Vanderbilt research landed on two Education Week top 10 lists for 2014.
The prestigious trade journal’s research blog, Inside School Research, listed a story on kindergarten research co-authored by Mimi Engel, assistant professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of education and human development, as its No. 1 story for 2014. In the study, Engel and her colleagues found kindergarten teachers report spending much of their math instructional time teaching students basic counting skills and how to recognize geometric shapes—skills the students have already mastered before ever setting foot in the kindergarten classroom. The findings revealed a misalignment between what the students are being taught and what they already know.
The No. 10 most visited story on the blog’s list was about a 2012 Peabody Research Institute study on play-based learning. The story has made the top-ten list for three years running.
In addition, a commentary written by Engel and several colleagues on kindergarten classrooms, The Case for the New Kindergarten: Challenging and Playful, was ranked fifth on “Top Education Commentaries of 2014: Education Week’s Most-Viewed” list. The opinion piece talks about the “new kindergarten,” which is more academically challenging than ever before, and the new challenges kindergarten teachers, parents and students face.