Latest News and Comment from Education

Thursday, July 18, 2013

7-18-13 Education Research Report

Education Research Report:



TODAY

IB Middle Years Programme Develops Students and Teachers Eager to Learn and Take on New Challenges
The International Baccalaureate (IB) has announced new research findings that aim to provide deeper understanding of how students in the Middle Years Programme (MYP) are influenced to become lifelong learners and active global citizens through participation in the MYP. The study, conducted by Julie Wade and Natalie L. Wolanin, found that MYP students identified the rigour and challenge of MYP cour
Children with ear deformity may need intervention to improve school performance
Children born with a complete absence of the external ear canal, even if only one ear is affected, are more likely than their peers to struggle in school, according to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.Hearing amplification and corrective surgery are available for the condition, called aural atresia. But many children with single ear atresia (unilateral atresia)
Singing helps students tune into a foreign language, study shows
Singing in a foreign language can significantly improve learning how to speak it, according to a new study.Adults who listened to short Hungarian phrases and then sang them back performed better than those who spoke the phrases, researchers found.People who sang the phrases back also fared better than those who repeated the phrases by speaking them rhythmically.Three randomly assigned groups of tw

YESTERDAY

The Political Foundations of the Black–White Education Achievement Gap
More than 50 years after Brown v. Board, African American students continue to trail their White peers on a variety of important educational indicators. In this article, the authors investigate the political foundations of the racial “achievement gap” in American education. Using variation in high school graduation rates across the states, they first assess whether state policymakers are attentive
Exploring Key Levers to Boost College Readiness Among Black and Latino Males
College readiness is becoming an increasingly important standard by which to measure school success and student achievement. While high school graduation and dropout prevention remain critical issues for educators, there is a substantial gap in outcomes between students who only earn a high school diploma and those who go on to obtain a college degree. For example, young adults with a bachelor’s d
AP Exams and Personality Traits Help Predict Long-Term Success in College
Long-term success in college may be better predicted with Advanced Placement (AP) exams and personality traits in combination with standard admission practices, according to new research from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Rice University.The study showed that prediction of student graduation may be significantly improved by including in the college admission process consideration of AP e

JUL 16

Young children with autism benefit regardless of high-quality treatment model
Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have found that preschoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) who receive high-quality early intervention benefit developmentally regardless of the treatment model used—a surprising result that may have important implications for special-education programs and school classrooms across the country.“This is the first study designed to
Immigrant Young Adults Have Mixed Record of Success in High School and College
Young adults who are immigrants or the children of immigrants have a mixed record of success in Washington State, with the performance of many English language learners lagging behind state averages even as the state’s immigrant youth have a relatively high level of college-degree attainment compared to other immigrants nationwide, the Migration Policy Institute reported today.In a new report, Sha
Reading Recovery® has positive effects on general reading achievement and potentially positive effects on alphabetics, reading fluency, and comprehension for beginning readers
Reading Recovery® is a short-term intervention that provides one-on-one tutoring to first-grade students who are struggling in reading and writing. The supplementary program aims to promote literacy skills and foster the development of reading and writing strategies by tailoring individualized lessons to each student. Tutoring is delivered by trained Reading Recovery® teachers in daily 30 minute p
Revenues and expenditures for public elementary and secondary education for School Year 2010-11
Current expenditures per pupil for public elementary and secondary education were $10,658 on a national level in FY 11. Current expenditures per pupil ranged from $6,326 in Utah to $20,793 in the District of Columbia. Expenditures per pupil were next highest in New York ($18,834); New Jersey ($16,855); Alaska ($16,663); Connecticut ($16,224); and Wyoming ($15,815). Adjusting for inflation, per pup
Developing Socially Just Teachers
This interpretive study investigated how 12 graduates from a justice-oriented teacher preparation program described their teaching goals, practices, and influences on those practices after their 1st year of teaching in an urban school. Relationships among these teachers’ orientations toward socially just teaching, self-reported socially just teaching practices, and self-reported preprogram, progra
Early Spatial Reasoning Predicts Later Creativity and Innovation, Especially in STEM Fields
Exceptional spatial ability at age 13 predicts creative and scholarly achievements more than 30 years later, according to results from a Vanderbilt University longitudinal study, published today in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.The study, conducted by David Lubinski and colleagues at Vanderbilt University Peabody College of education and human develo
CREDO’s Significantly Insignificant Charter Schools Findings
Even Setting Aside Its Analytical Flaws, Study Merely Confirms that Charter Schools Perform on Par with Traditional Public SchoolsThe Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University announced in a June 25th press release that “charter school students now have greater learning gains in reading than their peers in traditional public schools.” This conclusion was repeated in

JUL 15

Educators Explore Innovative "Theater" As A Way To Learn Physics
By role-playing how energy flows and changes, learners achieve rich insights about this central, globally relevant conceptIn a study released this week, education researchers found that personifying energy allowed students to grapple with difficult ideas about how energy works. Contrasted with more traditional lectures and graphs, this innovative instructional technique may be useful for teaching
How to Keep Kids Engaged with Educational Games
If you want teams of students to stay engaged while playing educational games, you might want them to switch seats pretty often. That’s one finding from a pilot study that evaluated how well middle school students were able to pay attention to game-based learning tasks.Students at a Raleigh, N.C., middle school were divided into two-person teams for the pilot study. Researchers from North Carolina
Reducing Children’s Exposure to School Bus Diesel Exhaust
Children who are exposed to diesel exhaust from idling school buses are at increased risk of asthma exacerbation, decreased lung function, immunologic reactions, leukemia, and increased susceptibility to infections. Policies and initiatives that aim to protect school children from the harmful effects of exposure to diesel exhaust range from general environmental air quality standards to more speci