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10 Questions
education
“They Always Thought You Were Smarter!”
The study, published Friday in the Journal of Family Psychology, focused on siblings and academic achievement. Jensen and co-author Susan McHale from Penn State looked at 388 teenage first- and second-born siblings and their parents from 17 school districts in a northeastern state. The researchers asked the parents which sibling was better in school.
Dyslexia is NOT an Eye Disorder
Eye training or other vision therapies will not treat dyslexia in children, say researchers who found normal vision among most children with the learning disability. The findings confirm what eye doctors have known for a long time, said Dr. Mark Fromer, an ophthalmologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. “Dyslexia is a brain dysfunction, not an eye disorder,” said Fromer, who was not involved in the study. “There are no studies that clearly identify that visual training can be helpful for the dyslexic patient.”
Depending on the definition used, as many as one in five school-aged children in the United States may have dyslexia, the researchers said. If severe reading difficulties associated with dyslexia aren’t addressed, they can affect adult employment and even health, they added.
The new
findings, published online May 25, will appear in the June issue of the journal Pediatrics. The researchers tested over 5,800 children, aged 7 to 9, for a variety of vision problems, including lazy eye, nearsightedness, farsightedness, seeing double and focusing difficulties. The 3 percent (n=174 children) of children with dyslexia who had severe difficulty reading showed little differences in their vision than children without dyslexia. And 80 percent of children with dyslexia had fully normal vision and eye function in all the tests, the findings showed. A slightly higher proportion of those with dyslexia had problems with depth perception or seeing double, but there was no evidence that this was related to their reading disability. After making adjustments for other contributing factors, this finding seemed due to chance.
“It does make sense to think something is wrong with your eye if you’re not reading well, but there really is no connection between any ophthalmological disorder and dyslexia,” said Fromer. Though the study findings aren’t new, this review is much larger than previous ones, he added. “The biggest issue here is that parents of dyslexic children should not waste a lot of money on vision training for their children with dyslexia,” Fromer said. “It won’t work.”
That research showed that the cause of the disability has to do with how someone processes letters and sounds, not with how they perceive letters and words in the first place, said Fierson. He is co-author of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ policy statement on learning disabilities, including dyslexia. An initial eye evaluation to find out if eye problems are present is important, he said. But this is only to rule out problems or treat specific conditions — prescribing glasses or contacts for nearsightedness or farsightedness, for instance.
“To date, the best techniques for the remediation of dyslexia involve intensive one-on-one — or at least small group — teaching by phonetic methods by experienced teachers,” Fierson said. “At least as important, however, is an initial evaluation by a neuropsychologist or educational psychologist to determine the specific problem areas present in the poor reader,” Fierson added. “Parents should avoid unproven quick fixes and go for intensive phonics,” Fierson said. “As is usually the case, things that seem too good to be true usually are. This includes vision treatments for dyslexia.”
SOURCES: Walter Fierson, M.D., pediatric ophthalmologist, Arcadia, Calif., former chairman, ophthalmology section, American Academy of Pediatrics, and co-author, AAP Policy Statement and Technical Report on Learning Disabilities; Mark Fromer, M.D., ophthalmologist, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City, and director of eye surgery, N.Y. Rangers; Cathy Williams, M.B.B.S., Ph.D., senior lecturer, child visual development, University of Bristol, England; June 2015, Pediatrics
If You Want to Absorb New Information – JUST GO TO SLEEP
Kathy Rastle, Professor of Cognitive Psychology at Royal Holloway, said: “Teachers have long suspected that proper rest is critical for successful learning. Our research provides some experimental support for this notion.
Participants in our experiments were able to identify the hidden rule shortly after learning. However, it was not until they were tested a week after training that participants were able to use that rule to understand a totally new word from the fictional language when it was presented in a sentence.”
She added: “This result shows that the key processes that underpin long-term learning of general knowledge arise outside of the classroom, sometime after learning, and may be associated with brain processes that arise during sleep.”
The research, published in the journal Cognitive Psychology also found that participants needed time to consolidate this rule-based knowledge before being introduced to new words that did not follow the rule. If the exceptions were introduced during the initial vocabulary learning session, learners were unable to develop an understanding of the general rule.
The findings have important implications for language teaching in the classroom. It is not uncommon for teachers to introduce ‘tricky words’ or exceptions to the rule alongside rule-based examples when teaching children how to read phonetically. For example, children may be taught that that the rule for pronouncing CH applies to church, chest, and chess, but not to chef or chorus.
