What does ERIC index??

In addition to indexing the articles in Education journals, ERIC database also indexes documents from various organizations. The list of these sources of "grey literature" are now available for review at the ERIC website.The announcement from the ERIC contractors about how to access this information is provided below:

"I am pleased to announce that ERIC has released a list of organizations that contribute grey literature, published reports and books to ERIC. This new source list coupled with the Journal List completes the documentation of ERIC’s coverage, and can be found in the “Our Collection” area of the Web site at www.eric.ed.gov/nonjournals. It includes links to the contributing organizations’ Web sites.

The list was created with the encouragement of the library community to highlight the depth and breadth of the ERIC Collection, particularly in the grey literature area. Among the hundreds of sources listed are professional associations, research foundations, federal and state agencies, policy organizations, university affiliates, and commercial publishers.

Jane Atwell
Sr. Communications Specialist
ERIC Project | www.eric.ed.gov"

WebCampus Toolkit for Library Resources

Ideas, detailed instructions, and screencast demonstrations that help you make the most of the resources available to you and your students from the UNLV Libraries.
WebCampus Library Toolkit

Just a reminder: Using Peer-Reviewed limiter in ERIC database

This message below from Nancy Cawley is information I've posted before, but it bears repeating. Keep this in mind for your own searching or when helping your students use ERIC (paula):

"... Currently ERIC applies the peer-reviewed designator to journals indexed from 2005 forward; some of these titles may also include the peer-reviewed status for issues published during the period 2002-2004. This data is included in the feed provided to commercial ERIC vendors [e.g., our ERIC access is through Ebsco] As a result, while limiting a search to peer-reviewed articles is helpful for locating peer-reviewed current materials, to find older records you must NOT use the limiter since those records were produced during a time when peer review was not part of the ERIC record.

ERIC obtains information about the peer-reviewed status of a publication from the publisher. When the information is not available from the publisher we use Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory. If you identify an error in an ERIC record, please contact ericfeedback@csc.com. We would be happy to investigate the issue...

Nancy Cawley
Communications Lead, ERIC Project"

Deadline approaches for replacing 1st printing of APA 6th Ed.

I'm forwarding the information I received on one of my listserv's. The deadline for replacement is Dec. 15!!
If you purchased a first printing copy of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th edition, you are eligible for a free replacement copy from the APA. The first printing of the new edition (dated July 2009) contains many errors. To correct this, the APA is giving two choices:
· Download and print the eight pages of errata sheets, to use with the first printing
· Contact the APA for a free replacement copy (second printing). The APA FAQ sheet has all the information to request a replacement.

Please have the following information before you call the APA Service Center:
· Date of purchase
· Place purchased
· Amount paid

Oberlin's Open Access Resolution

Oberlin joins the ranks of several major research universities in declaring all faculty scholarship will be openly accessible. The resolution is posted here.
For additional information on Open Access, see the information on Cory Tucker's Scholarly Communications guide.

High graduation rates' impact on urban economies

Detailed report with lots of data, charts and graphs clearly demonstrates the high cost of failing to graduate a substantial percentage of our students. The data are unfortunately about 4-5 years old, but still useful for making the case that drop out rates deserve serious attention, especially in these economic times. Las Vegas is of course among the 50 largest cities included in this study. The full report is here. A brief overview is here.

Common Core Data for Elementary/Secondary Schools, 2007-08

This First Look presents national and state level data on student enrollment by grade and by race/ethnicity within grade, the numbers of teachers and other education staff, and several student/staff ratios for the 2007-08 school year.

University presses move to Open Access model in tough budget times

As you may or may not know, UNLV Libraries is now sponsoring an Open Access publishing platform for scholarly journals. This article from Inside Higher Ed briefly describes the University of Utah becoming the most recent university press--University of Michigan Press led the way--to embrace Open Access for book publication. Excerpts from the article:
"the press will survive -- in part by embracing a new model of organization (becoming part of the university library) and a new business model (embracing open access, in which most publications would be available online and free). While both of those changes are significant, key aspects of the press's identity and mission will not change. It will continue to be a peer-reviewed scholarly publisher, and plans to continue its highly regarded work in fields such as composition studies, folklore, poetry, environmental studies, and the history and culture of the West....But the more significant philosophical shift is to open access, with digital publication as the norm...the press will survive and that in digital format its books will have "the same rigorous scholarly peer review" as print books."

How to fix international higher education comparisons

We all sort of knew this--every country counts things differently in terms of reporting on their higher ed students. The study's author, however, not only points out the flaws but suggests ways to address them. The article describing the report was in today's Inside Higher Ed. Access to the report from the Institute for Higher Education Policy, “The Spaces Between Numbers: Getting International Data on Higher Education Straight,” is here.

Replacing APA 6th Ed, first printing

This was sent out by APA's customer service to a colleague on Oct. 30...
"In order to receive a replacement manual you must return your current copy of the 6th edition to APA no later than December 15, 2009. We would like to make this transaction as cost neutral to you as possible, so efforts are being made to provide you with pre-paid postage you can use to return the book to us. We expect this process will be available the first week in November. If you are interested in a replacement copy please contact the APA Service Center at your convenience for further information. Service Center staff can be
reached at: 800 374-2721 from 8:30 AM- 6:30 PM (EST) M - F. Email
correspondence can be directed to order@apa.org.

College teaching shifts to more "student-centered" approaches

See the comparative data from 2005-2008 for the Higher Education Research Institute study in this chart excerpted by the Chronicle. Also, for a laugh, read the comments :-)

The challenges faced by veterans returning to college

Great article from the Chronicle on the types of challenges faced by former soldiers coming to college. Includes a picture of students at UNLV!

NCES study finds states lowered proficiency levels

To read the full report, visit http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/studies/2010456.asp

Additional resources for understanding state proficiency standards, including profiles of proficiency standards for each state, frequently asked questions, and copies of past reports, are available at
http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/studies/statemapping.asp

Some excerpts from an article in today's Education Week~

"With 2014 approaching as the deadline by which states must get their all their students up to “proficient” levels on state tests, the U.S. Department of Education’s top statistics agency released data today suggesting that some states may have lowered student-proficiency standards on such tests in recent years.

For the 47-state study, researchers for the National Center for Education Statistics used student test scores to figure out where the proficiency levels on various state tests would lie on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Their results suggest that between 2005 and 2007, various states made their standards less rigorous in one or more grade levels or subjects in at least 26 instances. In 12 instances, particular states appeared to make their standards more stringent in one or more grade levels or subjects.

Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, adopted nearly eight years ago, states are required to show that all students have attained proficient levels of performance in reading and mathematics by the end of the 2013-14 school year, and most states are far from reaching that goal.

“I think as 2014 looms, ... clearly what a lot of states are doing is changing the bar so that a lot more students will become proficient,” said Mark S. Schneider, who served as the NCES commissioner from 2005 to November 2008....

But the study uses a methodology that is controversial among some testing experts. They caution that the standardized exams that states use and the more rigorous NAEP—the congressionally mandated program known as “the nation’s report card”—are too different to put on the same scale....

The results, nonetheless, are expected to figure in growing efforts to develop common academic standards for what K-12 students should know and be able to do. So far, 48 states are taking part in a push to craft such standards, while federal education officials are at the same time making plans to award $350 million in grants to help states plan common assessments.

APA finally does the right thing!

