Even though he harbors doubts about whether there is a need for another education blog, friend of TE Dan Willingham has started a new blog. He thinks there is a niche for providing brief notes pointing at scientific findings that are relevant for education, and he plans to do so at http://www.danielwillingham.com/daniel-willingham-science-and-education-blog.html. Scurry on over there and check on it. I’ll add it to the sidebar here.
Sphere: Related ContentTag Archive for 'Research'
Isn’t it unusual to get something for free that is actually worth a lot? The good folks over at Education Consumers Foundation (ECF) are giving away a small book that is quite valuable, and I encourage readers to download it, read it, and tell their friends to get it, too.
What are they giving away? It’s a book called Clear Teaching: With Direct Instruction, Siegfried Engelmann Discovered a Better Way of Teaching by Shep Barbash. As one can tell from the subtitle, it’s about Zig Engelmann’s work on education. I talked with Mr. Barbash as he worked on the manuscript for the book, read an earlier version of it, and am very impressed with this finished product. It’s even more impressive that the book is now out in the wild for free. Kudos to Mr. Barbash, John Stone, and all the others at ECF who made this happen.
Clear Teaching – The Book
Written by veteran journalist Shepard Barbash over a period of 10 years, Clear Teaching is a well-researched, highly readable introduction to Direct Instruction (DI), a systematic teaching approach which for more than 40 years has dramatically improved learning outcomes for students of all abilities and from all walks of life. The book looks at the development of DI through the early experiences of its creator, Zig Engelmann; explains the principles that underpin this approach; and looks at DI’s reception in the world of teaching, where it has been effectively shunned despite a formidable research base and example after example of transformative success.
The image at the top of the post is hot, but readers can also click here to go to the ECF page where they can download the PDF.
Sphere: Related Content“Think You’re An Auditory Or Visual Learner? Scientists Say It’s Unlikely.” That was the headline that Patti Neighmond used in reporting on the popular myth of learning styles for US National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. One of the experts she interviewed for the segment that aired 29 August 2011 was friend of Teach Effectively, Dan Willingham.
The coverage by Ms. Neighmond is brief (4+ mins), but it includes solid content. In addition to Professor Willingham’s comments, she has sound from Doug Rohrer, one of the authors of the thorough examination of the evidence about learning styles published by Psychological Science in the Public Interest in 2008.
As Ms. Neighmond noted, there is big money in learning styles. Do you think the folks who have a stake in this unproven, thin-sliced bologna will accept this report without response? I doubt it. It’ll be intriguing to watch the comments in Ms. Neighmond’s story. There’ll be some shameless appeals to intuition and personal experience, some references to shoddy studies, and more. Watch the fun!
For those of us who have for many years been noting that the learning styles hypothesis is bogus, it’s very nice to have the message reach the general public. Thanks to Ms. Neighmond for that.
Read the print version of “Think You’re An Auditory Or Visual Learner? Scientists Say It’s Unlikely” (or go there to listen to the audio version or download an MP3 of it). Read other posts about learning styles that have appeared on Teach Effectively.
References
Kavale, K. A., & Forness, S. R. (1987). Substance over style: A quantitative synthesis assessing the efficacy of modality testing and teaching. Exceptional Children, 54, 228-234.
Lloyd, J. W. (1984). How shall we individualize instruction-or should we? Remedial and Special Education, 5(1), 7-15.
Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9, 106-119.
Sphere: Related ContentIn “Using Encoding Instruction to Improve the Reading and SpellingPerformances of Elementary Students At Risk for Literacy Difficulties: A Best-Evidence Synthesis,” professsors Beverly Weiser and Patricia Mathes of Southern Methodist University reviewed of studies of the effects of spelling instruction on literacy performance and found that systematic instruction in helping students to convert speech into print promotes not just spelling but also reading competence. What is more, the benefits appear to persist over time.
Using Encoding Instruction to Improve the Reading and SpellingPerformances of Elementary Students At Risk for Literacy Difficulties: A Best-Evidence Synthesis
Although connectionist models provide a framework explaining how the decoding and encoding abilities work reciprocally to enhance reading and spelling ability, encoding instruction in today’s schools is not a priority. Although a limited amount of high-quality experimental or control studies to date (N = 11) give empirical support to using direct, explicit encoding instruction to increase the reading and spelling abilities of those students at risk for literacy failure, the benefits of integrating this instruction into current reading curriculums warrant further consideration. Students receiving encoding instruction and guided practice that included using (a) manipulatives (e.g., letter tiles, plastic letters) to learn phoneme–grapheme relationships and words and (b) writing phoneme–grapheme relationships and words made from these correspondences significantly outperformed contrast groups not receiving encoding instruction. Robust Cohen’s d effect sizes, favoring the treatment groups, were found in areas of phonemic awareness, spelling, decoding, fluency, comprehension, and writing. Educational implications of these findings suggest that there is support for using encoding instruction to increase the literacy performances of at-risk primary grade students and that encoding instruction can be successful in improving the reading and spelling performances of older students with learning disabilities. Importantly, there is also evidence to support the transfer effects of early encoding instruction on later reading, writing, and spelling performances.
Continue reading ‘Teaching spelling promotes general literacy’
Sphere: Related ContentOver on SpedPro I have a post about an up-coming Webinar on evidence-based practices presented by Bryan Cook. A product of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) and and CEC’s Division for Research, the session is billed as helping educators answer questions such as these:
- What exactly does evidence-based practice mean for practitioners?
- How are evidence-based practices different from “best practices” and “research-based practices”?
- Where can you find them?
- How should you select them?
- How can you use them?
- How can you evaluate them?
I haven’t seen the syllabus, but I bet this will be a worthwhile session. For one small fee, one can register as many folks as you can gather around a computer and a projector; and then you get a copy of the Webinar to review later, as well. It’s like a ready-made, re-usable staff-development program. To read the SpedPro post, follow this link. Alternatively, simply follow this link to register for the session!
Sphere: Related ContentMr. Hal Bowman is advertising professional development opportunities for US teachers. They’re promoted with the lead, “Teach Like a Rock Star.” Here’s the main content of two e-mail messages I received:
Sphere: Related ContentPrincipals from coast-to-coast are sending their teachers by the boatload to attend Teach Like A Rock Star.
Is it unconventional? Definitely.
Entertaining? Absolutely.
Effective? Beyond belief.
Continue reading ‘Teach like a rockstar, legend’
The Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, which covers many different social programs in addition to education, announced the publication of an electronic newsletter that should be of interest to some readers. The current issue of RIGOROUS EVIDENCE Newsletter: Distinguishing Effective Evidence-Based Programs from Everything Else doesn’t have much that is precisely on point for education (though, check the entry about a teen pregnancy program), but one can bookmark the on-line site for the newsletter and check it regularly as a potential source for trustworthy content about effective educational methods.
Sphere: Related ContentMy colleague, Robert McNergney has a post on Education News entitled “Small Ball: Small Teaching” that captures an important idea: Pay attention to the details. He based his brief essay on an enquiry from a student about whether he had read a well-known book about baseball, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael M. Lewis, about the Oakland Athletics. Mr. Lewis documented the success of an approach to assembling a team that was predicated on systematic analysis of less-glamorous achievements rather than the flashy, headline-grabbing statistics; in place of subjective judgements about players’ talents, the Oakland general manager, Bill Beane, employed modern statistical methods to find players whose achievements were correlated with higher numbers of wins and fewer losses.
Professor McNergney argued that, indeed, the analogy applies to teaching as well.
Continue reading ‘McNergney: Small teaching’
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