Russ Walsh writes here about the difference between “belief” and “knowledge.”
He writes:
I imagine that most of those who read this blog accept climate change and the human impact on climate change as settled science. We’ve seen the evidence; we’ve heard from the experts and we have reached an informed conclusion. This is a good thing and one that most Americans not in the White House or in denial for economic and political reasons also accept. It is not a matter of believing or disbelieving climate science; it is a matter of rigorous academic inquiry.
Now I would ask all teachers and teacher leaders to apply the same academic rigor to instructional practice. That is we must make our instructional decisions on what we know works – based on research.
Unfortunately as I have talked to teachers over the years about instructional practice, I have heard a lot of faith-based language.
“I don’t believe in homework.”
“I believe in phonics.”
“I don’t believe in teaching to the test.”
“I believe in independent reading.”
“I believe in using round robin and popcorn reading.”
For about 2,000 years doctors “believed” that blood-letting was an effective treatment for a wide variety of ailments. Today, I would bet if you encountered a doctor who recommended blood-letting for your flu symptoms, you would run, not walk, out the office door screaming. Science, and mounting numbers of dead patients, caught up with blood-letting. So, as professionals, we need to hold ourselves to the same standards. We need to follow the science and stop talking about our beliefs and start talking about the scientific research behind our instructional decision making.
What do you do when the research is inconclusive or when research findings conflict?
Russ has some advice for you.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Perfect. I am constantly amazed at teachers’ (and I’m speaking here of many people I’ve worked with over the years) ignorance of basic issues in epistemology. Thanks for this.
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A very timeline post given that I have seen many other posts about using research (although i personally would disagree with Russ, and even Harris about the role that HW can play with students – again I wonder if the studies there involve context). That small quibble aside this is a post that I fully support – to me too often research does not really consider the context or the implementation that is shown in the research. OR what happens is we take a comment (like the one Russ mentions about having kids read independently, and take it to an extreme – saying they can read whatever they want, whenever they want, to promote reading). Too often the pendulum swings from one end to the next when considering policies and practices.
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Did you read the link to Walsh’s expanded discussion of homework? Have you read Harris Cooper’s work or that of Alfie Kohn? The issue of homework, including context, is tackled in great detail. I’d be interested in your objections to the research.
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Most of the high quality research is, unfortunately, behind paywalls. Much of this research does indeed take context into account. Almost no good research ever says this is THE way to do something. What we teachers often have at our disposal is more general, processed research that has been distilled down by a series of authors, few of which have done the research
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I think this would be better directed at those who make policy than at teachers.
While there might be some teachers who “don’t believe in homework” or this that and the other, the most significant problems result because the policy makers don’t believe in research based policies.
This is not just true of Republicans by any means.
The education policies of the Obama administration were based on voodoo and doodoo.
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SomeDAM poet,
BINGO!
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Absolutely agree on all points. First thing I thought of.
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The biggest problem with education today as I see it is the disruption caused by policies that were tried on a mass scale without even an ounce of evidence that they would work — and in many cases, without even defining what “work” means.
“Test To The Top” and “VAM bam, spank you ma’am” are perfect examples.
Success is defined simply as good test scores and “good” for those who set the cut scores means anything they want it to mean.
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[[Nodding my head]]
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No doubt that policy makers carry heavy blame for stupid practices and I have addressed them in many other posts. But for me, teachers are the last line of defense. I am encouraging teachers to take charge of their own instruction based on the best research we have available and not on beliefs. This makes instruction less susceptible to policy whims.
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The district in which I taught had a well thought out curriculum cycle. The first step in the process was research. Any new adoption had to be research based. The second step was to gather feedback from districts that may be doing the proposed adoption and arrange to visit the schools. The third step was to do an in-district small pilot, and evaluate the results. If the proposal made it this far, its adoption was phased in and adopted. Then, the program was evaluated.