Apparently the pressure has paid off and APA is going to replace the flawed first printing of the APA manual. There was a brief storty today: Inside Higher Ed and a longer one in the Chronicle The information has been posted on a Facebook page organized to boycott purchase of the manual. I reprint the instructions here:

"I have just received word that After November 2, call APA at 1-800-374-2721, ext. 5510. Ask for instructions on how to go on-line and print a mailing label you can use to return your copy and receive a corrected copy."

An added note (3 pm, Oct. 28): I just saw on a listserv: "they (APA) said starting Nov. 2 they would have a form online and let us all fill it out. They would then send us a mailing label to return the copies. The only copies they would take would be copies purchased no desk copies or free copies. "

Arne Duncan's speech at Teachers College

Since it has generated so much press and conversation among individuals and organizations, I thought I would put a link to the text of the speech here.

Undergraduate Students & Technology

From the most recent Educause survey...
"Since 2004, the annual ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology has sought to shed light on how information technology affects the college experience. We ask students about the technology they own and how they use it in and out of their academic world. We gather information about how skilled students believe they are with technologies; how they perceive technology is affecting their learning experience; and their preferences for IT in courses. The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2009 is a longitudinal extension of the 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 studies. It is based on quantitative data from a spring 2009 survey of 30,616 freshmen and seniors at 103 four-year institutions and students at 12 two-year institutions; student focus groups that included input from 62 students at 4 institutions; and review of qualitative data from written responses to open-ended questions. In addition to studying student ownership, experience, behaviors, preferences, and skills with respect to information technologies, the 2009 study also includes a special focus on student ownership and use of Internet-capable handheld devices."

NCES report on public elementary-secondary schools: 2007-2008

While the largest school districts represented less than 1 percent of all districts during the 2007-08 school year, they served 12.5 percent of public school students. The National Center for Education Statistics has released "Numbers and Types of Public Elementary and Secondary Local Education Agencies From the Common Core of Data: School Year 2007-08." This report presents selected findings on the numbers and types of public elementary and secondary local education agencies in the United States and the territories in the 2007-08 school year, using data from Public Elementary/Secondary Local Education Agency Universe Survey of the Common Core of Data survey system. Findings include:

* There were 17,775 operating local education agencies in the 2007-08 school year, and among those agencies, 13,924 were regular school districts.

* Approximately 699,000 students enrolled in the 2,012 independent charter agencies, districts in which all schools were charter schools.

* Twenty-seven of the 13,924 active regular school districts enrolled 100,000 or more students.

To view the full report please visit:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2010306

If you want to buy the corrected APA 6th Ed...

This blog from Education Librarian, Kate Corby, is trying to pull together info from publishers to assist buyers in getting a corrected (i.e., 2nd printing) of the APA Style Manual 6th Ed. She states,
"My purpose here is to gather and make generally available, information for anyone who would like to buy a second printing copy of the new sixth edition Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.
My initial dismay at the situation of multiple pages of corrections to the newly released edition has turned to fascination with how the booksellers are responding to the issue. So I'm actively gathering information and hope to provide useful information that students and faculty as well as librarians can use.
Your comments are welcome, especially those that add new information, all comments will be moderated. I would prefer not to post hearsay, please include snips from emails with vendors, etc. to validate information whenever possible."

WWC evaluation of READ 180 program

What Works Clearinghouse seldom reports out studies that meet their evidence standards, so when they find some that meet standards, even with reservations, I do pay attention. Here is a brief description of this program and a link to the page with a brief chart and links to the full report.

"READ 180 is a reading program designed for students in elementary through high school whose reading achievement is below the proficient level. The goal of READ 180 is to address gaps in students’ skills through the use of a computer program, literature, and direct instruction in reading skills. The software component of the program aims to track and adapt to each student’s progress. In addition to the computer program, the READ 180 program includes workbooks designed to address reading comprehension skills, paperback books for independent reading, and audiobooks with corresponding CDs for modeled reading.

No studies of READ 180 meet What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards,² but seven studies meet WWC evidence standards with reservations. The seven studies included 10,638 students, ranging from grade 4 to grade 9, who attended elementary, middle, and high schools in Arizona, California, Florida, New York, Ohio, Texas, and Virginia.³

Based on these seven studies, the WWC considers the extent of evidence for READ 180 to be medium to large for comprehension and general literacy achievement. No studies that meet WWC evidence standards with or without reservations examined the effectiveness of READ 180 in the alphabetics or reading fluency domains."

APA is taking a lot of flak...

Inside Higher Ed added their chastisement to the general griping about all the mistakes in the first printing of the new APA manual. The article has links to the corrections as does my earlier blog post.

2009 NAEP Math report card is out

Links to the report are here.
Significant results for mathematics in 2009 include:

* For the first time since the assessment began, 4th graders showed no overall increase at the national level, although they scored significantly higher in 2009 than when the assessment began in 1990. For 8th graders, scores in 2009 were higher when compared to both 2007 and 1990. These nationwide patterns also held for most student subgroups. Findings regarding students performing at or above the NAEP achievement levels mirror those of the scale scores at both grades.

* Compared to 2007, five states and jurisdictions made gains at both grades 4 and 8, three states increased at grade 4 only, and ten increased at grade 8 only. Scores declined in four states at grade 4, while no state declined at grade 8.

CHE report on institutions awarding minority doctorates

The Chronicle of Higher Education just issued a report on which institutions are awarding the most doctoral degrees to minorities--dates covered are 2003-2007. See the results here.

New report from NCES on HS graduation and dropout rates

"High School Dropout and Completion Rates in the United States: 2007"
includes national and regional population estimates for the percentage of students who dropped out of high school between 2006 and 2007, the percentage of young people who were dropouts in 2007, and the percentage of young people who were not in high school and had some form of high school credential in 2007.

Annual data from 1972-2007 reveals trends by race, gender, income and other characteristics. State, regional and national level data is provided.
To view the full report please visit:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009064

Practice guide on "Using Student Achievement Data to Support Instructional Decision Making"

Provides a framework for using student achievement data to support instructional decision making, including how to adapt lessons or assignments in response to students' needs, and how to alter classroom goals or objectives or modify student-grouping arrangements.

This practice guide offers five recommendations for creating the organizational and technological conditions that foster effective data use, including: 1) make data part of an ongoing cycle of instructional improvement; 2) teach students to examine their own data and set learning goals; 3) establish a clear vision for school wide data use; 4) provide supports that foster a data-driven culture within the school; and 5) develop and maintain a district wide data system. Each recommendation describes action steps for implementation, as well as suggestions for tackling obstacles that may impede progress. The practice guide was released by the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance at the Institute for Education Sciences.

To view the practice guide, please visit:
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/publications/practiceguides/#dddm_pg

Reading strategies for 4th grade: an international perspective

PIRLS assesses the reading achievement of fourth-graders and collects data on teachers' reading instruction practices and strategies. These strategies include: (a) waiting to see if performance improves with maturation, (b) spending more time working on reading individually with that student, (c) having other students work on reading with the student having difficulty, (d) having the student work in the regular classroom with a teacher-aide, (e) having the student work in the regular classroom with a reading specialist, (f) having the student work in a remedial reading classroom with a reading specialist, (g) assigning homework to help the student catch up, (h) and asking the parents to help the student with reading.

To view the full report please visit: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009013

New report on post-secondary education

New NCES report focuses on the cost of getting a college degree. Tables include profiles of post-secondary institutions which include data on tuition, degrees awarded, demographics of students. Link to full report is here: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009165

Corrections to APA 6th Ed. Manual

APA has now categorized the "corrections" (not errors :-) to the new 6th edition of their publication manual, so it doesn't seem like such a long list. The majority of errors....err, make that corrections...are in the sample papers. If you know someone who has a first printing of the manual, you should alert them to the changes. The categorized lists are here.
A separate link to the corrected Sample Papers is here. A new 2nd printing has been issued.

