MATHEMATICS EDUCATION FOR PRESCHOOLERS
To ensure that all children enter elementary school with the foundation they need for success, a major national initiative is needed to improve early childhood mathematics education, says a new report from the National Research Council. Opportunities for preschoolers to learn mathematics are currently inadequate, particularly for those in low-income groups, says the report, which is intended to inform the efforts of Head Start, state-funded preschool programs, curriculum developers, and teachers.
"Young children have a keen interest in learning about everything in their environment. That naturally translates into becoming competent in mathematics, but right now most children's potential is not being realized because we have not given parents, educators and caregivers the tools that they need to build on that interest," said Christopher T. Cross, chair of the committee that wrote the report, and chairman of Cross & Joftus LLC, an education-policy consulting firm. "Evidence shows that early success in math is linked to later success in both math and reading. Given the increasing importance of science and technology in everyday life and for gaining entry into many careers, it's crucial that we give all children a strong foundation in math and that we start many years before they enter formal schooling."
Historically, mathematics has been viewed by many early-childhood educators as unimportant or developmentally inappropriate for young children, but research indicates otherwise, the report says. As early as infancy, children are able to think about their world in mathematical ways; by 10 months of age, babies can distinguish a set of two items from a set of three. Young children continue to expand their competence in informal, spontaneous ways -- by counting toys, for example, or pointing out shapes. Adult support in a positive learning environment is crucial to helping children expand their knowledge and see the mathematical aspects of everyday situations, the committee said.
The amount of time devoted to and focused on mathematics needs to be increased in all public and private preschool settings, the report says. Currently mathematics activities are often embedded in other lessons and secondary to other learning goals. But emerging research indicates that learning experiences in which mathematics is the secondary rather than the primary goal are less effective for promoting math learning.
Drawing on available evidence, the report recommends that mathematics instruction in early childhood settings concentrate on two major content areas. The first area -- and the one to which the most time should be devoted -- is the concept of "number," used by mathematics educators to encompass counting, determining relative quantities (less and more), and basic computational operations such as adding and subtracting. The second area is geometry, spatial thinking, and measurement. Within those areas, children should reflect on and discuss the mathematical reasoning used to solve problems. For example, children might practice measuring various objects using a wooden block and then discuss why it is important to use a standard unit of measure in determining whether one object is longer or taller than another.
For each content area the report describes "teaching-learning paths" -- sequences of learning experiences in which one idea lays the foundation for the next. Research has shown these pathways to be effective for children to build knowledge and competence in mathematics, said the committee. For example, a child might be shown many examples of shapes to learn what aspects are mathematically relevant to determining shape -- a square must have four sides, for instance -- and what factors are not, such as size or orientation. After a child learns basic shapes, he or she can learn to combine them to create new shapes.
The teaching-learning paths outlined in the report should be the basis of classroom instruction, the committee said, and states should develop or revise their early childhood learning standards to reflect these paths. Curriculum developers also should base their materials on these learning pathways.
A key component of the new national initiative would be providing teachers with professional development about the teaching-learning paths and how to implement a strong mathematics curriculum, the report says. And any serious effort to improve early childhood math instruction will need to include licensure and accreditation processes that assess teachers' and programs' competence in teaching math.
Opportunities to receive high-quality math instruction are especially important for low-income children, the committee said, urging implementation of the report's recommendations by Head Start and other publicly funded programs. Children from low-income families, on average, demonstrate lower levels of competence in math prior to entering school, and these gaps persist or widen as schooling continues. Providing these children with high-quality mathematics instruction early on can provide a foundation for future learning and can help address long-term systematic inequities in educational outcomes.
CHILDREN WITH AUTISM NEED TO BE TAUGHT IN SMALLER GROUPS, PILOT STUDY CONFIRMS
Since the 1970s, there has been much debate surrounding the fact that individuals with autism have difficulty in understanding speech in situations where there is background speech or noise.__
Dr. John J. Foxe, Professor of Neuroscience at CCNY said: “Sensory integration dysfunction has long been speculated to be a core component of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) but there has been precious little hard empirical evidence to support this notion. Viewing a speaker’s articulatory movements can greatly improve a listener’s ability to understand spoken words, and this is especially the case under noisy environmental conditions.”