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By the way, if the feds and states had to follow research, there would be no movement to privatize public education. There is no legitimate research to support this absurd move. Both Chile and Sweden tried, failed and regretted the attempt to toss public education into the free market. Their pitiful results mirror our own. There are winners, losers and increased segregation. The academic results are nothing to crow about as this is the wrong climate for education. Education works best in a stable, collaborative envronment with supports for struggling students and families. We know this from research.
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Retired teacher, we must have taught in the same district.
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And then there is the question of the meaning of “what works,” especially if you move beyond reading and math as the exemplars for discussion.
The What Works Clearing House is supposed to be the gold standard for research that is solid enough to guide practice–assuming there is no doubt about the aim in question and that the research has been developed in a way that says, in effect, that context does not matter.
I think that the whole discussion of evidence-based practice is an effort to tip the balance of decision making toward science and buckets of “proven” instructional methods. The emphasis on science-evidence-based practice–leaves behind the artistry and the humanity and sometimes idiosyncratic influences that change lives. I will grant that there are limited cases where scientific evidence is of some use but calls for evidence-based practice seem to me part of a larger agenda of reducing education to a system of management geared to standardized outcomes rather than: (a) respecting the judgment of teachers as they bring experience and wisdom to their work, (b) understanding that not everything worthy of attention under the auspices of schools can or should be reduced to a set of evidence-based “best practices” (c) believing that “proven effects” can be trusted when they depend on random assignments of students to “interventions,” (d) depending on studies conducted over relatively short periods of time or with longitudinal studies “forgetting” or minimizing the fact that nothing in education remains in a steady state–not policies, not resources, certainly not the lives of teachers, or students, or households.
The effects of a single teacher on any student are rarely known with certainty.
A man who was nearing retirement sent an email to me a couple of years ago. He hoped that I could put him in touch with his fifth grade teacher, way back in 1960s. He wanted to express his appreciation for her life-long influence on his professional activities as an architect and planner working on behalf of indigenous people. He said she had taught him about the meaning of “justice” and his personal responsibility for the welfare of others. I had the sad duty of informing him that his fifth grade teacher was dead. Proofs of the efficacy of teaching are often idiosyncratic…and perhaps they should be.
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Those of us that were mentors in my district worked in a study group using the “What Works,” two books from the clearinghouse. Most of the ideas were fairly generic as they applied to teaching in general. While there are certain overriding principles to follow, a lot of what teachers do relates to the specific discipline being taught. Some methods that work for an art teacher may not be effective for a math teacher or an ESL teacher, and vice versa.
Teachers often do not realize the impact they have had on students’ lives. That only becomes clear when students return for a visit. If they do return, it is usually an indication that the teacher has made an indelible impression on the the student.
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My students find me on Facebook and Linked-in, and tell me what I meant to them. One woman who has been corresponding with me for ever, is 34, was in my second grade!
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“What do teachers do when the research is inconclusive or when research findings conflict? He writes: ” Most informed people who have seen the evidence & heard from the experts,have reached an informed conclusion on climate change. This is a good thing and a matter of rigorous academic inquiry. I ask teachers & teacher leaders to apply the same academic rigor to instructional practice: to make our instructional decisions on what we know works – based on research. But, when I talk to teachers about instructional practice, I hear a lot of faith-based language. “I don’t believe in homework.”I believe in using round robin &popcorn reading.” The point is that professional educators must make decisions in line with the evidence, and keep reading, adjusting & employing their best professional judgement. That is the essence of being a professional.”
In the realm of education, there is always a ‘new’ idea or some theory some magic elixir that is ‘pushed and sold’ as better.
There is wonderful research into WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE, and how to effectively enable and facilitate it, — I know because I was the NYC cohort for the Pew THIRD LEVEL RESEARCH on the PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING — out of Harvard, to determine what is always present when kids learn.
It disappeared. If, after the research ended, I hadn’t seen the HUGE volumes ofNEW STANDARDS on the shelves at the District 2 office, or had I not received the updates from the LRDC (Univ of Pittsburgh’s staff developers who went across the nation with the research) I would not know that millions of dollars had been spent to prove this
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Which brings me to Daniel Willingham’s wonderful piece “Measured Approach or Magical Elixir? http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/fall2012/Willingham.pdf
how to Tell Good Science from Bad ” in The American Educator which discussed how magical’ elixirs –curricular and technology — are sold to school districts because no one demands EVIDENCE.