The research suggests exceptions should not be introduced until children have already consolidated the standard rule after a good night’s sleep, otherwise, they will not develop the necessary knowledge required.
Jakke Tamminen, Matthew H. Davis, Kathleen Rastle. From specific examples to general knowledge in language learning. Cognitive Psychology, 2015; 79: 1
Neuromyths in Education – “Let The Buyer Beware”
“Neuromyths:” content purportedly based on neuroscience that, while sounding plausible, is incorrect. Neuromyths result from unsupported claims about interventions or products supposedly “proven by neuroscience research.” These claims are based on research that is either not scientifically valid or not supportive of the specific intervention being promoted (Willis, 2015)
The Big Three
The Left/Right Brain Myth
Over 20 years ago, neuroimaging demonstrated that both sides of the brain are in constant communication, transmitting neural signals from one hemisphere to the other. Although parts of the brain are particularly active during certain memory or learning activities, all brain activities requiring cognition activate neural networks on both sides of the brain. Yet the myth persists.
The Learning-Style Myth
No reliable research has ever demonstrated that instruction designated as appropriate for any “tested” learning style is effective because it matches that style. The research is missing several important control validations.
For example, there are no statistically valid studies comparing the response of a mixed-learning-style control group with the results of a learning-style-matched group. To qualify as “effective,” there must be support of claims that superior outcomes are the direct result of teaching to individual learning styles and not a general result to the instruction. There is no evidence that “visual learners” have better outcomes to instruction designed for “visual learners” than do mixed-style learners taught using the same instruction. Without comparison groups, the before and after results could simply mean that the particular instruction is the most effective method for teaching that specific content to all students.
The “We Use Only 10 Percent of Our Brains” Myth
Neuroimaging research techniques, such as PET (positron emission tomography) and fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scans show that we use and activate most of our brains most of the time, and essentially all of our brains at some time each day.
To clarify the science, consider that the brain weighs three pounds and uses about 20 percent of the body’s limited oxygen and glucose resources. The brain has built-in efficiency systems to keep it trim — it destroys unused or disconnected islands of brain connections. When networks are not activated frequently enough to build up the strong walls of myelin and multiple dendrite connections, they are pruned away, assuring more availability of metabolic resources for the most-used brain networks. Hence, we have “neurons that fire together” (the construction aspect of neuroplasticity) and its flipside, “use it or lose it.”
Caveat Emptor – “Let The Buyer Beware”
The expression “edu-cash-in” is a reasonable description of people trying to capitalize on unsupported claims about the research behind the design and promised outcome of their books, cure-all learning theories, curriculum packages, and ed-tech products. Despite the absence of valid supporting research, many products continue to promise more effective results when learning style is matched to teaching modality. Programs promise that their surveys or analytic tools yield vital information defining students’ specific learning styles. Their prescribed instruction differentiates not by mastery or interest, but on the sensory modality declared to be most effective for each learner and his or her “learning style.”
Video Games & 21st Century Learning
Gaming is a growing trend in the 21st century learning paradigm and you don’t need to look hard to see the evidence. Digital and video games take up a big part of the lives of our digital natives, and of course, as is the case with every ‘new technology’ doubtful and cynical voices are the first to be heard.
The advantages of digital and video gaming, appear to greatly outweigh their disadvantages. If you doubt it, here is a set of some really wonderful books that shed more light on the importance of video games and how they help kids in their learning.
“Stay Weird, Stay Different!”
“I wish that I could be like the cool kids,” – Maybe NOT!
While cool teens are often idolized in popular media — in depictions ranging from James Dean’s Rebel Without a Cause to Tina Fey’s Mean Girls — seeking popularity and attention by trying to act older than one’s age may not yield the expected benefits, according to the study.
Researchers followed 184 teens from age 13, when they were in seventh and eighth grades, to age 23, collecting information from the teens themselves as well as from their peers and parents. The teens attended public school in suburban and urban areas in the southeastern United States and were from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds.
Teens who were romantically involved at an early age, engaged in delinquent activity, and placed a premium on hanging out with physically attractive peers were thought to be popular by their peers at age 13. But over time, this sentiment faded: By 22, those once-cool teens were rated by their peers as being less competent in managing social relationships. They were also more likely to have had significant problems with alcohol and drugs, and to have engaged in criminal activities, according to the study.