“These results are the first of their kind to verify that children with autism have substantial difficulties in these situations, and this has major implications for how we go about teaching these children in the classroom,” he continued. “Children with autism may become distressed in large classroom settings simply because they are unable to understand basic speech if the environment is sufficiently noisy.__“We should start to pay attention to the need for smaller numbers in the classroom and we need to carefully control the levels of background noise that these kids are exposed to. Imagine how frustrating it must be to sit in a classroom without being able to properly understand what the teacher or your classmates are saying to you._
“Being able to detect speech in noise plays a vital role in how we communicate with each other because our listening environments are almost never quiet. Even the hum of air conditioners or fans that we can easily ignore may adversely impact these children’s ability to understand speech in the classroom.
“Our data show that the multisensory speech system develops relatively slowly across the childhood years and that considerable tuning of this system continues to occur even into early adolescence. Our data suggest that children with Autism lag almost 5 years behind typically developing children in this crucial multisensory ability.”_
Professor Foxe concluded that further studies may result in advances in the understanding of ASD and the communication abilities of individuals with autism by identifying the neural mechanisms that are at the root of these multisensory deficits. This will be an important step if viable intervention and training strategies are to be developed.
Freedom From Responsibility: A Survey of Civic Knowledge Among Arizona High School Students
Legend has it that a woman asked Benjamin Franklin, leaving the Constitutional Convention, what sort of government had been created. “A Republic, if you can keep it,” Franklin replied. A major justification for supporting a system of public schools has long been the promotion of a general civic knowledge necessary for a well informed citizenry. This study demonstrates that schools in Arizona are failing in this core mission.
To determine students’ level of basic civic knowledge, we surveyed Arizona high school students with questions drawn from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) item bank, which consists of 100 questions given to candidates for United States citizenship. The longstanding practice has been for candidates to take a test on 10 of these items. A minimum of six correct answers is required to pass. The service recently reported a first-try passing rate of 92.4 percent.
The Goldwater Institute survey, conducted by a private survey firm, gave each student 10 items from the USCIS item bank. We grouped results according to the type of school students attend—public, charter, or private. Questions included (1) Who was the first president of the United States? (2) Who wrote the Declaration of Independence? and (3) What ocean is located on the East Coast of the United States?
All three groups of Arizona high school students scored alarmingly low on the test. Only 3.5 percent of Arizona high school students attending public schools passed the citizenship test. The passing rate for charter school students was about twice as high as for public school students. Private school students passed at a rate almost four times higher than public school students.
This study details the results of the civic knowledge survey and sounds an alarm. Our recommendation is to require public school students to pass the same test required for applicants for citizenship as a condition for receiving a diploma. Further, we recommend that Arizona’s public universities require proof of passing such an exam as a condition of admission.
Read Freedom From Responsibility Here:
http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/Common/Img/Freedom%20From%20Responsibility.pdf
Evaluation of Florida’s Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship Program
This report provides information on Florida private school voucher student test score levels and gains in the program, as well as compared with the eligible population of non-participating students.
Conclusions:
_ The typical student in the program scored at the 44.8th national percentile in reading and the 46.3rd percentile in mathematics. The distribution of test scores is similar whether one considers the entire program population or only those who took the Stanford Achievement Test in the spring of 2008.
_ The mean reading gain for program participants is -0.1 national percentile ranking points in reading and -0.9 national percentile ranking points in mathematics. In other words, the typical student participating in the program tended to maintain his or her relative position in comparison with others nationwide.
_ Test score gains for program participants are similar in magnitude to comparable students in the public schools.
In other words, going to private schools didn’t seem to change much.
Complete report:
http://blogs.tampabay.com/files/figlio-report-final-2009.pdf
Growing Demand for Online Learning Not Yet Matched by Opportunities at K-12 Schools, Districts
Funding, Teacher Preparation Cited As Barriers in Survey
Despite growing interest in online learning, the availability of online classes have not kept pace with demand in K-12 schools and districts, according to a survey report from Project Tomorrow(R), a national education nonprofit organization, and Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB), a global leader in education technology.