He WROTE this years ago, BEFORE THE CURRENT MARKETIZATION OF EDUCATION chichis selling virtual charter schools.
“The field of education is awash in conflicting goals, research “wars,” and profiteers” Unfortunately, distinguishing between good and bad science is not easy. evaluating whether or not a claim really is supported by good research is like buying a car. There’s an optimal solution to the problem, which is to read and digest all of the relevant research, but most of us don’t have time to execute the optimal solution”
… it’s hardly news that an educational reform idea attracted serious attention despite the fact that there was no evidence supporting it.”
“In education, there are no federal or state laws protecting consumers from bad educational practices.
Education researchers have never united as a field to agree on methods or curricula or practices that have sound scientific backing. That makes it very difficult for the non-expert simply to look to a panel of experts for the state of the art in education research. There are no universally acknowledged experts.
Every parent, administrator, and teacher is on his or her own. ”
“If that were uncommon, I would have had no reason to write this article or the book from which it is drawn: ‘When Can You Trust the Experts? How to Tell Good Science from Bad in Education’. ”
he goes on to offer a comparison to another professional practice that requires REAL INFORMATION AND education.
“Suppose you’re a doctor. You go through medical school and residency, learning the most up-to-date techniques and treatments. Then you go into family practice, and you’re an awesome doctor. But science doesn’t stand still once you’ve finished your training., more than 900,000 articles are published in medical journals each year?
“Medicine has solved this problem for practitioners by publishing annual summaries of research that boil down the findings to recommendations for changes in practice.’ Substantial scientific evidence is PUBLISHED if they ought to change their treatment of a particular condition.
My Essay using this piece and talking about this is at Magic Elixir: No Evidence required!
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
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There may be more agreement about what we means to be physically healthy than well educated, Diane. And think of all the dietary advice we’ve gotten from the medical profession that they now disavow-/starting with coffee!
It’s a dilemma. But first and foremost , as citizens we need to discuss purposes– and then in a common sense fashion question whether our means and ends are aligned
Thanks for reminding us that beliefs are not evidence–as important as they are in setting our sights.
Sent from my iPhone
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Thank you, Deb.
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Most of the homework I assigned in my English classes was to read a book the student enjoyed and then write about why he/she enjoyed that book and what they learned from it. I said, “If you don’t enjoy the book, return it to the library and find another one that you will enjoy.”
I’ve read research that says reading in school isn’t enough. Children also have to read outside of school too and that reading works best when the child is reading something he/she enjoys that isn’t being forced on them that they have to struggle with to stay awake and stay focused.
I remember in college reading homework for horribly written, boring textbooks. The text was so mind-numbing that it was as if I had fallen into a trance and didn’t remember anything I read so I read it again, and again, and again, took notes, high lighted passages and still couldn’t remember most of the facts I was supposed to remember so I could prove I read it when I took the TEST.
And those texts cost a lot of money.
The key to becoming a life-long learner is someone who loves reading and because they read so many books they enjoy reading, they gain a much higher literacy level with a much better chance to understand boring college textbooks. That’s what happened to me when I was growing up. I could read two SF/fantasy or historical fiction novels a day checked out from the library but seldom if ever did I make it through a chapter of homework from a textbook. And even if I did, when I woke up the next morning, whatever I was supposed to learn from that textbook was gone.
Learning should be fun … not torture. I know, it isn’t easy to make everything teachers are forced to teach fun (from the idiots at the top making most if not all of the decisions) for our students.
