Tag Archive for 'professional development'

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Multiple intelligences ain’t

Published on 17 June 2009 in Administration, Musings, News, Policy, Research, Teacher education and The press. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Howard Gardner’s Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences seems to occupy a special place in the pantheon of education memes. I was reminded of this when I read “Not Every Child Is Secretly a Genius” by Christopher Ferguson. Mr. Ferguson’s essay—it appears in the Chronicle of Higher Education, the news source of record for higher educators—politely explains that sustaining Multiple Intelligences (MI) theory is not a good idea.

Rational analyses of the MI evidence by Dan Willingham and Lynn Waterhouse have shown that there are problems with both the theory itself (e.g., most of the eight intelligences are highly correlated, meaning that they are likely measuring the same “thing” for the most part) and its application in education (e.g., methods based on MI do not lead to better outcomes).

Mr. Ferguson’s essay continues in that same tradition. He makes a strong case for his conclusion that “Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences was a great idea and worth investigating. It’s just not panning out.”
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Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy

Published on 8 June 2009 in Administration, News, Policy, Research and The press. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

The Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy has launched a new Web site. The Coalition is another of the several organizations that advocates employing evidence in making decisions about social policies, especially decisions about programs aimed at improving citizens’ outcomes.

The Coalition is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, whose mission is to increase government effectiveness through rigorous evidence about “what works.” Since our founding in 2001, our work with key Congressional and Executive Branch policymakers has helped advance important evidence-based reforms…. A recent independent assessment of our work found that the Coalition has been “instrumental in transforming a theoretical advocacy of evidence-based policy among certain [federal] agencies into an operational reality.”

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Calculated answer

Published on 21 April 2009 in Arithmetic and mathematics, Elementary, News, Teacher education, Technology and The press. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

Joanne Jacobs covered a story about a professional development consultant advising a teacher to dodge a question about whether introducing calculators will hinder students’ acquisition of basic computation skills. There’s video! With transcription by Wayne Bishop, one of Teach Effectively’s Much Admired Folx, the inanity of the consultant’s response becomes quite clear. If the presenter wasn’t so serious, it’d be humorous, sort of like a parody.

Link to Ms. Jacob’s post.

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ELLs deserve effective teaching, too

Published on 20 April 2009 in Administration, Musings, News, Policy, Research, Teacher education and The press. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

The US Supreme Court will hear arguments today in Flores v. State of Arizona, a case that captures important concerns about contemporary education in the US. Plantiff argues that English-language Learner (ELL) programs are deficient and receive inadequate funding, violating a provision of a US federal law (the Equal Educational Opportunity Act; EEOA) requiring that states ensure that students for whom English is not a first language can learn how to speak English and, thus, benefit from education.

The class-action case gets its name from Miriam Flores, an elementary student in the 1990s, who had limited English proficiency (LEP) and did not benefit from the ELL services during her primary schooling. US National Public Radio’s Nina Totenberg reported Ms. Flores recollections (she is now 22 and a student at the University of Arizona):

“It was quite a disadvantage, definitely,” Flores says. “For example, even when it comes to math, I mean problem solving, they were all in English. So in order to understand, you need to be proficient in your reading in English.”
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Improving instruction…how?

Published on 13 October 2008 in News, Reading, Teacher education and The press. 2 Comments Tags: .

From the northern California news source Redding.com, I learned that a local school will use grant funds to help special educators improve their reading and language arts teaching. I’m curious about how the school plans to do this. Any guesses?

State grant helps Lewiston school

LEWISTON – Lewiston Elementary School has been awarded a $19,500 grant from the state.

The Professional Development in Reading for Special Education Teachers Pilot Program grants are designed to provide support to special education teachers to help them improve reading and language-art instruction.

About 10 percent of California students are designated as needing special education services. In all, $26.6 million was given to 27 school districts across the state.

Link for the article.

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DLD fall conference

Published on 14 August 2008 in Administration, Arithmetic and mathematics, Content learning, News, Reading, Research, Teacher education, The press and Written Expression. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

The 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.

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Bogus Bowl V: Professors’ rationales

Published on 29 July 2008 in Policy, Research and Teacher education. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Professors of education are, arguably, among the most powerful arbiters of the views of education of the US teaching corps; their influence on beginning teachers is eclipsed only by the teaching corps itself, if by any other force, and their influence on prospective teachers must be unparalleled. Because few practicing teachers contribute to the professional literature and many professors do publish, their effect on the canon (such as and whatever it is) is overwhelming. So, it’s about time for a Bogus Bowl examining professors’ views on evidence-based education.

In Bogus Bowl V, I ask you to choose among several different reasons that professors might give for failing to teach their students, our schools’ prospective teachers, those teaching practices that have been documented as having the greatest effects on pre-kindergarten-through-twelfth-grade students’ outcomes in important academic and social areas.

Which of the following do you consider to be the most bogus reason for professors failing to teach prospective teachers how to employ teaching procedures that have been documented to be effective?

View Results

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As usual, I want to advise readers that these are not scientific polls. Please do not interpret the results of this or other similar polls on Teach Effectively as representative of the views of people, educators, or even visitors to TE. The results of these polls only represent the views of those who entered a vote under the constrained conditions of the questions, alternative answers, response requirements, and etc. of this poll.

Thanks to Liz Ditz and Ken De Rosa for consulting with me about the poll during its gestation period.

For those who would like to read an academic paper related to this topic, please see Doug Carnine’s “Why Education Experts Resist Effective Practices (And What It Would Take to Make Education More Like Medicine).” Here’s a link to an HTML version of the paper where one can also download a PDF of it.

Oh, yes, years ago I could hardly spell ‘professser,’ but now I are one.

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Reading First national conference

Published on 28 July 2008 in Administration, News, Policy, Reading, Research and The press. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Despite the distressing recent news about funding for the US Reading First program, the annual conference is in full swing and there seems to be a lot of enthusiasm for the program here at the site in Nashville (TN, US). As I understand, there are >5000 educators from all around the US who have registered for the conference (there’s a map with pins for sites that I plan to photograph and publish here), and the teachers and administrators (coaches, principals, reading specialists) with whom I’ve spoken seem committed to making sure they know what to do to ensure that students learn to read.

Registration for the conference is free, and that price of admission permits one to attend sessions delivered by people such as Anita Archer, Frances Bessellieu, Nell Duke, Stu Greenberg, Annemieke Golly, Jan Hasbrouck, Roxanne Hudson, Mike McKenna, Maddie McKeown, Stan Paine, Tin Shanahan, Sharon Walpole, dozens of others. Who wouldn’t be willing to give up a few days of summer vacation to attend this conference?

Mrs. Laura Bush is slated to speak in a few minutes, so the local TV stations are here in force. There are several vans with antennae parked right outside my hotel room.

Obligatory reminder: I’m a member of the Reading First Advisory Committee, but my statements here are my own. They do not reflect the views of the committee or of other members of the committee.

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