Using the "peer reviewed" limiter in ERIC searches

I knew ERIC database had implemented the "peer reviewed" classification fairly recently, and I believe I tell students this when I meet with classes, but in case some of you were not aware, I am forwarding a note from one of the truly knowledgeable people in the new ERIC structure...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Just to clarify why this is happening, at this time ERIC applies the peer-reviewed designator to journals indexed from 2005 forward (note that some of these titles may also include the peer-reviewed status for the period 2002-2004). Limiting a search to peer-reviewed articles is helpful for locating peer-reviewed current materials, but to find older records we recommend not using the limiter.

ERIC obtains information about the peer-reviewed status of a publication from the publisher. When the information is not available from the publisher we use Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory."

Best regards,

Nancy Cawley
Communications Lead, ERIC Project
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ulrich's is available in our A-Z list of databases BTW

A Big Kerfuffle over Student Choice in Reading

Nancie Atwell's advocacy of student choice in reading (see article in NY Times) elicited a huge flurry of mis-informed comment. Her video-taped response is on her publisher's page. Nancy Atwell has been one of my heroines ever since I reviewed her book, The Reading Zone, for the June '07 Education Review.

Projections of Education Statistics to 2018

This updated report has also been added to the Statistics tab in my Education guide.
"It includes statistics on enrollment, graduates, teachers, and expenditures in elementary and secondary schools, and enrollment and earned degrees conferred expenditures of degree-granting institutions. For the Nation, the tables, figures, and text contain data on enrollment, teachers, graduates, and expenditures for the past 14 years and projections to the year 2018. For the 50 States and the District of Columbia, the tables, figures, and text contain data on projections of public elementary and secondary enrollment and public high school graduates to the year 2018."

The end of the university as we know it??

A provocative but balanced article, "College for $99 a Month," in the Washington Monthly by think tank analyst Kevin Carey (policy director of Education Sector). There's been a fair amount of controversy over this model & this particular company, but it is, probably, an inevitable "disruptive innovation" to the higher education model. Good article...well worth the read.
An excerpt:
"Like Craigslist, StraighterLine threatens the most profitable piece of a conglomerate business: freshman lectures, higher education’s equivalent of the classified section. If enough students defect to companies like StraighterLine, the higher education industry faces the unbundling of the business model on which the current system is built. The consequences will be profound....Regional public universities and non-elite private colleges are most at risk from the likes of StraighterLine. They could go the way of the local newspaper, fatally shackled to geography, conglomeration, and an expensive labor structure, too dependent on revenues that vanish and never return."

The company's founder has been frustrated by the push back from students and faculty at institutions with which he has tried to partner (in order to get accreditation cover for courses students complete online). "But neither the regulatory nor the psychological obstacles match the evolving new reality... The accreditation wall will crumble, as most artificial barriers do. All it takes is for one generation of college students to see online courses as no more or less legitimate than any other—and a whole lot cheaper in the bargain—for the consensus of consumer taste to rapidly change. The odds of this happening quickly are greatly enhanced by the endless spiral of steep annual tuition hikes, which are forcing more students to go deep into debt to pay for college while driving low-income students out altogether. If Burck Smith doesn’t bring extremely cheap college courses to the masses, somebody else will."

How children learn about race

Children start drawing conclusions about race very early and explicit discussions about the topic are found to be one of the most powerful ways to change attitudes. Findings from a series of studies at UT-Austin are discussed in this article from Newsweek.

Education doctoral programs and others not assessed by NRC

This article in the Chronicle today discusses the exclusions from the National Research Council's recent survey of doctoral programs. Here are a couple of excerpts:

Excluded fields appear to have granted more than a quarter of all research doctorates from 2001 to 2005 to U.S. citizens and permanent residents—27 percent, according to our calculations, based on data from the Survey of Earned Doctorates, conducted for the National Science Foundation and other government agencies. But African-American, American Indian, and Mexican-American people, as well as women, are disproportionately likelier to have received Ph.D.'s in fields that are not included in the NRC's assessment, relative to white men and Asian-American people. For example, 54 percent of African-American women, 49 percent of American Indian women, 43 percent of Mexican-American women, 42 percent of African-American men, and 34 percent of women in general were awarded doctorates in fields not currently assessed by the NRC.

What accounts, then, for this seemingly odd pattern of doctorates awarded to people in various demographic groups by fields included and excluded in the current NRC assessment? The exempted fields—including education, business, social work, psychological counseling, library science, home economics, and subfields of the health and agricultural sciences—share a professional and applied orientation as opposed to a basic research one. Many also emphasize public scholarship, a tradition that favors the interweaving of intellectual pursuit with social improvement.

Interventions to Reduce Stereotype Threat in the Classroom

Stereotype threat arises from a fear among members of a group of reinforcing negative stereotypes about the intellectual ability of the group. The report identifies three randomized controlled trial studies that use classroom-based strategies to reduce stereotype threat and improve the academic performance of Black students, narrowing their achievement gap with White students.

NCSER Report on HS Exprience of Students with Mental Retardation

The National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) within the Institute of Education Sciences has released "Facts from NLTS-2: Secondary School Experiences and Academic Performance of Students with Mental Retardation." The report uses data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2) to provide a national picture of the secondary school experiences and academic achievements of students with mental retardation who received special education services. The NLTS2, initiated in 2001 and funded by NCSER, has a nationally representative sample of more than 11,000 students with disabilities.

REL West has new report on state implementation of RTI

The report provides descriptive information on state-level RTI policies and procedures in 9 states (including Nevada).

Great new K-12 teaching resources!

A grant funded project led by UNLV Libraries has created a new digital collection focused on Nevada history. They also brought in a consultant to create standards-based teaching activities which use these resources. Here is their announcement:

The UNLV University Libraries are pleased to announce the launch of a new digital collection with features designed for K-12 educators:

Southern Nevada: The Boomtown Years, 1900-1925
http://digital.library.unlv.edu/boomtown/

Southern Nevada: the Boomtown Years 1900-1925 is an online collection of over 1,600 primary source documents and over 30 standards-based activities that can be used in K-12 classrooms. The collection brings together digitized materials from the UNLV Libraries Special Collections, the Nevada State Museum and Historical Society in Las Vegas, and the Clark County Museum to document the history and development of Southern Nevada from 1900 to 1925. Photographs, selected newspapers, maps, mining reports and surveys, stock certificates, correspondence, and more give a detailed account of life in the Boomtown years of Southern Nevada and provide a unique opportunity to show students what life was like through the eyes of those who lived it. Teaching activities are available for all grade levels and eleven subject areas and are meant to engage students in higher-level thinking while directly interacting with the primary sources housed in this collection.

The Libraries welcome your feedback on this collection! You are invited to view the collection and respond to a quick survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=Y5rxIAt9_2fMhIGT_2fipw9GvQ_3d_3d. Comments, questions, and feedback are always welcome. Bookmarks, flyers, and in-class demonstrations are available by contacting the Libraries. Please forward to other interested parties.

Stories for Change

I'm intrigued by this website I ran across that offers a forum for posting and hearing/watching digital stories about fostering change. The website is: http://storiesforchange.net/
and the home page describes their mission as an "online meeting place for community digital storytelling facilitators and advocates. Learn more about how we're using this unique medium for social change..." Some of the categories for their stories include Education, Family, Identity, Youth, and Immigration.