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Lloyd, we read the same research. And I couldn’t agree more, “The key to becoming a life-long learner is someone who loves reading …”
That love is developed by parents reading to their children starting as babies. My son turned bedtime into fun time. He let his boys choose the books they wanted read indepently; the books they wanted to someone else to read to them; and the person they wanted to read them: mother, dad, older brother, or the five-year-old with picture reading. He also started telling stories about the adventure of Rodeo Cat. Rodeo Cat by now has circled the world getting into all kinds of trouble and adventure. The boys can now chose the type of story they want Rodeo Cat to take: adventure, mystery, humorous…
I am always pulling young mothers’ ears about the importance of reading to their child. Read in their native tongue or take out read- alongs and follow with their child as s/he listens and follows the text. There is no excuse for not reading to their child. I have a solution for every excuse.
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Russ Walsh stated that “We need to follow the science and stop talking about our beliefs and start talking about the scientific research behind our instructional decision making.”
Russ, that is a given. That is why a must for every educator is a course in Philosophy of Education otherwise we have the blind leading the blind as in CC. Educators also need to study and understand human nature.
An outstanding researcher and most knowledgeable was John Dewey. He had his lab school in Chicago and a large family of his own to observe first hand plus he had his contemporary researchers. He was a philosopher but in his day philosophy and psychology merged into one study.
John Dewey’s works are anchored in Constructivism. In a Constructivist classroom all learning is contextualized; builds on prior knowledge. Children’s minds are activated in bridging prior knowledge to the new. Students interact with the text, fellow students, and teacher. Learning begins with the child and ends with the child.
John Dewey was emphatic about interaction for learning; learning can’t be on an abstract, passive mode. Learning is social. We don’t see with your eyes, or hear with your ears. We perceive with our whole being which is based upon our experiences.
Reading is a: Constructivists Process -the interaction of the reader with visual/perceptual (text, pictures, and graphics) and non visual/conceptual which includes background knowledge along with knowledge of the language structure: semantic, syntactic, and graphophonics systems. The reader uses these two sources of information to construct meaning. It is a selective process bringing together experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities. One must bring meaning to print before one can acquire meaning from it.
It is a strategic process- strategies used before, during, and after reading to achieve goals.
Phonics alone won’t make the text decodable and meaningful. Phonics is important for encoding, for spelling, but plays a minor part in reading. Plus, every rule is broken; there are too many exceptions. The direct teaching approach taxes the memory and all too often resulting in the students forgetting what they learned in isolation. When students are guided in constructing meaning via the interactive approach, they remember and make applications.
Emmanuel Kant, a philosopher in the 18th century purported that new information, new concepts, and new ideas can have meaning only when they can be related to something the individual already knows… Reason without experience is hallow. Experience without reason is aimless. You can’t expect people to reason their way through life- it won’t work
Piaget maintained concrete experiences are needed for learning to occur. He was a contemporary of John Dewey. He is also philosopher and psychologist plus a scientist.
Frank Smith, a psycholinguist, maintained that readers must bring meaning to print rather than expecting to receive meaning from it. As we become fluent readers we learn to rely more on what we already know, on what is behind the eyeballs and less on the print on the page in front of us. He purports that reading is an interactive process in which the reader uses two sources of information: perceptual and conceptual.
Marie Clay’s methodology reflects a philosophy and theories held by Kant, Dewey, Piaget, and Smith. She maintained that that the following conditions are necessary for learning: happy environment, freedom to explore, confidence, feeling of success, a challenge that can be met, hands on, modeling, and utilizing all senses.
Kenneth Goodman, psycholinguist, maintained that “the level of confidence of the reader at any point in time strongly affects the process. If the reader is unsure of the meaning being constructed, finds the text syntactically complex, the concept load heavy, or the concepts strange, then the reader becomes more tentative , more cautious, more careful.” “Like all language learning, developing literacy should be easy and pleasurable. It can be if it isn’t fractionated into arbitrarily sequenced abstract skills.”
Nancy Carlsson-Paige wrote in “Taking Back Childhood.”
We have decades of research in child development and neuroscience that tell us that young children learn actively — they have to move, use their senses, get their hands on things, interact with other kids and teachers, create, invent. But in this twisted time, young children starting public pre-K at the age of 4 are expected to learn through “rigorous instruction.”
