A literacy-targeted approach to economic instruction draws on insights from cognitive science. It highlights that students process complex economic information by constructing and modifying schemas that represent economic material. Following this approach, we developed a set of instructional...

This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students' literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the...

This study compares two tools used to observe and assess how teachers support student learning: the LEGO Foundation's Engage tool, formerly PLAY, and the World Bank's Teach Primary tool. The goal was to evaluate their similarities and overlaps in their measurement of teaching practices. Nine...

Engaging teaching has emerged as a key approach to fostering children's socio-emotional and cognitive skills. This policy note draws on findings of a recent comparative study on the LEGO Foundation's Engage, formerly known as Playful Learning Across the Years (PLAY)1, classroom observation tool,...

Elite economics PhD programs aim to train graduate students for a lifetime of academic research. This paper asks how advising affects graduate students' post-PhD research productivity. Advising is highly concentrated: at the eight highly-selective schools in our study, a minority of advisors do...