“It appears that while so-called cool teens’ behavior might have been linked to early popularity, over time, these teens needed more and more extreme behaviors to try to appear cool, at least to a subgroup of other teens,” says Joseph P. Allen, Hugh P. Kelly Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, who led the study. “So they became involved in more serious criminal behavior and alcohol and drug use as adolescence progressed. These previously cool teens appeared less competent — socially and otherwise — than their less cool peers by the time they reached young adulthood.”
Joseph P. Allen, Megan M. Schad, Barbara Oudekerk, Joanna Chango. What Ever Happened to the “Cool” Kids? Long-Term Sequelae of Early Adolescent Pseudomature Behavior. Child Development, 2014
Necessary Skills for the 21st Century Student
Here is a set of some important universal skills for learners in the 21st Century. You could also consider them as competencies that lead up to the development of the required skills. But regardless of the theoretical stance underlying your view, these competencies/skills are the key drivers of learning in a multimodal and multimedia environment.
How to be a self-directed learner – finding and using resources (both face-to-face and online) to learn and improve personal interests
How to do effective online searches
Google Lesson Plan – Search Education
How to develop one’s own Personal Learning Network (PLN)
Helping Students Develop Personal Learning Networks
How to post on social media while managing one’s digital footprint
Teaching Kids to Be Smart About Social Media – KidsHealth
How to evaluate websites and online tools for credibility
How to orally communicate with others both face-to-face and online (e.g., facetime, Skype, Google Handouts)
They Can Text & Tweet. Can They Speak?
How to Enjoy and Engage in the Arts
10 Salient Studies on the Arts in Education
How to Identify and Solve Problems (Including Math)
Problem-solving in the 21st Century
How to take professional looking photos; make professional looking videos
How to learn and use emerging technologies
Building on Technology’s Promise
How to ask questions
Learners Should Be Developing Their Own Essential Questions
How to make and invent stuff
How to code
How to work in mixed-age groups
Enhancing Learning Through Multiage Grouping
How to effectively ask for what one wants or needs
MOODJUICE – Being Assertive – Self-help Guide
How to write effectively
National Writing Project – Teaching Writing
How to set and achieve goals
Making Kids Work on Goals (And Not Just In Soccer)
How to manage one’s own time
Time Management Tips for Students
How to be healthy – physically and emotionally
How to care for others
Empathy and Global Stewardship: The Other 21st Century Skill
What Kind Of Negotiator Are You?
- When you receive a job offer that doesn’t meet your needs, you:
(a) Immediately push back and ask for more.
(b) Think about it for a few days then ask for something in the middle.
(c) Suck it up and accept the first offer, or decline it in hopes of finding something else.
- When it comes to negotiating:
(a) You can talk anyone into meeting your demands.
(b) You’re okay, but you wish you were more assertive.
(c) You don’t bother.
- Which job is most appealing to you?
(a) Lawyer
(b) State representative
(c) Personal assistant
- When you ask for a raise:
(a) You ask with conviction.
(b) You’re direct, but you’re willing to compromise.
(c) You beat around the bush.
- The thought of negotiating makes you feel:
(a) An adrenaline rush.
(b) In control.
(c) Nervous and unconfident.
- Your favorite part of negotiating is:
(a) When they push back.
(b) When they’re willing to work with you.
(c) When it’s over!
- When negotiating salary, you initially ask for:
(a) 30% more than you should.
(b) 10-20% more than you should.
(c) Whatever is competitive for your position.
- Do you bother negotiating for more than just money?
(a) Yes! I think about vacation days, work schedules, and titles, too.
(b) Sometimes – It depends on the situation.
(c) Nope.
RESULTS
Mostly As: You’re an aggressive negotiator.
You don’t take one cent less than you think you deserve. You ask for a lot more than most people do, and you know you can get it if you really try. Good for you! However, don’t negotiate yourself out of a great job offer.
Mostly Bs: You’re a reasonable negotiator.
You know what you’re worth, but you also know how to compromise. If you think you’re not getting what you deserve, you will speak up, but you’re always willing to find a solution that works for both parties. That said, you could be missing out on some valuable perks.
Mostly Cs: You’re a non-negotiator.
The thought of negotiating makes you anxious and uncomfortable. You would rather deal with a less-than-adequate offer than try to negotiate for a better one. We completely understand your fear of negotiating. It’s very common!
Dr. Dan Pezzulo 