This Week's Education Research Report 11-10-12 #SOSCHAT #EDCHAT #P2

Education Research Report:

THIS WEEK'S EDUCATION RESEARCH REPORT

Link Found Between Child Prodigies and Autism

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 17 hours ago

A new study of eight child prodigies suggests a possible link between these children’s special skills and autism. Of the eight prodigies studied, three had a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders. As a group, the prodigies also tended to have slightly elevated scores on a test of autistic traits, when compared to a control group. In addition, half of the prodigies had a family member or a first- or second-degree relative with an autism diagnosis. The fact that half of the families and three of the prodigies themselves were affected by autism is surprising because autism occurs in... more »

Kids need at least 7 minutes a day of 'vigorous' physical activity

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 17 hours ago

* Most aren't getting that* Children need a minimum of seven minutes a day of vigorous physical activity, demonstrates recently published findings by University of Alberta medical researchers and their colleagues across Canada. "If you watch late-night television, or look in the backs of magazines, you'll see magical ads saying you need just 10 minutes a day or five minutes a day of exercise to stay fit. And for those of us in the medical field, we just rolled our eyes at that. But surprisingly, they may actually be right and that's what this research shows," says co-principal inv... more »

Record Shares of Young Adults Have Finished Both High School and College

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 18 hours ago

Record shares of young adults are completing high school, going to college and finishing college, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly available census data. In 2012, for the first time ever, one-third of the nation’s 25- to 29-year-olds have completed at least a bachelor’s degree. These across-the-board increases have occurred despite dramatic immigration-driven changes in the racial and ethnic composition of college-age young adults, a trend that had led some experts to expect a decline in educational attainment. College completion is now at record levels among k... more »

Why Superintendents Turn Over

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 20 hours ago

Although superintendent turnover can hinder district reform and improvement, research examining superintendent exits is scarce. This study identifies factors contributing to superintendent turnover in California by matching original superintendent and school board survey data with administrative data and information hand-collected from news sources on why superintendents left and where they went. Among 215 superintendents studied beginning in 2006, 45% exited within 3 years. Using a multinomial framework to separate retirements from other turnover, the authors find that factors s... more »

Assistive listening devices may improve dyslexic student reading skills

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 20 hours ago

Children with dyslexia may benefit from wearing assistive listening devices in the classroom, a study suggests. Nina Kraus and colleagues studied 34 dyslexic children who ranged in age from 8 to 14 years. Nineteen of the students wore an assistive listening device, similar to a Bluetooth receiver, throughout the school day for the duration of the school year. The brain responded to sound more consistently in children wearing the devices, the authors report, a finding that could have implications for improved reading skills. According to the authors, the devices could help improve... more »

Gender biases within academic science

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 20 hours ago

Science faculty display subtle gender biases that may contribute to the underrepresentation of women within many fields of academic science, according to a study. Using a randomized, double-blind study design, Corinne Moss-Racusin and colleagues asked a nationwide sample of 127 biology, chemistry, and physics professors to evaluate the application materials of an undergraduate student who was ostensibly applying for a lab manager position. All professors received identical applications, which were randomly attributed to either a male or a female student. The authors found that th... more »

Reading instruction and brain development influence each other

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 20 hours ago

A child's ability to read may largely depend on when that individual's brain circuitry is sufficiently developed yet capable of growth, a longitudinal study reports. Jason Yeatman and colleagues tracked reading proficiency over a 3-year period for 55 children who ranged in age from 7 to 12. Thirty-nine of those children underwent at least three scans measuring development in brain regions associated with reading skills. The measurements focused on white matter, the brain component involved in transmitting signals from one region to another. While every child's reading skills incr... more »

Teacher Absence as a Leading Indicator of Student Achievement

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 21 hours ago

*On average, 36 percent of teachers nationally were absent more than 10 days during the 2009-10 school year based on the 56,837 schools analyzed in the dataset* On any given school day, up to 40 percent of teachers in New Jersey’s Camden City Public Schools are absent from their classrooms. Such a high figure probably would not stand out in parts of the developing world, but it contrasts sharply with the 3 percent national rate of absence for full-time wage and salaried American workers, and the 5.3 percent rate of absence for American teachers overall. Certainly, it isn’t unreason... more »

Difficult Transition from Student to Teacher

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 22 hours ago

"It was the hardest thing I ever had to do, emotionally and mentally." These are not the words we generally associate with a university student who is undergoing teacher training, yet Concordia researcher Anita Sinner has heard similar statements from many such individuals. Every year thousands of students make the transition from student to teacher and the stories of those who struggle are often missing from our conversations. "Pre-service teachers who experience varying degrees of struggle have few stories against which to compare their experiences when entering the teaching prof... more »