A Wealth of Data: The new Higher Ed Almanac is out

Even though prices are posted for print and online purchase, lots of data at the state and national level is available from the Chronicle's new edition of The Almanac of Higher Education. Basic demographics, students enrollments, faculty salaries and more.

U.S. Performance Across International Assessments of Student Achievement

This Special Supplement to The Condition of Education 2009, for the first time, pulls together the evidence from the most recent international assessments taken by nearly a million students from 85 countries worldwide. This includes three internationally benchmarked exams -- the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)--to reveal how the United States compares with other countries across all three core subjects (math, science, reading) at the elementary, middle and high school level in terms of students' average scores and the percentage of students reaching internationally benchmarked performance levels. It also examines trends in U.S. student performance and the range of performance for the highest- and lowest-scoring students in each country.
The executive summary with major findings as well as links to the full text of the report is available here: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/2009/analysis/

Writing assignments can improve minority school achievement

A recently published study finds that personal writing assignments can improve both improve GPA and reduce the level of grade remediation. This is particularly effective for low achieving African American students. You can see the full article here.
Geoffrey L. Cohen,^1* Julio Garcia,¹ Valerie Purdie-Vaughns,² Nancy Apfel,³ Patricia Brzustoski³ (2009). Recursive processes in self-affirmation: Intervening to close the minority achievement gap. Science, Vol. 324. no. 5925, pp. 400 - 403

Web resources on Response to Intervention

EDWeek has put together a page of resources called "Spotlight on Response to Intervention."
One of the articles led me to these two additional sites described briefly by Douglas Fuchs, professor and Nicholas Hobbs Chair in Special Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt University:
"First, there is a newly established National Center on RTI funded by the U.S. Dept. of Education's Office of Special Education Programs. Its email is: rticenter@air.org. The Web site has important pages and links that will lead you to what you're looking for. Second, there is the RTI Action Network. I highly recommend these sites."
The National Association of State Directors of Special Education also have information on RTI here.

Webinar on 2nd wave of education stimulus funding

Stimulus: The Second Wave

This event is scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 20, 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. Eastern time. The U.S. Department of Education is gearing up to award $5 billion from the federal economic-stimulus package to school districts, states, and education nonprofit organizations through several competitive grant programs. What are the requirements for Race to the Top, innovation, and other grant programs? How can leaders best compete for those awards? And how can the money be used to drive education reform? Join our guests, two high-level officials from the education department and a state education commissioner, as they discuss the details of the grant competitions and the education reform challenges ahead for K-12 leaders. Presenters: Joanne Weiss, Race to the Top director at the U.S. Department of Education James H. Shelton, assistant deputy secretary for innovation and improvement at the U.S. Department of Education Susan A. Gendron, Maine’s commissioner of education and board president of the Council of Chief State School Officers See registration info here

NCSER issues new reports on alternate assessments

Two new reports are out from the National Center for Special Education Research. The national report is available here: http://ies.ed.gov/ncser/pubs/20093014.asp
The state level reports are available here:
http://ies.ed.gov/ncser/pubs/20093013.asp
The National Study on Alternate Assessments (NSAA)was mandated by Section 664(c) of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA) to examine alternate assessment systems in 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Black-White achievement gaps persist

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) within the Institute of Education Sciences has released a new report analyzing Black-White achievement gaps at both the national and state levels, using NAEP scores as a common yardstick. The study examines data from all main NAEP mathematics and reading assessments through 2007, supplemented by data from long-term trend NAEP results through 2004. Readers will find context for understanding these gaps, as the report examines both the changes in the performance of Black and White students and the changes in the Black-White achievement gap over time.

Research Funding Webinars from IES

The Institute of Education Sciences conducts online seminars on various aspects of their funding process. The schedule includes some grant writing and application sessions. Transcripts and powerpoint slides from previous sessions are available here.

Follow the money

This map shows "national and state-by-state breakdowns of funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that has been budgeted for distribution by the U.S. Department of Education, based on estimates by the department. These amounts...do not include funds that are to be awarded through competitive grants...

For current news as well as a collection of articles and opinions (blog posts), see EdWeek's "Schools and the Stimulus" page:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/collections/schools-stimulus/index.html

More Universities make their Research Available Online

University of Kansas joins Harvard in adopting a model of open access for its research. See the article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed's "The Wired Campus blog.

The Irrationality of Current Publication Models, or Why Open Access is Better.

The Chronicle of Higher Education's blogger, David Wiley, presents this parable to illustrate the irrationality of the current publication model and to advocate for open access alternatives. UNLV Libraries now provide access to an electronic journal publishing platform (BEPress) as well as institutional repository software for storing and sharing digitally your intellectual endeavors.

Draft legislation to emphasize adolescent literacy

Bills are moving forward in both houses that would:

• increase funding for literacy education overall
  
• increase the proportion spent on older students
• designate monies for staff development
• emphasize the connections between reading and writing

This article in Education Week provides more detail on the proposed bills and brings together opinions of interested parties.

NCATE to change accreditation requirements

NCATE will be changing their accreditation requirements immediately to emphasize "continuing research into good teaching methods" according to this report in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Colleges will have until 2012 to update their curricula. Many colleges are already seeking to make their programs more relevant by working with local schools to expose students to research-based teaching strategies.

Education Week's article on the significantly revised standards discusses two possible paths to meeting requiements.

Time to Kill "No Child Left Behind"

Education historian and NYU professor Diane Ravitch takes on NCLB as "failed law"...
An excerpt is here:
"Congress should get rid of No Child Left Behind because it is a failed law. It is dumbing down our children by focusing solely on reading and mathematics. By ignoring everything but basic skills, it is not preparing students to compete with their peers in the high-performing nations of Asia and Europe, nor is it preparing them for citizenship in our complex society. It has usurped state and local control of education. Washington has neither the knowledge nor the capacity to micromanage the nation’s schools."

The full article in EdWeek is here.

Longitudinal data on late high school dropouts from NCES

It appears we are disproportionately failing to graduate those students already most disadvantaged. From the report summary...

"....presents information about selected characteristics and experiences of high school sophomores in 2002 who subsequently dropped out of school. It also presents comparative data about late high school dropouts in the years 1982, 1992, and 2004. The findings only address dropping out in late high school and do not cover students who dropped out before the spring of 10th grade. For this reason, the reported rates are lower than those based on the students' entire high school or earlier school career. Key findings include the following:

* Forty-eight percent of all late high school dropouts come from families in the lowest quarter (bottom 25 percent) of the socioeconomic status distribution, and 77 percent of late high school dropouts come from the lowest half of the socioeconomic status distribution.

* Most late high school dropouts (83 percent) listed a school-related (versus a family- or employment-related) reason for leaving. These reasons included missing too many school days, thinking it would be easier to get a GED, getting poor grades, and not liking school.

* The overall late high school dropout rate was lower in 2004 than in 1982 (7 percent versus 11 percent, respectively) and lower in 1992 than in 1982 (6 percent versus 11 percent), but it showed no statistically significant difference in 2004 compared with 1992."

To view, download and print the report as a PDF file, please visit:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009307

Why the discrepancies in funding higher ed institutions?

This article in today's Inside Higher Ed suggests that proximity to the state capital and which party is in power all may play a role. But location isn't destiny and they offer ideas for increasing your piece of the pie.

