy High School in Bismarck Public Schools, North Dakota, has implemented a schedule that allows students some choice in how they spend a portion of the school day outside of their regularly scheduled classes. Students can choose to use this flexible time, c...
Jan 01, 2020
resource Training Material

Increasing Education Data Use Through SEA, LEA and Researcher Partnerships

Time: 12:00-1:00 p.m. ET Location: Virtual Description: Representatives from the National Forum on Education Statistics (Forum), the Privacy Technical Assistance Center (PTAC), the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) network, and the Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) Program have joined efforts to provide helpful information for state and local education agencies interested in working with researchers. We will discuss the benefits and processes for partnering with researchers to ef...
Jun 05, 2018
report Descriptive Study

Measuring student progress and teachers' assessment of student knowledge in a competency-based education system

Competency-based education has received growing attention in recent years as a way to address preK-12 learning goals. In competency-based education, students are promoted to the next course of study or grade level in each subject area after demonstrating mastery of identified learning targets aligned to standards. Westminster Public Schools in Colorado began the transition to a competency-based education system in 2009. In the Westminster Public Schools system, courses of study are organized ...
Jan 01, 2017
report Descriptive Study

Overview of selected state policies and supports related to K-12 competency-based education

Competency-based education--also known as proficiency-based, mastery-based, and performance-based education--has received increased attention in recent years as an education approach that may help ensure that students graduate from high school with the knowledge and skills necessary for college and their careers. In competency-based education, students must demonstrate mastery of course content to be promoted to the next class or grade, rather than spending a required number of hours in a cla...
Jan 01, 2017
report Descriptive Study

Summary of research on online and blended learning programs that offer differentiated learning options

This report summarizes the methodology, measures, and findings of research on the influence on student achievement outcomes of K-12 online and blended face-to-face and online learning programs that offer differentiated learning options. The report also describes the characteristics of the learning programs. Most of the examined programs used blended learning strategies, and all the examined programs offered some means to differentiate their content, difficulty level, or pacing. Some 45 percen...
Jan 01, 2017
report Descriptive Study

Teachers' responses to feedback from evaluators: What feedback characteristics matter?

The importance of teacher effectiveness is well supported by studies that document variation in teachers' abilities to contribute to student achievement gains. All else being equal, students taught by some teachers experience greater achievement gains than do students taught by other teachers. In response to initiatives to increase educator effectiveness as directed through flexibility waivers under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, many states are implementing new teacher evaluatio...
Jan 01, 2016
resource Training Material

The Examining Evaluator Feedback Survey

This report presents a survey tool, developed by REL Central at Marzano Research, designed to gather information from teachers about their perceptions of and responses to evaluator feedback. District or state administrators can use this survey to systematically collect teacher perceptions on five key aspects of evaluation feedback: (1) feedback usefulness, (2) feedback accuracy, (3) evaluator credibility, (4) access to resources related to feedback, and (5) teacher response to feedback. The s...
Jan 01, 2015
report Descriptive Study

Approaches to Evaluating Teacher Preparation Programs in Seven States

The purpose of this study was to describe how states in the REL Central Region (Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming) evaluate teacher preparation programs and planned changes for evaluation. Publicly available documents were reviewed and interviews were conducted with state education agency representatives in late 2013. Findings show that all Central Region states have procedures for approval and reauthorization of teacher preparation programs that fo...
Jan 01, 2014