Archive for October, 2007

Got one!

Published by JohnL on 28 October 2007 in Administration, Musings, News and Research. 2 Comments

This is in substantial part, the content of a message I received today. Do you think I should pursue it?

Yje reason I e mailed you is to inform you that I have developed a meditation technique an improvement and variation of the violet fire meditation technique ( consult the inter net about “violet fire’). I have proven this technique to help young people 25 years old and below with learning disability. This meditation technique will help increase their IQ and better their genetic make up it aslso awaken the Godly attributes and the God in them and will make them Godlike. This treats the person as a whole a hollistic and whollistic approach. Even at the intial

session which lasts fot less than 2 hours will help a lot. One good thing about this meditation technique is that I can give it persinally or by distance healing and empowerment that I can give to aqny one or group where ever they maybe presently or even in the past. If you are interested just answer this email or you can contact me at cell phone number [number removed–JohnL] here in the Philippines.Hoping for your kind consid!
ere3tion regarding this matter. Sincerely yours.

S 2118

Published by JohnL on 22 October 2007 in Administration, Musings and News. 0 Comments

US Senators Richard Lugar and Jeff Bingaman have sponsored a bill to promote the use of effective teaching practices in US education. This is a worthy effort, to my way of thinking. on 28 September 2007, the bill was referred to the Senate committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

S 2118 IS

110th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 2118

To encourage the use of research-proven programs in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

Get more information about S 2118: A bill to encourage the use of research-proven programs in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

C’ville RTI workshop

Published by JohnL on 18 October 2007 in Administration, News and Policy. 1 Comment

Some of my colleagues are conducting a workshop on Response to Intervention (RTI). Here’s the announcement.

Response to Intervention (RTI), Learning Disabilities, and You:
How Changes in Special Education Law Impact Diagnosis and Treatment of Students
How the Albemarle County Schools are Approaching These Issues

Friday, November 9, 2007
1:00-3:30 p.m.
Curry School of Education
Ruffner Hall Room 121

SCHEDULE

1:00: Lunch and Registration

1:30: Historical and current perspectives on Learning Disabilities: Why the need for change? What is RTI? What happened to Aptitude/Achievement Discrepancy?
Ron Reeve, University of Virginia

2:15: How one school division is implementing new procedures for dealing with students with academic and behavior problems
Kevin Kirst, Albemarle County Public Schools

2:40: Preliminary results from a research study examining the strengths and weaknesses of the School Based Intervention Team approach
Ann Shargo and Wei-Bing Chen, University of Virginia

Certificates verifying two hours of continuing education credit will be provided

PLEASE RSVP TO BARBARA NORDIN BY MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2007
(434) 924-7472
nordin [at] virginia.edu

Co-Sponsored by the Curry Programs in Clinical and School Psychology, University of Virginia
and Albemarle County Public Schools

How low is your state’s bar?

Published by JohnL on 16 October 2007 in Administration, Arithmetic and mathematics, Assessment, News, Policy and Reading. 0 Comments
Time magazine interactive graphic

Time graphic

To what extent does a US state’s high-stakes test correspond with a consistent standard assessment? Using data from the Education Trust and the Colorado (US) Department of Education Time magazine’s Feilding Cage (with help from Jackson Dykman) created one of those nifty Flashy things that provides an interactive means of displaying data. The interactive map, linked from the thumbnail shown here, shows the degree to which states’ reading and math assessments differ from the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the standard US metric for achievement.

The results from fewer than 5% of the states’ tests (~2*50) tests are higher than the NAEP. Mostly, it is far easier the NAEP meet standards on the state tests. In the image that I’ve clipped here, one can see that fewer students are judged proficient on South Carolina’s 8th-grade math assessment than on the NAEP. Thus the standard—the NAEP—is more demanding.

To compare across states (i.e., to see where SC’s students stand nationally), one would need to have a consistent measuring stick. The NAEP provides such. States’ high-stakes tests clearly do not.

Because of the way that NAEP scores are developed, this comparison is not based on the scores of the same student on each test, but rather, on an overall comparison. There are lots of technical ins and outs about these comparisons, but the big picture is informative.

I’m attending a meeting of the federal Reading First Advisory Committee and, as serendipity would have it, I stumbled on this article. We were just discussing the problems we’re encountering with not-comparable measures of reading progress across the states; as a result, we’re having a difficult time assessing the effects that Reading First is having on children’s outcomes.

To learn more about the Education Trust, visit the organization’s site. To view another interactive map that allows one to download a detailed comparison of each individual state’s testing, click here. To download a copy of a relevant scholaraly paper from Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation by Bert Stoneberg, look here.

Flash of the electrons to Maya Frost for her post that alerted me to the Time article.

Woo work

Published by JohnL on 16 October 2007 in Musings, News and Research. 0 Comments

Liz Ditz, who has often identified instances of bologna masquerading a fine cuisine, has posted notes about the Woo Handbook, a product of Skeptico. Check out her recent entry, “Just in Time: The Woo Handbook and The Woo-Woo Credo”

Skeptico apparently has found a guide to countering scientific thinking. Skeptico suggests that those engaging in debate on matters where some shreds of scientific evidence and reason might be relevant. Before listing 20 tactics to use in debate, Skeptico suggests that one be careful when engaging in the fray.

Before you start though, you should remember that skeptics have many things on their side. Things like evidence, facts, logic. But don’t despair. If you follow the techniques described below it may seem like you have a valid argument more often that you would imagine, given your actual lack of knowledge, evidence or facts. Good luck, and I’m visualizing your success.

Link to Skeptico’s handbook.

Pat pet therapy

Published by JohnL on 15 October 2007 in Musings, News, Reading, Research and The press. 0 Comments
Miami Herald story with image by Patrick Farrell

Dogs as reading monitors

Wouldn’t it be great if kids would learn to read by reading aloud to dogs? According to Yolanne Almanzar of the Miami (FL, US) Herald, that is what’s happening in some Florida schools.

Writing under the headline, “Dogs lend ears to young readers: A program helps elementary school children improve their literacy skills by reading out loud to dogs,” Ms. Almanzar reports that advocates have many explanations for why the program works, though there is a dearth of data about the effects.

The experimental folks among us might wonder if reading to some other animal (cats, gerbils, parakeets, sloths, wooly mammoths?) would cause greater gains in reading performance. Of course, such a comparison would require that someone actually measure reading performance in a somewhat systematic way and make a comparison between conditions.

But what’s the use in that, one might wonder. Why not just believe it and get about the business of implementing it? Sigh….

So, read for yourself: Here’s the link. Flash of the electrons to Maria Carlo, who showed me another, different picture from coverage of this story. If you have links to additional stories about this innovation, please post them in the comments.

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