University presses endorse open access

Taking a stand against the AAUP (American Association of University Presses) and the re-introduced Conyers legislation, directors of 10 university presses (including Michigan, Penn State, and Massachusetts) have endorsed making scholarly content openly available. The article from CHE's Wired Campus gives an overview and the blog posting where the statement originally came out is here.

Complaints about group projects in class

If you've assigned group projects in your class, you've probably also had complaints about them. Seniors and recent graduates on a panel at the Teaching Professor conference all agreed they were problematic. The article in CHE provides a link to this piece by Oakley, Brent, Felder & Elhajj, (2004) on improving the design and assessment of group projects--everyone agrees there have to be individual performance measures included.

"a tenure system that allows flexibility in firing is oxymoronic."

Thank you judge! There have been a number of initiatives afoot in these economically distressed times to curtail the protections of tenure. The judge in this Colorado case ruled that tenure systems are a benefit to the public as well as to the faculty.

The impact of work on college students--it's complicated

Two recent studies reported at last week's Association for Institutional Research meeting examined the relationship between hours worked and student achievement, engagement, critical thinking, moral reasoning, socially responsible leadership, and psychological well being. In general, an excess of hours (over 20) has detrimental effects on student academic achievement, but not always on other areas measured. The implications for retaining students are discussed in today's Inside Higher Ed article.

How to talk to an administrator

The short article (Speaking like a hedgehog, hearing like a fox) in May 20th's Inside Higher Education and the linked post to Tenured Radical offer some common sense advice that could be useful in the best of times and certainly in the worst of (budget) times that we are currently experiencing.

NAEP at a glance

"The Nation's Report Card: 2007 At A Glance" is a new brochure that provides an overview of the NAEP activities surrounding the math, reading, and writing assessments. "At a Glance" summarizes the results of each 2007 assessment for the nation, states, and selected urban districts [Las Vegas is not one of the 11 urban districts reported--pm].

The results presented in "At a Glance" examine the change over time in average scores for all students, in addition to the changes in the gender and racial/ethnic achievement gaps observed in the 2007 assessments. The brochure pairs these results with instructive graphics to help you understand the findings. "At a Glance" also notes how many students at each grade level participated in the assessments and breaks down percentages of certain demographic details of participants, including race/ethnicity, school type, and percentage of accommodated students. Find the "At a Glance" publication at
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009486

Interactive data charts available from Google

Still somewhat limited in their coverage but great fun to play with, you can now find population or unemployment data for states and counties and then interact with the data (do comparisons across counties, states, to the whole U.S., etc.). This is a Google search tool imposed on Bureau of Labor Statistics and U.S. Centus data. Go to Google's regular search screen (Google.com) and enter, for example, population nevada or unemployment rate clark county
Here are some sample graphs:

• http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=usunemployment&met=unemployment_rate&idim=county:CN320230:CN320030

• http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=uspopulation&met=population&idim=state:32000&idim=county:32003:32023:06001

Google's blog entry is here:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/adding-search-power-to-public-data.html

Thanks to librarian Michael Yunkin for bringing this to my attention! I'll add this to the "Statistics and Demographics" tab of the Education subject guide, too.

NCES issues new report on adult literacy

"Basic Reading Skills and the Literacy of the America's Least Literate Adults: Results from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) Supplemental Studies."

The 2003 NAAL assessed the English literacy skills of a nationally representative sample of 18,500 U.S. adults (age 16 and older) residing in private households. NAAL is the first national assessment of adult literacy since the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS). The NAAL project comprised four assessment components: the core literacy tasks, the main literacy assessment, the Fluency Addition to NAAL (FAN), and the Adult Literacy Supplemental Assessment (ALSA). Results from the main literacy assessment are reported as averages and as the percentage of adults in each of four literacy levels: Below Basic, Basic, Intermediate, and Proficient. This report focuses on results from the FAN and the ALSA.

The Adult Literacy Supplemental Assessment (ALSA) was administered to adults unable to successfully answer the core literacy tasks. Instead of completing the main literacy assessment, these adults completed the ALSA, which gathered information about their letter-reading, word-reading, word-identification, and basic comprehension skills.

The Fluency Addition to NAAL (FAN) measures the basic reading skills of America's adults. The FAN was administered to all adults who participated in the NAAL project following the completion of the main literacy assessment or the supplemental assessment.

Key Findings:

* Seven million adults, or about 3% of the adult population, could not complete even the most basic literacy tasks in the main assessment and were given the supplemental assessment.

* Nearly 1 in 5 adults in the nonliterate in English group had a high school diploma or GED. Among them, more than half (representing roughly 600,000 adults) had earned their high school degree in the US.

* For those for whom Spanish is a first language, a delay in learning English is associated with low basic reading skills. Those who learned English before age 11 had basic reading scores similar to average native English speakers (97 words read correctly per minute); however, for those who learned English after age 21, average scores were 35 points (or about one-third) lower. Due to the correlational nature of these data, it is impossible to make causal attributions, i.e., to say that a delay in learning English causes low basic reading skills.

* Adults who took the main literary assessment were able to read, on average, 98 words correctly per minute (wpm), in comparison to 34 wpm by those in the supplemental assessment.

To view, download and print the report as a PDF file, please visit:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009481

Study of reading intervention programs find no benefits

Effectiveness of Selected Supplemental Reading Comprehension Interventions: Impacts on a First Cohort of Fifth-Grade Students reports on the impacts on student achievement for four supplemental reading curricula that use similar overlapping instructional strategies designed to improve reading comprehension in social studies and science text. Fifth-grade reading comprehension for each of three commercially-available curricula (Project CRISS, ReadAbout, and Read for Real) was not significantly different from the control group. The fourth curriculum, Reading for Knowledge, was adapted from Success for All for this study, and had a statistically-significant negative impact on fifth-grade reading comprehension.

Recess improves 3rd graders classroom behavior--maybe

The What Works Clearinghouse provides an evaluation of a study which found that teachers report better classroom behavior when students have regular access to recess. WWC also cautions that the populations that have regular access to recess were different in several ways from the populations that didn't, and these differences may or may not have been corrected for by data analysis.

Barros, R. M., Silver, E. J., & Stein, R. E. K. (2009). School recess and group classroom behavior. Pediatrics, 123(2): 431–436.
(online access to this article is available through the UNLV Libraries)

Research Funding Webinars scheduled

The National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) and the National Center for Education Research (NCER) within the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) will host a series of webinars related to research funding opportunities in May. Six types of webinars are planned.
Information about the specific trainings are offered here: http://ies.ed.gov/funding/webinars/

Grants available to bring book authors to schools

Target is currently accepting grant applications. The on-line application process takes about 15-minutes and the grants can be used next year to bring authors to schools! Grants will be awarded from $1,000-$3000. Target will accept grant applications online between March 1 and May 31, 2009, for programs taking place between October 1, 2009, and September 30, 2010. See: http://sites.target.com/site/en/company/page.jsp?contentId=WCMP04-031821

If the adjuncts are treated well....

Not surprisingly a new study described in today's Chronicle found that when adjuncts receive benefits, they are more satisfied with their salaries (compared to those paid the same with no benefits) and with their decision to have an academic career. What is more enlightening is the link between adjuncts receiving benefits and the satisfaction reported by full-time faculty at those same institutions.

Lots of discussion about student financial aid

Where do you stand on the emerging proposals to revamp student aid for higher education? An article today (April 23) from Inside Higher Ed compares two recent plans--one from the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators and the other published last fall by the College Board. An article in yesterday's (April 22) issue of Inside Higher Ed discussed the president's new proposal.

