12th grade math and reading scores published

NAEP has provided national scores for 12th graders in math and reading.
Highlights of the results include:

• The overall average reading score for 12th graders was 2 points higher than in 2005, but 4 points lower than in 1992.
• There were no significant changes from 1992 to 2009 in the reading score gaps between White and Black students or between White and Hispanic students.  In mathematics, the overall average score was 3 points higher in 2009 than in 2005.
• There was no significant change from 2005 in the mathematics score gaps between White and Black students or between White and Hispanic students.
• The percentage of 12th graders who expect to graduate from college increased from 58 percent in 2005 to 60 percent in 2009.
• In the 11 participating states, average reading scores in seven states were higher than the score for the nation, and scores for three states were lower; in mathematics, the average scores for six states were higher than the nation, and scores for three states were lower.

Scores should be viewed with qualifications since large numbers of ESL students and students with disabilities are excluded from reports. Also, states are not required to report 12th grade scores. And then there are all those students who don't make it to 12th grade or take the tests at all. I expect Dr. Loveless will have something to say about the scores at today's Brookings talk (Nov. 18) since he was interviewed by Education Week regarding the new report.

Copyright and copy wrong in the classroom

A new article reviewed in Wired Campus (Nov. 17--part of CHE) discusses the issues of copyright, especially around the use of social media, for today's students. The authors, one a professor in communications and the other teaching pre-service English teachers, have written up a set of guidelines.
McGrail, E. & McGrail, J.P. (2010). Copying right and copying wrong with Web 2.0 tools in the teacher education and communications classroom. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 10(3). Retrieved from http://www.citejournal.org/vol10/iss3/languagearts/article1.cfm

Lots of new lesson planning sites...

I've added a lot of new links for lesson planning resources to the Education Guide: http://guides.library.unlv.edu/content.php?pid=9423&sid=61979
The Education Guide is intended to support your teaching and your students, so please suggest additions that you think would be useful.

"Transforming teacher education through clinical practice"-- New report from NCATE

Released Nov. 16, this new report sponsored by NCATE emphasizes clinical preparation as the key to reforming teacher preparation programs. The entire report is available here.
An article from Inside Higher Ed provides an overview stating in part, "At the report’s core is the assertion that for teachers to be effective, they need educations grounded in immersion and clinical practice. The report calls for more rigorous accountability; strengthening candidate selection and placement; revamping curriculums, incentives and staffing; and identifying what works and supporting continuous improvement. " All of this probably shounds familiar if you went to hear Jane West speak at the Alumni Center a couple of weeks ago.

Advice for writers

Kerry Ann Rockquemore has a regular column on dealing with the tenure-track, but her focus is often on writing. I think her suggestions would also be useful for graduate students working on dissertations, so thought I would post a link to her latest piece. (Inside Higher Ed, Nov. 15, 2010).

New COACHE report on best institutions for tenure track faculty

Harvard's Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education has published the results of their most recent job-satisfaction survey of tenure-track faculty in four-year institutions. They state, "two inescapable conclusions: first, that positive climates and cultures are the sine qua non of pre-tenure faculty retention and success; and second, that climates and cultures—and institutional quality—are defined and defended by tenured faculty in their roles as colleagues, collaborators, mentors and chairs."


This Inside Higher Ed article (Nov. 15, 2010) provides an overview with one summary table. The criteria include clarity of tenure expxectations, climate/culture/collegiality, and "nature of the work" in several areas (research, teaching, etc.). The COACHE site has links to the report and all tables (about half way down on the left under "latest news")

Innovative strategies for teacher prep

This short piece on MSNBC news discusses the use of virtual classrooms to help prepare teachers. The program was developed at the University of Central Florida and one of our own, Dr. David Grant, is actually one of the stars in this 2 min. 23 sec. video. In addition to the points made about being able to give students classroom experience earlier in their curriculum, I think one of the real advantages is being able to present the developing teachers with specific classroom behaviors and challenges--with the opportunities to get formative feedback on handling them. Putting them in real classrooms, doesn't necessarily offer the chance to deal with particular kinds of situations while they are still in a position to get formative feedback (from education faculty, classmates, etc.). So students would get more practice, with a greater variety of situations/behaviors, earlier in their preparation!

National survey finds college students lack basic research skills

The newest in a series of studies and reports from Project Information Literacy is summarized in today's (Nov. 10, 2010) Chronicle of Higher Ed. I wanted to highlight just a couple of their findings that I can attest to based on my own years of experience working with student researchers...

"Alison J. Head, a co-principal investigator for the project, said the results suggest that today’s students... [are]basically taking how they learned to research in high school with them to college, since it’s worked for them in the past... findings show that college students approach research as a hunt for the right answer instead of a process of evaluating different arguments and coming up with their own interpretation.  'Not being aware of the diverse resources that exist or the different ways knowledge is created and shared is dangerous.' she said. 'College is a time to find information and learn about multiple arguments, and exploring gets sacrificed if you conduct research in this way.'”

Newest data on 100 largest public school districts (2008-09)

This annual report provides information from the Common Core of Data about the nation's largest public school districts in the 2008-09 school year. The data include such characteristics as the number of students and teachers, number of high school completers, the averaged freshman graduation rate, and revenues and expenditures. Clark County and Washoe are both included in this group. Clark County still comes in at #6. There were some astounding variations in annual per pupil expenditures, i.e., these ranged from a low of $6,363 in the Granite District, Utah to a high of $23,298 in Boston, Massachusetts.

The full report is found here: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2011/2011301.pdf

Improving group work in your classes

Good article in today's CHE (Mon., Nov. 8) on using team based learning (TBL) to improve group work in classes (large and small). Included a link to an informative video of TBL used in several classes at UT-Austin. Included interviews with faculty and students, overviews of the key steps to make this process work, etc. http://www.utexas.edu/academic/ctl/teaching/tblvideo.php
There was also a link to a web-site for a community of practitioners, with a growing "case bank" of activities: http://teambasedlearning.apsc.ubc.ca/
If you're already doing a successful TBL activity, submit a poster proposal (Dec. 15 deadline). The national conference will be here in Las Vegas next March: http://tblc.roundtablelive.org/

Teaching the academic essay as conversation

Having myself written a couple of articles about using conversation as a metaphor for the research process, I immediately jumped into this post by Dr. Kelli Marshall where she talks about her students' writing problems as a result of never having been taught that "they need to “enter a conversation,” using what other people say as a springboard for their own ideas/thesis." I couldn't agree more. Even if you're not familiar with the Burkean Parlor metaphor, experienced writers will recognize the need to read widely in order to write well. As Peter Elbow also addressed this conversational nature of academic writing when he said, “this is what we academics do: carry on an unending conversation not just with colleagues but with the dead and unborn” (1995, p. 79).

IES compares effectiveness of 4 early elementary math curricula

Four math curricula, (1) Investigations in Number, Data, and Space, (2) Math Expressions, (3) Saxon Math, and (4) Scott Foresman-Addison Wesley Mathematics (SFAW), were compared for effectiveness in the 1st and 2nd grades of 110 schools in 12 participating districts in 10 states. A brief overview of the findings and links to the full reports are located here: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20114001/

Advice for dissertation writers and the advisors thereof...

Interesting post in today's Chronicle (Nov. 1, 2010) directed primarily to faculty advising students working on dissertations. The suggestions however are useful as well for those actually writing the dissertation, so I encourage both groups to have a look. Here are the major areas addressed:

• Create a collaborative environment.
• What is your student really interested in?
• Steer them away from the beginning.
• Perfect is the enemy of done.
• A time to read, a time to type.