Dr. Elkind in his book The Hurried Child states “Children who are confronted with demands to do math or to read before they have the requisite mental abilities may experience a series of demoralizing failures and begin to conceive of themselves as worthless. Such children not only acquire a sense of inferiority …children who experience repeated school failure are likely to acquire the orientation of learned helplessness as well as an abiding sense of inferiority.” P 109 Albert Einstein maintained, “Education is not the learning of facts but the training of the mind to think.”
Educators must develop thinking skills – the higher order thinking skills and not over load the memory with facts. Scores, grades, evaluations, assessments, punishments, discipline, rigidity, standardization, absence of context, divorced from individual experience all over shadow intrinsic motivation.
Jerome Bruner and Lev Vygotsky emphasize the importance of scaffolding – bridging the child’s prior knowledge to the new text. During reading continuous connections need to be made with the teacher modeling the thinking process and the skill of visualizing.
Howard Gardner maintained that understanding is not knowing a little bit about many different things. He maintained that there is a problem with knowing facts but not understanding the framework and the discipline needed to discover or to apply them. He states, “You can’t memorizing facts to any purpose.”
Besides using a text on the students readability level, the type of text is important. Mostly narratives need to be used for the teaching of reading in the primary grades. Characters with a problem, searching for a solution can more readily capture reader’s attention and even a desire to read. Besides, narratives provide human experiences with a moral/ethical component. Good writers help the readers to understand: an experience, themselves, other people, themselves in the world in relation to nature, to God, and to themselves. How well I remember my six-year-old granddaughter having to read in class a story about animal teeth. How exciting! Ugh! The children were expected to respond in writing, regurgitate facts. Because she was read to every night at home, she went off on a five page narrative of how a young girl, hoping to find money under her pillow found Vampire Bat teeth. Narratives, furthermore, lend themselves to dramatizing – so vital in developing reading skills.
Most informational text develop only two higher order thinking skills – comparing and analyzing of information- on the lower range of Bloom’s taxonomy. According to Einstein the imagination was more important than knowledge.
Russ mentioned a few beliefs and disbeliefs of teachers. I don’t believe in busy homework for the children. They need time at home to play outside and later to do recreational reading. The parents need time to read to their children. The Commission on Reading in a Nation of Readers purported The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children.”
Dr. Carmelita Williams , former president of the NRA stated “You do not have to read every night- just on the nights you eat.”
I don’t believe in standardized test for primary children any student; assessment, definitely. Like Finland give a standardize test at the end of 12th grade. As Einstein stated, “I believe in standardizing automobiles. I do not believe in standardizing human beings. Standardization is a great peril which threatens American culture.” He also stated, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
As regards for the Round Robin reading; it is for the birds!!!!!!!!! Partner reading, yes- Round Robin reading serves no purpose except to make some children feel inferior. Some children cannot read out loud to save themselves. I had a student once who scored in the high 90% on his standardized test but sounded like a non-reader when reading aloud. He hesitated, repeated, paused… yes, he had a learning disability but very intelligent. It is cruel to make some students read aloud if they didn’t even have a chance to practice the passage prior to being called on.
Also, if teachers want their students to progress they must instruct them on their readability level, which isn’t necessarily grade level. Again, I had a second grade, non-English-speaking student assigned to me. For weeks he just sat not saying a word. The psychologist began to wonder if he was mentally challenged. However, one day he uttered one word in response to a question; I knew he understood. We went sailing after that and he ended up reading on a third grade reading level by the end of the year.
Play, especially dramatizing stories, certainly is conducive to understanding and developing the imagination.
And that brings me to my final point: guided reading. The students need guided reading daily in the primary grades- not reading in a test mode. Reading in test mode is the process of students reading a text and answering questions or telling the teacher about what s/he read. Children need guided reading during which time higher order thinking skills are developed.
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Thank you for a very detailed post. I’d like to forward this to my daughter’s teacher and principal.
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Mary Falco,
I did not see your post before I wrote mine and I most definitely agree! Very insightful and well-written post!!