University lectures on YouTube

Just read this posting in the CHE's Wired Campus blog about YouTube now claiming to host complete lectures from over 200 colleges and universities.

Guide on using RTI for students struggling with math

"Assisting Students Struggling with Mathematics: Response to Intervention (RtI) for Elementary and Middle Schools." This new guide from the What Works Clearinghouse provides eight specific recommendations intended to help teachers, principals, and school administrators use Response to Intervention (RtI) to identify students who need assistance in mathematics, and to address the needs of these students through focused interventions. The guide also describes how to carry out each recommendation, including how to address potential roadblocks in implementing them.
The guide is linked from this page:
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/publications/practiceguides/#rti_math_pg

Arne Duncan offers tips on applying for funds

Thought you might be interested in this recent article from Education Week where Arne Duncan (our Secretary of Education) spells out some tips for applying for federal stimulus monies. See also the tab I added to the Grants guide with many more links to information on the ARRA funds, opportunities, and processes.

Awesome Stories: Media resources for educators

We are said to learn best from stories and the Awesome Stories web site puts that strategy to good use by offering narratives about people, events, history and more. Each narrative is enriched with audio and video clips, images, and primary documents. There are databases for all the media that are freely available to teachers once you sign up . Lesson plans are offered as is a monthly newsletter that highlights current events. This month there's the story behind the story of the movie "The Soloist" which talks about music and about schizophrenia. Great resource.

New data on post-secondary students

The National Center for Education Statistics has released the first round of results from the 2008 National Student Postsecondary Aid Study (NPSAS:08). This nationally representative study provides the most up-to-date and comprehensive look at postsecondary student characteristics and student financial aid for the 2007-08 academic year.

NPSAS:08 data are a rich source of information on student demographics, family background, education and work experiences, and student financial aid, including federal, state, institutional, and other sources. The NPSAS:08 study contains a sample of 128,000 students which represent 21 million undergraduates and 3 million graduate students enrolled in postsecondary education anytime between July 1, 2007 and June 30, 2008.

Selected NPSAS:08 Findings.

* Nearly two-thirds (66 percent) of all undergraduates received some type of financial aid. For those receiving any aid, the total average amount was $9,100.

* About one-half (52 percent) of all undergraduates received grant aid, and more than one-third (38 percent) obtained student loans. The average grant amount was $4,900, and the average loan amount was $7,100.

* Nearly one-half (47 percent) of all undergraduates received some type of federal student aid. About one-fourth (28 percent) received an average of $2,800 in federal Pell grants, and about one-third (35 percent) obtained an average of $5,100 in federal student loans.

* Among undergraduates financially dependent on their parents, 28 percent came from families with incomes under $40,000 and another 28 percent from families with incomes of $100,000 or more.

* Three-fourths (74 percent) of all graduate students received some type of financial aid, with an average amount of $17,600. Forty-three percent took out an average of $18,500 in student loans, and about one-fifth (22 percent) received tuition aid from their employers.

To view, download and print the report as a PDF file, please visit:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009166

To Use the Data Analysis System (DAS) online, please visit:
http://nces.ed.gov/dasol/

Student research assignments--what do we want them to learn

This is not a rhetorical question...the editorial musings from a librarian at Princeton (Inside Higher Ed, April 13) on the seemingly changeless questions and confessions she gets from students doing research assignments should make us all think about how we can help students address the underlying information gaps and misconceptions. She offers suggestions for both departmental faculty as well as librarians to help students learn more from the process. I also loved her acronym for the way most students approach research based assignments: "WIGWAM research (Wikipedia – Internet – Google – Without Anything More"

Free training available in using National Longitudinal Transition Study 2 (NLTS2) database

The National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER), within the Institute of Education Sciences, will sponsor a 3-day advanced studies seminar on the use of the National Longitudinal Transition Study 2 (NLTS2) database. The NLTS2 is designed to support research on a wide range of topics pertaining to youth with disabilities as they move from secondary school into adult roles. This seminar is open to advanced graduate students and faculty members from colleges and universities nationwide and to researchers, education practitioners, and policy analysts from federal, state, and local education and human services agencies and professional associations.The seminar will be held in Washington, DC on July 14-16, 2009. There is no fee to attend the training seminar. NCSER will provide training materials as well as computers for hands-on practice. NCSER will also pay for transportation and hotel accommodations. Participants will be responsible for their meals during travel and while in Washington, DC.Please visit http://ies.ed.gov/ncser/whatsnew/conferences/nlts2_DBtraining.asp to view the full announcement and application information for the seminar.

Some positive results for the REDI program

The What Works Clearinghouse found this study met evidence standards and reports the findings.
This study examined whether the Head Start Research-based Developmentally Informed (REDI) program is more effective than the standard Head Start program at improving the language, emergent literacy, and social-emotional skills of preschoolers.
The study finds that students in the REDI group outperformed control students on one of three measures of language development (effect sizes ranged from –0.07 to 0.15) and two of three measures of emergent literacy skills (effect sizes ranged from 0.16 to 0.39).
In addition, REDI program students exhibited greater understanding of emotions, better social problem-solving skills, and higher levels of learning engagement than students in regular Head Start classrooms.

New NCES/IES Report: Comparative Indicators of Education in the United States and Other G-8 Countries: 2009

This report describes how the education system in the United States compares with education systems in the other G-8 countries--Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom. Twenty-seven indicators are organized in five sections: (1) population and school enrollment; (2) academic performance (including subsections for reading, mathematics, and science); (3) context for learning; (4) expenditure for education; and (5) education returns: educational attainment and income. This report draws on the most current information about education from four primary sources: the Indicators of National Education Systems (INES) at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).
Download the report from: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009039

Fiscal year 2007 data on revenues/expenditures for public elementary & secondary schools

"The Common Core of Data (CCD) is an annual collection of public elementary and secondary education data by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in the Institute of Education Sciences. The data are reported by state education agencies (SEAs). The finance data are reported to the U.S. Census Bureau, which acts as the data collection agent for NCES. Student membership data are reported to the U.S. Department of Education’s EDFacts data collection system. This report presents findings on public education revenues and expenditures using fiscal year 2007 (FY 07) data from the National Public Education Financial Survey (NPEFS) of the CCD survey system. Programs covered in the NPEFS include regular, special, and vocational education; charter schools (if they reported data to the SEA); and state-run education programs (such as special education centers or education programs for incarcerated youth).

The CCD NPEFS is a universe collection of public elementary and secondary education finance data reported annually by SEAs in each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the four other jurisdictions of American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The NPEFS provides SEA-level data for all revenues and expenditures associated with each reporting state or jurisdiction, including revenues by source and expenditures by function and object." (from the Introduction at http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/expenditures/)

Links to all Table data (also available in Excel format) are here: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/expenditures/tables.asp

Link to the full report is here: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009337

New reports out from IPEDS on higher ed enrollment, graduation rates and financial aid

This First Look presents findings from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) spring 2008 data collection, which included four components: Enrollment in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2007; Graduation Rates, 2001 & 2004 Cohorts; and Financial Statistics, Fiscal Year 2007. These data were collected through the IPEDS web-based data collection system. Findings include:

In fall 2007, Title IV institutions in the United States enrolled a total of 18.7 million graduate and undergraduate students; 62 percent were enrolled in 4-year institutions, 36 percent were enrolled in 2-year institutions, and 2 percent were enrolled in less-than-2-year institutions.

Approximately 57 percent of full-time, first-time bachelor's or equivalent degree-seekers attending 4-year institutions completed a bachelor's or equivalent degree at the institution where they began their studies within 6 years.

