Over on Zig Site, Siegfried Engelmann has a new series of articles in which Socrates questions fictitious educators about educational concepts. In the first, Socrates engages one Dr. Gibbs, a “prominent professor of education.” Here’s an excerpt:
Dr. Gibbs: Learning is extremely complicated and influenced by a host of factors, including motivation and parental attitudes. The point I try to make to my students is that every child is an individual who learns according to his or her time table, and in his or her unique way.
Socrates: You give us a lot to think about. But is there some fact or rule that describes all learning?
Dr. Gibbs. Of course not. The learner is what the learner does and what the learner has inherited. Learning is not some kind of cut-and-dried process. The most specific thing one could confidently say about all learning is that it occurs in a series of predictable stages, which have been described by Piaget and others.
Just imagine the hash that Socrates makes of such bologna!
In another, Socrates and Dr. Baram Rosenthal, an “educational guru,” discuss reading instruction. Catch ‘em at Zig Site. Look in the left rail.
Teach Effectively pal Dan Willingham has another treatment of the learning-styles myth at the Washington Post. In a guest entry for Valerie Strauss’ “The Answer Sheet,” Professor Willingham mentions the recent scientific review of research that debunked the myth (yet again) and provides responses to some of the pro-myth arguments that he’s encountered. Here’s a link to “Willingham: No evidence exists for learning style theories.”
Randall Munroe creates the xkcd comic, and he often includes insights about logic, mathematics, and science in his strips or other images. This is one of my faves, so I’m passing it along to readers as a gift.
The image points to that particular cartoon. Once you’re there explore, or click this link to go to the home page and see the Mr. Munroe’s current cartoon.
Robert Slavin and colleagues reported that reading programs that provide extensive professional development on instructional strategies which promote student participation, strengthen phonics competence, and explicitly teach comprehension strategies are the best bets for improving reading achievement. The clearest examples of the programs that led to the highest achievement were Direct Instruction and Success for All.
Writing in the December 2009 issue of the Review of Educational Research, Professor Slavin and colleagues reported the results of their examination of 142 studies. They wanted to determine whether curricula, technology, instructional processes, or combinations of curricula and processes produce greater reading achievement. The curriculum group included core reading programs, such as Reading Street and Open Court Reading. The technology group included programs that employ computers or similar methods such as computer-assisted instruction, multimedia (e.g., Reading Reels, or Writing to Read). The instructional process group included approaches that provide teachers effective strategies for teaching reading, such as Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) and Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition (CIRC). The combined curriculum-and-instructional-process group included programs that function as core curricula and also provide detailed professional development about using instructional strategies, such as Direct Instruction and Success for All. The researchers separated the studies into two groups: those with outcomes at the (a) beginning reading level vs. upper elementary level.
Continue reading ‘Go for DI and SFA’
In the spirit of the end-of-the-year and end-of-the-decade lists mania that seems to grip us (ahem!) periodically, over on On our Minds, Sarah Trabucchi had a post last week entitled “The Decade’s 10 Big Ideas in Education.” Ms. Trabucchi list was the product of the “education brains” at the publisher, Scholastic.
What’s on the list? It includes alternate paths to teaching, transformative technology, accountability, data-driven instruction, charter schools, the rise of digital content, a focus on adolescent literacy, books are the new black, it takes a village, the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act.
Continue reading ‘What matters in education?’
Writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education under the headline “Matching Teaching Style to Learning Style May Not Help Students,” David Glenn describes the hook of a forth-coming paper the examines the popular, but unsupported, notion that instruction must be differentiated according to personal characteristics of the learners.
If you’ve ever sat through a teaching seminar, you’ve probably heard a lecture about “learning styles.” Perhaps you were told that some students are visual learners, some are auditory learners, and others are kinesthetic learners. Or maybe you were given one of the dozens of other learning-style taxonomies that scholars and consultants have developed.
Almost certainly, you were told that your instruction should match your students’ styles. For example, kinesthetic learners—students who learn best through hands-on activities—are said to do better in classes that feature plenty of experiments, while verbal learners are said to do worse.
Continue reading ‘Learning styles gets academic attention’
Over on Kitchen Table Math the contributor who identifies himself as SteveH has a delightful post about some new test results. Here’s the lead:
Recent testing has shown improvement in shoe tying by fourth and eighth graders over the past two years, although the growth has been stagnant in some districts. Urban school activists, however, can be encouraged by the statistical improvement in areas with populations of 250,000 or more. This continues an upward trend that started 6 years ago when this testing began.
Jump over to Testing Shows Improvement in Shoe Tying.
My colleague and friend, Jim Kauffman, published an editorial in the Charlottesville (VA, US) Daily Progress over the past weekend. It’s a good one.
In his view, most educational reform proposals miss the mark. They overlook the critical element. Make a note about what element you think is ignored, then read Professor Kauffman’s editorial. I suspect that many readers of Teach Effectively will have notes about the same overlooked factor that he identifies.
I’d point readers to the Daily Progress for a chance to read it, but I can’t find the article on that Web site. However, thanks to the author, I have a PDF of the editorial. Download it by clicking on the accompanying image or by following this link.
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