According to the survey, more than 40 percent of 6-12th graders have researched or demonstrated interest in taking a course online, but only 10 percent have actually taken an online course through their school. Meanwhile, comparable percentages of middle school students (7 percent) and high school students (4 percent) have instead pursued opportunities outside their school to take online courses, underscoring the disconnect between the supply and demand of online learning in today's classrooms.
At the same time, a majority of school principals, 58 percent, say that online classes currently offered in their districts are primarily for teachers; just 31 percent say the classes are primarily for students. Additionally, while a full one-third of teachers have taken an online course for professional development - a 57 percent increase from 2007 - only 3 percent of teachers surveyed say they have taught a class online, a number that has not changed in three years. Just 13 percent are interested in teaching online, a considerable mismatch with the growing student desire to learn online.
The findings are included in the report Learning in the 21st Century: 2009 Trends Update, which offers an analysis of data from Project Tomorrow's Speak Up project, an annual survey which has collected and reported on the views of more than 335,000 U.S. K-12 students, parents and educators about online education and 21st century learning.
The report revealed that K-12 students want to pursue online learning to gain more control of their own learning experience, have access to more courses and work at their own pace. When asked why learning through an online class might make school more interesting, 47 percent of 9-12th graders, 39 percent of 6-8th graders and one in four 3-5th grade students said they want to learn online to "be in control of my learning." Students do not expect courses to be easier online, but they do expect the online format to make it easier to succeed because they can review materials when they want and are more comfortable asking teachers for help.
The desire for online opportunities is best expressed through the words of students themselves. When asked, "What is the one thing that you would do to improve schools to ensure that all students had the skills they needed to be successful in life," a 10th-grade student from Alcoa High School in Tennessee responded, "I would provide personal laptops for each student and provide online classes. Every school does not have all the classes a student is interested in and online classes (provide) another option."
Teachers who have experience teaching online overwhelmingly agree: 76 percent believe that online learning benefits students by giving them greater control of their learning, compared to just 10 percent of all teachers surveyed.
School principals cited funding and teacher preparation as key barriers to offering expanded access to online courses, with 22 percent reporting that online learning was not a funding priority in their district. Specific to teachers, principals felt that teachers are not comfortable using the tools (18 percent) or teaching online (17 percent), are reluctant to try (14 percent), or their school does not have the expertise to create online courses (14 percent).
Full report:
http://fs6.formsite.com/blackboardmarketing/form586588239/
Study Links Migraine Headaches to Reduced Academic Performance
Suffering from migraine headaches as an adolescent leads to lower high school grades and decreases in the likelihood of graduating high school and the likelihood of attending college, according to Daniel Rees, economics professor at University of Colorado Denver, and Joseph Sabia, professor of public policy at American University's School of Public Affairs.
Professors Rees and Sabia analyzed data on sibling pairs from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Parental reports identified siblings raised in the same household with different migraine experiences. The authors discovered that suffering from migraine headaches was associated with a five percent reduction in high school GPA, a five percent reduction in the likelihood of graduating from high school, and a 15 percent reduction in the likelihood of attending college. Thirty to 40 percent of these reductions could be explained by excused absences from school, difficulty paying attention in class, and difficulty completing homework. Non-migraine headaches were not associated with reductions in academic performance.
"By focusing on differences between siblings, we can rule out the possibility that family-level factors such as socioeconomic status are driving the relationship between migraine headache and academic performance," said Rees.
Professors Rees and Sabia were able to examine the migraine experiences and high school grades of 214 siblings from 105 families. Information on high school completion and college attendance data was obtained from 280 siblings belonging to 137 families. By comparing the educational attainment of siblings, this study was able to account for the influence of a variety of difficult-to-measure factors such the quality of the home environment. It is the first study to examine the effect of suffering from migraine headaches as an adolescent on future academic achievement.
"We know that migraine headaches can profoundly impact quality of life. Our study offers evidence that they are an important obstacle to long-term academic success," said Sabia, whose research focuses on health economics. "Our results show that migraine sufferers have trouble attending school and have trouble concentrating on the days they do make it to school," Sabia added.
To access the study, please visit: http://econ.cudenver.edu/home/workingpapers/Rees_WP_09-07.pdf
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