Evidence-based teaching methods for helping students who are at risk for school failure or who have disabilities.
My colleague Dan Willingham produced a brief video explaining why basing instruction on learning styles is bologna. Here it is:
Here’s the YouTube link for Dan Willingham on Learning Styles and here’s a link to Dan’s Web site where one can learn plenty of useful things. Also, see the extended discussion on D-Ed Reckoning.
Sphere: Related ContentThe Division for Learning Disabilities (DLD) of the Council for Exceptional Children holds a conference annually in late October or early November. This year it is in Philadelphia (PA, US) and it features a batch of presentations that promise to be helpful to teachers, coaches, and administrators interested in learning how to implement evidence-based instructional practices.
Check the agenda for the next Fall Conference 24 and 25 October 2008 and then register! Learn about DLD’s “Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice” and learn how you can participate in this outstanding professional development opportunity.
Please note that I am connected with DLD (long-time member, former president, currently executive director and co-editor of the Web site), but I’d be pushing this conference even if I wasn’t affiliated with it.
Sphere: Related ContentIn her story for the Vancouver (BC, CA) Sun Janet Steffenhagen reported about the substantial gains in tool skills shown by students at an inner-city school in Vancouver. Under the headline “School leaps ahead in the rankings: Britiannia elementary principal credits a controversial reading program for students’ remarkable improvement,” Ms. Steffenhagen reported that aggregate scores on Canada’s Foundation Skills Assessment moved Britannia School from 636th rank to 232nd among 1000 schools in BC.
Continue reading ‘DI success story in BC’
My colleague Dan Willingham has posted a marvelous video that’s an introduction to thinking about neuroscience and education. Under the title “Brain-based Education: Fad or Breakthrough,” he illustrates important elements about what are reasoned extrapolations from cognitive neuroscience to education and what are not.
Update (7 June 2008): A couple of days ago, Dan posted a new version of the video; I’ve modified the links in the box accordingly.
Sphere: Related ContentThe US Institute of Educational Sciences released a summary of what educators know about teaching reading and writing to children to whom we often refer as “English Language Learners.” In Effective Literacy and English Language Instruction for English Learners in the Elementary Grades,, Russell Gersten, Scott Baker, Timothy Shanahan, Sylvia Linan-Thompson, Penny Collins, and Robin Scarcella provide explicit recommendations for improvining literacy instruction:
Gersten, R., Baker, S.K., Shanahan, T., Linan-Thompson, S., Collins, P., & Scarcella, R. (2007). Effective Literacy and English Language Instruction for English Learners in the Elementary Grades: A Practice Guide (NCEE 2007-4011). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from http://ies.ed.gov/ncee.
Link to the download (free) of the report.
Sphere: Related ContentI was pleased to happen upon a Web site entitled The Concord Review. The folks there—principally Will Fitzhugh—pitch the idea that academic excellence should be treated just as well as athletic excellence, so they have a varsity team of high school history writers. According to the home page, “Varsity athletics and athletes are celebrated everywhere. We celebrate varsity academics.”
Continue reading ‘Concord Review’
Over on Kitchen Table Math Catherine Johnson has a note about several articles on creativity she’d read recently. Upon seeing the entry, I remembered that there are several very interesting—at least to me—behavioral studies of creativity. So I slipped over to the site for the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and ran a quick search. Here are some of the results (with links to the abstracts; one can download the full article by following the link to the abstract):
Maloney, K. B. & Hopkins, B. L. (1973). The modification of sentence structure and its relationship to subjective judgements of creativity in writing. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 6, 425-433. The present study objectively defined and manipulated some compositional variables in 10-sentence stories written by fourth- fifth- and sixth-grade students, and related these operationally defined variables to subjective judgements of cr….
Glover, J. & Gary, A. L. (1976). Procedures to increase some aspects of creativity. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 9, 79-84. Instructions, reinforcement (team points) and practice were applied to four behaviorally defined creative behaviors of eight fourth- and fifth-grade students. All four aspects (number of different responses, fluency; number of verb forms, flexibility; number of words per response, elaboration; and statistical infr….
Parsonson, B. S. & Baer, D. M. (1978). Training generalized improvisation of tools by preschool children. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 11, 363-380. The development of new, creative behaviors was examined in a problem-solving context. One form of problem solving, improvisation, was defined as finding a substitute to replace the specifically designated, but currently unavailable, tool ordinarily used to solve the problem. The study e….
Glover, J. A. (1979). The effectiveness of reinforcement and practice for enhancing the creative writing of elementary school children. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 12, 487. Reinforcement (team points) and practice were applied to the written work of 16 fifth graders on three operationally defined components of creative writing, fluency, flexibility, and originality. These three components were assessed via five response measures. Fluen….
Read to Ms. Johnson’s post.
Sphere: Related ContentOur tour of the Republic of Korea has been wonderful. The temples, the foods, and (especially) the people have been quite delightful. Although Pat Lloyd and I have been seeing some sights, I’ve also been meeting with special educators in Changwon, Busan, and Seoul.
Continue reading ‘Korea talks’
Bad Behavior has blocked 156 access attempts in the last 7 days.
Latest Comments
RSS