Einstein also said that “play is the highest form of research” –one amongst many excellent reasons for supporting and scaffolding children’s learning through exploration and experimentation, i.e., play.
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Mary, I agree with everything you say here. Reads like my outline for an education foundations. I agree my argument should be a given. That it is not is my reason for writing this post.
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I think this argument holds water for just so long. I do happen to believe that every child has a right to their childhood. If that taints my views on the evils I think young children should be protected from, based on my professional experiences in nearly 50 years as an educator and my knowledge of research on child development, intrinsic motivation and the young child’s need for hands-on learning within meaningful contexts, so be it. I think that means not requiring that little kids do the same things as older children and not implementing methods that are inconsistent with developmentally appropriate practice for children’s ages and stages.
To my mind, that means not requiring infants, toddlers, Preschoolers and Kindergartners to “sit down, sit still and be quiet” for long periods of time and also not subjecting them to lectures, drilling, practicing isolated skills devoid of meaning and doing homework –beyond an assignment for their parents to read to them every day. There’s bound to be plenty of homework in their futures, especially if they go to college (where students are generally expected to spend three hours outside of class studying and doing homework for every hour spent in class), but they will never get another childhood, so for decades, I have refused to rob them of that.
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All education is ideological. Those who insist on perpetuating the illusion of pure, empirical clinicism are, more often than not, only masking their own ideological (or commercial) agenda. Why don’t we drop the pretense? There’s no shame in belief except when it wears the cloak of science.
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I do not feel we can test learning the way we test climate. In order for me to “believe” that research is good, the author will have to admit that it is observational and not quantitative. Any so-called measurement of how well a technique is working will have to be based on an observation, not a measurement in the classical scientific sense of the word.
Moreover, we should not use a method just because that method is a good one. It must also be sustainable within a framework of money that is budgeted and time available. It must fit into the necessary framework of what the teacher feels needs to be the scope of the course. Only then is it of any worth.
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There is much here to consider. Isn’t there an important difference between the worldview of those who gravitate toward “this practice has been shown ‘to work'” and those who utter “I believe in such and such practice”? Philosophers of education and science have explained why we are disposed toward one or the other. Teachers, of course, run the gamut on these but largely because of their experiences. John Dewey long advocated theory first but that takes time and inclination to operate from that most educators don’t have the luxury of having experienced. How might this support be extended, Mr. Walsh?
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I would love to say that school leadership could extend a theoretical/reasearch oriented approach, but the evidence does not support this. Administrators seem, in many cases, to be all too driven by the political environment around them and not well enough informed on sound practice. So my own best hope is in the classroom teacher working together with colleagues to improve practice in professional learning communities, which are informed by data, but not driven by data.
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When the so called “leader” of the free world, the President of the U.S.A., does not listen to those with scientific expertise, when he follows his own personal “beliefs” when it suits him, the example is set. Much educational theory and PRAXIS is tentative, unsettled, and seems to be shifting all the time. Many teachers with years experience who I’ve spoken to comment that pedogogical issues in their lifetime have been swingging back and forth since they started teaching. At the same time, teachers like myself, simply try and make the best of it in individual classrooms, each of us with unique contextual circumstances. At the same time, political leaders; (1) conservatives and privatization with so called choice models argue against (2) democratically run public schools that are governed with state top down policies and a myrid set of rules- some that are contradiction with other rules. Each of us as teachers, meet daily with large numbers of students who really don’t care a wit about the issues spoken about above in (1) and (2). They simply want to know what it is they are suppose to learn and what the expectations are to pass the class. And, does it make sense in their world view?
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I don’t see educational practice as repeated pendulum swings, but as an imperfect, but overall forward moving effort to improve practice. It is always tentative, always challenging, but it must also always be informed.
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Mont, you sounded like you are in the army when you said, “They (large numbers of students) simply want to know what it is they are suppose to learn and what the expectations are to pass the class. And, does it make sense in their world view?”
Students rebel in one way or another in that type of atmosphere.