Preschoolers’ Counting Abilities Relate to Future Math Performance,

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 day ago

Along with reciting the days of the week and the alphabet, adults often practice reciting numbers with young children. Now, new research from the University of Missouri suggests reciting numbers is not enough to prepare children for math success in elementary school. The research indicates that counting, which requires assigning numerical values to objects in chronological order, is more important for helping preschoolers acquire math skills. “Reciting means saying the numbers from memory in chronological order, whereas counting involves understanding that each item in the set is ... more »

Child care providers can be part of the solution for childhood obesity

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 day ago

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys revealed that over 21% of children 2 to 5 years old were considered overweight or obese. Child care settings can serve as a platform to teach children about nutrition in our fight against childhood obesity, as nearly 50% of children in the United States under age 5 are enrolled in child care. In a new study released in the November/December 2012 issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, training child care providers about their role in children's healthful eating is an essential component of child care-based obes... more »

Classes Taken and Credits Earned by Beginning Postsecondary Students

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 day ago

These Web Tables provide an overview of classes taken and credits earned by a nationwide sample of first-time beginning postsecondary students based on data from the Postsecondary Education Transcript Study (PETS) of the 2004/09 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study. PETS collected transcripts from all the postsecondary institutions students attended, providing a complete 6-year record of students’ coursetaking and credit accumulation. Topics covered in these Web Tables include precollege credits, remedial education participation, withdrawals and repeated courses, and...more »

Beginning K–12 Teacher Characteristics and Preparation

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 day ago

Research on academic achievement has revealed wide variation in teachers’ qualifications and experiences across schools. These Web Tables present the demographic characteristics and teaching preparation, including undergraduate coursetaking and certification, of 2007–08 baccalaureate degree recipients who taught at the K–12 level within a year of completing their bachelor’s degree. The analysis also compares teachers across a number of key characteristics of the schools in which they taught, including the percentage of students who qualified for free or reduced-price lunch, locatio... more »

Early treatment sparks striking brain changes in autism

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 days ago

Also see: Early autism intervention improves brain responses to social cues When given early treatment, children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) made significant improvements in behavior, communication, and most strikingly, brain function, Yale School of Medicine researchers report in a new study. The study was published in the current issue of the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders by Yale Child Study Center researchers Fred Volkmar, M.D., Kevin A. Pelphrey, and their colleagues. The results suggest that brain systems supporting social perception respond well to a...more »

Study supports move toward common math standards

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 4 days ago

A new study analyzing the previous math standards of each state provides strong support for adoption of common standards, which U.S. students desperately need to keep pace with their counterparts around the globe, a Michigan State University scholar argues. Forty-six states are implementing the Common Core math and reading standards, which nonetheless have come under fire recently by some researchers and would-be politicians. But William Schmidt, MSU Distinguished Professor of statistics and education, said the Common Core is a world-class set of standards. In his study, published... more »

Helping English Language Learners Meet Higher Expectations Associated With Common Core

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 4 days ago

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) offer great promise for advancing the quality of education and outcomes for all students, but meeting the higher expectations associated with them could prove especially daunting for the rapidly growing population of English language learners (ELLs) who must learn grade-level content while simultaneously trying to master the English language. A new report from the Alliance for Excellent Education discusses these challenges, highlights initiatives already underway to help ELLs meet these challenges, and outlines how policy and practice must ch... more »

Promising Indications of Changes in Children’s Health

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 6 days ago

According this report, there are promising indications that when schools implement the Healthy Schools Program, students’ weight, diet, and physical activity improve. In a sample of 21 randomly selected schools participating in the Healthy Schools Program, the evaluators surveyed children in grades 5 through 12 about their diet and physical activity, and measured their body mass index were found primarily among middle school students. The evaluation found that schools that accessed and participated in more training and technical assistance made the most progress in implementing pol... more »

2012 National Survey of School Counselors

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 6 days ago

This report, True North: Charting the Course to College and Career Readiness, demonstrates that school counselors and their administrators share a vision for their schools and agree on a path to realize it. In the past, the more than 130,000 school counselors nationally have struggled to define their profession. Now, faced with an incontrovertible need to improve student achievement, school counseling is no longer at a crossroads. The 2012 National Survey of School Counselors, supported by a supplemental survey of school administrators, provided powerful evidence that school counse... more »

Successfully implementing the Common Core State Standards

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 6 days ago

ASCD has released a new report titled Fulfilling the Promise of the Common Core State Standards: Moving from Adoption to Implementation to Sustainability illuminating activities educators and policymakers at all levels can undertake to successfully implement the Common Core State Standards across the nation. This free report can be found on the EduCore™ site, ASCD’s free repository of evidence-based strategies, videos, and supporting documents that help educators transition to the Common Core standards. The recommendations included in Fulfilling the Promise of the Common Core Stat... more »