1. What information did the studies the Task Group reviewed provide regarding professional development programs for teachers? Why was it important?
2. What are the four main questions that need "robust evidence? Why might the panel have thought these were questions that needed to be answered in order to better understand and improve professional development programs for teachers?
3. What teacher characteristics are related to predicting student achievement? Why is each characteristic important?
4. What are the three different types of salary incentive? What are positive and negative aspects of their applications in the school environment?
5. For pay-for-performance incentives, what are the major distinctions and variations among the different plans? Why are each of them important? How do they affect student performance?
6. Based on the results from research on teacher incentives, what policy recommendations does the Task Group recommend? How would they be beneficial when implemented?
7. Do pay-based incentives truly help or not? How would you go about designing an experiment to test such a phenomenon? How would the fact that most of the studies were done in countries with lower salaries affect the results of the experiment?
8. What are some basic qualifications of being a "math specialist"? What
are the three models of math specialists?
9. Identify and describe the three costs associated with mathematics specialists? Considering these costs, are math specialists worthwhile keeping?