Leo Buscalglia (known as Dr. Love because his warm heart just oozed from his lips) maintained, “essence of education is not to stuff you full of facts, but to help you discover your uniqueness, to teach you how to develop it, and then show you how to give it away” (Living, Loving Learning, p.10). Buscaglia “discussed the idea that by treating all learners as the same we are missing the point of education and deprive learners of the joy of learning. The children’s emotional well-being is considered of primary importance over academic “
Research shows that constructivist learning is congruent with how the brain learns. There is plenty of research to prove, that constructivist education is the best way for learners to learn- interactive, anchored in personal experience – contextualized.
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Mary… YOU nailed it! That is what I did for 4 decades in many subjects and grades, and why my students tell me that I enabled them as learners.
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This article hit my heart strings!! For the past few years, I have thought education practice has not kept up with education research. We are slow to accept obivious answers to decade old problems. As educators, we should view ourselves as “in practice” the same as doctors. We should respond based on the lastest and most update to date information given it is valid and based on data.
In response to the question at hand, when the research conflicts or is inclusiveness decisions should be made based on two factors alone: is it what’s best for students? Will it help more than harm?
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According to my doctoral training, we are not in a position to say there is one right way to do things in education. This will probably always be the case, since human beings are idiosyncratic. It’s a disservice to operate as if one-size-fits-all, hence we need to provide differentiated instruction.
That said, if we want to be able to reach each child, we need a lot of different tools in our tool boxes, so I agree how important it is for educators to keep up to date on research, which could aid us in reaching outliers and improving our practices.
Some people here have commented about the difficulty in obtaining info about research, but I disagree. I’ve found many ways to access scholarly reports on current research in education, such as via the American Educational Research Association (AERA), which has Divisions and Special Interest Groups (SIGs) for people with different interests and specialties, so I recommend joining AERA: http://www.aera.net
I also suggest joining a specialized professional association (SPA) for your field of expertise, since virtually all of them publish journals, issue position statements and have standards, which are typically based on research. such as the following:
Education SPAs
American Association for Health Education (AAHE)
http://shapeamerica.org
American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL)
http://www.actfl.org/
American Library Association (ALA)
http://ala.org
Association for Childhood Education International (ACEI)
http://acei.org
Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT)
http://www.aect.org
Association for Middle Level Education (Formerly National Middle School Association) (AMLE | NMSA)
http://amle.org
Council for Exceptional Children (CEC)
http://cec.sped.org
Division for Early Childhood (DEC) of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC)
http://www.dec-sped.org/
Educational Leadership Constituent Council (ELCC)
http//www.nassp.org
International Literacy Association (International Reading Association) (ILA | IRA)
http://www.reading.org
International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)
http://www.iste.org
International Technology And Engineering Educators Assn. Council on Technology Teacher Education (ITEEA/CTTE)
http://www.iteea.org
National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)
http://naeyc.org
National Association for Sport & Physical Education (NASPE)
http://www.shapeamerica.org
National Association of Gifted Children (NAGC)
http://nagc.org
National Association of School Psychologists (NASP)
http://nasp.org
National Association of Secondary School Principals
National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS)
http://ncss.org
National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)
http://ncte.org
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM)
http://nctm.org
National Science Teachers Association (NSTA)
http://www.nsta.org/
North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE)
http://naaee.org/
Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)
http://www.tesol.org/
World Association for Infant Mental Health (WAIMH)
http://www.waimh.org
Zero to Three
http://www.zerotothree.org
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Great listing! Thanks homeless educator!
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I’ve just started watching and thought others might be interested in seeing this AERA video of the lecture, “The Limits of Schooling, the Power of Poverty:”
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An important thing that Charles Payne said in this video is that, in these times, it would be a big mistake to focus on what schools, teachers and kids can’t do, because that’s just fodder for all the people with power now who want to blow up the public school system and replace it with something else.
Instead, we should be underscoring the many positive things that are happening in public education. That would include increasing graduation rates, NAEP scores and parent mentor programs.
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