During 2006-07 academic year, 73 percent of the 2.8 million full-time, first-time degree/certificate-seeking undergraduates attending Title IV institutions located in the United States received financial aid.

To view, download and print the report as a PDF file, please visit:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009155

WWC assessment of "I Can Learn Pre-Algebra and Algebra" programs

Will wonders never cease! It's SO rare that any research studies ever meet WWC evidence standards that there usually isn't much to report. Here is what they say about these programs:

"One study of I CAN Learn^®Pre-Algebra and Algebra meets What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards and four studies meet WWC evidence standards with reservations. The five studies included 16,519 eighth-grade students from middle schools in California, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana.³

Based on these five studies, the WWC considers the extent of evidence for I CAN Learn^®Pre-Algebra and Algebra to be medium to large for math achievement."

Links to the full evaluation report are here:

http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/reports/middle_math/iclprea/

How Professors Think -- inside the peer review process

Inside Higher Ed (March 4) had a lengthy review of a new book by Michèle Lamont, called How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment. She sat in on considerations of grant and fellowship applications for such organizations as the American Council of Learned Societies, the Social Science Research Council, and the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.

Some (hopefully) tantalizing excerpts from the interview/review:

• "The peer review processes she studied involved grants to professors and graduate students, and all the panels involved professors from many disciplines. She writes that, as a result, the findings may suggest similar issues for multi-disciplinary committees on individual campuses -- panels that frequently play a key role in tenure reviews once a candidate has been considered at the departmental level. "
• "One of the key findings was that professors in different disciplines take very different approaches to decision making. The gap between humanities and social sciences scholars is as large as anything C.P. Snow saw between the humanities and the hard sciences."
• "The most common flaw she documents is a pattern of professors applying very personal interests to evaluating the work before them. “People define what is exciting as what speaks to their own personal interest, and their own research,” she said. "

I'll put the book on order...

Advancing Excellent Teaching in American Schools -- free videos

I just found out about this source for free teaching videos. Here is the information the Annenberg Foundation provides: "Annenberg Media uses media and telecommunications to advance excellent teaching in American schools. This mandate is carried out chiefly by the funding and broad distribution of educational video programs with coordinated Web and print materials for the professional development of K-12 teachers. It is part of The Annenberg Foundation and advances the Foundation's goal of encouraging the development of more effective ways to share ideas and knowledge.

Annenberg Media's multimedia resources help teachers increase their expertise in their fields and assist them in improving their teaching methods. Many programs are also intended for students in the classroom and viewers at home. All Annenberg Media videos exemplify excellent teaching.

Annenberg Media resources can be accessed for FREE at Learner.org, or can be purchased through the Web site or by calling 1-800-LEARNER."

My professional listserv also offered this information: "We've discovered that these are best viewed in Internet Explorer. Closed Captions are available. One-time individual registration (free) is required. " Hope you find this useful...let me know!

Pre-elementary Special Education study released

The National Center for Special Education Research within the Institute of Education Sciences has released the third major report from the Pre-Elementary Education Longitudinal Study (PEELS) entitled, "The Early School Transitions and the Social Behavior of Children with Disabilities: Selected Findings from the Pre-Elementary Education Longitudinal Study." PEELS involves a nationally representative sample of children, ages 3 to 5 years at entrance to the study, with diverse disabilities who are receiving preschool special education services in a variety of settings. Topics covered in the report include changes in services and eligibility at times of transition, transitions into kindergarten, and social skills and problem behavior of young children with disabilities from 2003-04 to 2005-06.

Research compares 1st grade math curricula

The National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance within the Institute of Education Sciences today released a report on the effectiveness of four math curricula. The "Achievement Effects of Four Early Elementary School Math Curricula: Findings from First Graders in 39 Schools" reports on the relative impacts of four math curricula on first-grade mathematics achievement. The curricula were selected to represent diverse approaches to teaching elementary school math in the United States. The four curricula are Investigations in Number, Data, and Space; Math Expressions; Saxon Math; and Scott Foresman-Addison Wesley Mathematics. First-grade math achievement was significantly higher in schools randomly assigned to Math Expressions or Saxon Math than in those schools assigned to Investigations in Number, Data, and Space or to Scott Foresman-Addison Wesley Mathematics. This study is being conducted as part of the National Assessment of Title I.

To view, download and print the report as a PDF file, please visit:
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20094052/index.asp

Measuring Up 2008: National and State report cards on higher education

The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education has issued it fifth set of report cards on higher education for the nation (with international comparisons) and the individual states. In spite of some improvements, other nations are advancing more quickly than the United States in preparing students for and providing access to higher education. Nevada, in spite of improvements, is still performing abysmally.

The importance of middle school for college readiness

New research by ACT shows "the level of academic achievement that students attain by eighth grade has a larger impact on their college and career readiness by the time they graduate from high school than anything that happens academically in high school." The lack of college readiness, as assessed by ACT's three-stage assessment, is "alarming":

• Only 20% of tested high school grads were ready for entry-level college courses in the four areas of biology, social science, English composition and college algebra
• 25% of tested students were not prepared for entry-level college courses in any of the four subject areas.
• Less than 20% of tested eighth graders were on target to be college-ready by the time they graduate.

"This report also reveals that students’ academic readiness for college and career can be improved when students develop behaviors in the upper elementary grades and in middle school that are known to contribute to successful academic performance."

Expanded Learning Time for ELL's

Several schools are restructuring and expanding the school day for ELL's to help them catch up to their schoolmates. By kindergarten, ELL's are 5,000-7,000 vocabulary words behind and by high school that deficit may be as high as 50,000 words. A pilot program in Massachusetts has extended the school year by 300 hours as they move from bilingual education to English immersion. The full report is available here: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/12/ell_report.html

"Content first" teaching improves understanding of science concepts

As you may or may not know, the What Works Clearinghouse has a rigorous set of criteria for quantitative studies to meet their "evidence standards." Apparently this study did, and the results may offer a useful approach for teaching science concepts.

"...a review of the article "Teaching Science as a Language: A Content-First Approach to Science Teaching". This study examined whether teaching scientific concepts using everyday language before introducing scientific terminology improves the understanding of these concepts."

U.S. Students improve in math but not science on the TIMMS

This report from the National Center for Education Statistics within the Institute of Education Sciences summarizes the performance of U.S. fourth- and eighth-grade students on the 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), comparing their scores with their peers internationally as well as documenting changes in mathematics and science achievement since 1995. The report also describes additional details about trends in the achievement of students within the United States, by sex, racial/ethnic background, and the poverty level of the schools they attend....
TIMSS has been administered four times: in 1995, 1999, 2003, and 2007. The United States participated in all four administrations. In 2007, 36 countries participated at grade four, while 48 participated at grade eight.

Mathematics

Results show that the 2007 average mathematics scores of both U.S. fourth- and eighth-grade students were higher than the TIMSS scale average. At grade four, the average U.S. mathematics score was higher than those in 23 of the 35 other countries, lower than those in 8 countries (all 8 were in Asia or Europe), and not measurably different from those in 4 countries. At grade eight, the average U.S. mathematics score was higher than those in 37 of the 47 other countries, lower than those in 5 countries (all located in Asia), and not measurably different from those in 5 countries.

Comparing average scores from the first administration of TIMSS in 1995 to the most recent results from 2007 showed that both U.S. fourth- and eighth-graders improved in mathematics.

Science

In science, the average scores of both U.S. fourth- and eighth-graders were higher than the TIMSS scale average. At grade four, the average U.S. science score was higher than those in 25 of the 35 other countries, lower than those in 4 countries (all of them in Asia), and not measurably different from those in 6 countries. At eighth grade, the average U.S. science score was higher than the average scores in 35 of the 47 other countries, lower than those in 9 countries (all located in Asia or Europe), and not measurably different from those in 3 countries.

Unlike in mathematics, the average science scores for both U.S. fourth- and eighth-grade students were not measurably different in 2007 compared to the first TIMSS results collected in 1995.

Models of Information Inquiry

I just ran across this rich web site that brings together information on multiple models of teaching and learning inquiry and research skills for all ages. Created by the School of Library and Information Science at IUPUI (Indiana Univ. Purdue Univ @ Indiana) there are bibliographies of additional reading on almost every "model" page. Potentially a great resource for K-12 educators. Includes the Big 6 and Super 3, I-Search, Pathways to Knowledge, WebQuest, InfoZone, Kuhlthau's Information Seeking Process (one of my favorites), and more.

Peer discussion increases comprehension

This study reported in the Jan. 2, 2009 issue of Science by Smith et al at the University of Colorado, may offer ideas and hope for promoting student learning in lectures. Here's the abstract:
"When students answer an in-class conceptual question individually using clickers, discuss it with their neighbors, and then revote on the same question, the percentage of correct answers typically increases. This outcome could result from gains in understanding during discussion, or simply from peer influence of knowledgeable students on their neighbors. To distinguish between these alternatives in an undergraduate genetics course, we followed the above exercise with a second, similar (isomorphic) question on the same concept that students answered individually. Our results indicate that peer discussion enhances understanding, even when none of the students in a discussion group originally knows the correct answer."
(M.K.Smith, W.B. Wood, W.K. Adams, C. Wieman, J.K. Knight, N. Guild, T.T. Su. Why peer discussion improves student performance on in-class concept questions. Science 2 January 2009:Vol. 323. no. 5910, pp. 122 - 124)
If you have trouble with the link, you can go through the Journals tab on the Libraries homepage to get to our electronic subscription to Science.

The Trouble with Impact Factors

More and more we're being asked to rank journals...and rank our scholarship based on where it's published. One of the most widely used metrics to rank journals is the "impact factor," created by Eugene Garfield in the middle of the 20th century. "Mr. Garfield, though, now compares his brainchild to nuclear energy: a force that can help society but can unleash mayhem when it is misused." There are many flaws with using impact factors to rank journals and those problems magnify when attempting to use them to evaluate individuals. There is a good article in the Chronicle of Higher Education from Oct. 14, 2005 by Richard Monastersky, where he notes"... relying on impact factors to evaluate a person is statistically dimwitted, say critics of its spreading influence. The measurement is just an average of all the papers in a journal over a year; it doesn't apply to any single paper, let alone to any author." I encourage you to read the whole article before you fasten onto this approach for ranking anything. ("The number that's devouring science.")

Who gets advanced degrees?

Of people age 25 or older who live in the United States but who were born elsewhere, 10.9 percent have an advanced degree, while only 9.9 percent of those born in the United States have one. That statistic is among many found in "Educational Attainment in the United States, 2007," a new report by the U.S. Census Bureau. Men remain more likely than women to have an advanced degree. Among racial and ethnic groups, 19.6 percent of Asian Americans have an advanced degree, followed by 11.3 percent of non-Hispanic white people, 5.8 percent of black people, and 3.9 percent of Hispanics. (from Inside Higher Education, "Quick Takes,"Jan 29, 2009)

2009 Horizon Report is out -- emerging technologies and education

The newest version of the Horizon Report was released at EDUCAUSE conference this week.

"The annual Horizon Report describes the continuing work of the NMC’s Horizon Project, a research-oriented effort that seeks to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have considerable impact on teaching, learning, and creative expression within higher education. A collaboration between the NMC and ELI, the 2009 Horizon Report is the sixth in the annual series.

Each year, the Horizon Report describes six areas of emerging technology that will have significant impact on higher education within three adoption horizons over the next one to five years." (from the Website)

Demographic trends continue

"A new report, “Building Tomorrow’s Workforce,” highlights the roles of community colleges and employers in educating Latino immigrants and preparing them for better jobs. A key statistic reflects the report’s theme that immigrant populations are a key part of the workforce, regardless of whether some politicians like to criticize them. The statistic: During the next decade, one in every four new workers in the United States will be an immigrant from Latin America." (from Inside Higher Ed: Quick Takes, Jan 22, 2009)

Open Access publishing gets a boost from Springer

Take this as evidence when negotiating with your potential publishers for copyright!!

"In the latest move of for-profit publishing into open access, Springer on Wednesday announced a deal with the University of California under which the university’s researchers who publish with Springer will be able to have completely open access versions of their article appear without separate charges or delays." (from Inside Higher Ed: Quick Takes, Jan. 22, 2009)

Training Institute on Cluster-Randomized Trials

The National Center for Education Research within the Institute of Education Sciences announces its third Summer Research Training Institute on Cluster-Randomized Trials. This Training Institute is held to increase the national capacity of researchers to develop and conduct rigorous evaluations of the impact of education interventions. When: June 21 - July 3, 2009Where: Vanderbilt University; Nashville, TN.
All applications must be received no later than Friday, March 20, 2009 at 8:00 p.m. EST.
For more information about the Training Institute, including the application procedures, please visit:
http://ies.ed.gov/whatsnew/conferences/?id=394&cid=5
If you need assistance, please contact Dr. Christina Chhin, at (202) 219-2280 or christina.chhin@ed.gov

AACU issues "new" report on assessing student learning in higher ed

Assessing student learning has probably been at the front of your mind for ages now, or at least you felt like it should be. Read the report, “Our Students’ Best Work: A Framework for Accountability Worthy of Our Mission,” and you too can amaze and impress your colleagues with your knowledge of current issues in higher ed :-)
An excerpt from the Jan. 8 Inside Higher Education article about the AACU report:
"AACU, in contrast, believes that colleges must “actually use assessment to improve student learning,” and its re-released report, updated and reinforced in several ways, is meant to be a roadmap to help both the higher education establishment and individual colleges figure out how to do that. By arguing both for the idea that colleges must measure student learning and strongly against the use of “mass testing,” which it argues would be an “enormous misuse of time and scarce resources,” the AACU statement seeks to walk a middle path in the contentious debate over whether and how colleges should measure and report student learning."

New adult literacy data available

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released the "National Assessment of Adult Literacy: Indirect County and State Estimates of the Percentage of Adults at the Lowest Literacy Level for 1992 and 2003", which provides estimates on the percentage of adults - for all states and counties in the U.S. - who lack basic prose literacy skills. The study provides data for 2003 and 1992. This new data is currently the only available snapshot of adult literacy rates for individual states and counties.

To produce this study, NCES gathered data from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL), a nationally representative sample of more than 19,000 Americans age 16 and older, and the 2000 Census, which provided "predictor variables" such as education and income.

NAAL data were correlated with the predictor variables to see if there was a pattern among them. From this information, a model was established. Using the model, estimates were predicted for areas where there were not sufficient assessment data. The same approach was also applied to the 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS), so changes from 1992 to 2003 can be examined.

The report is accompanied by an interactive web tool, which shows the percentage of adults lacking Basic Prose Literacy Skills for all states and counties. In addition to allowing users to view adult literacy percentages for any given state, the web tool also allows for comparisons to be made between two states, two counties in the same state, two counties in different states, across years for a state, and across years for a county.