Ideas In Action
Benbow Appointed to Education Sector Board
Nov. 16, 2012—Dean Camilla Benbow has been appointed to the Board of Directors for the Washington, D.C., think tank Education Sector. Education Sector is a non-profit, non-partisan organization committed to achieving measurable impact in education, both through improving existing reform initiatives and by developing innovative solutions to pressing education problems. Its mission is to promote changes in...
Programs for Talented Youth Receives Grant to Aid Low-income Gifted Students
Nov. 16, 2012—Vanderbilt University’s Programs for Talented Youth at Peabody College will offer accelerated academic opportunities for up to 60 low-income gifted students through a $232,000 grant from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. Students from the highest-poverty urban and rural districts in Kentucky, Alabama and Tennessee will be recruited for participation in Vanderbilt Summer Academy, a summer...
New Peabody Graduates Fill Teaching Roles in Nashville’s Lowest-performing Middle Schools
Nov. 16, 2012—Fourteen students with a commitment to improving teaching in urban middle schools were the first to graduate May 11 from a two-year master’s program offered at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College in partnership with Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools. The Teaching and Learning in Urban Schools program was instituted in 2010, when Metro Schools Director Jesse Register approached...
Sengupta Receives NSF CAREER Award
Nov. 16, 2012—Pratim Sengupta has received recognition – and funding – for research he hopes will reshape elementary, middle and high school science as we know it. Sengupta, assistant professor of learning sciences and science education at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of education and human development, has won a prestigious Faculty Early Career Development award from the National...
Peabody’s Flores Co-develops Brief for U.S. Supreme Court in Support of University of Texas Diversity Policies
Nov. 16, 2012—Vanderbilt University’s Stella Flores was one of 21 researchers nationwide who developed an amicus brief summarizing key research on affirmative action in anticipation of the case, Fisher v. University of Texas, scheduled to go before the U.S. Supreme Court in October. The document was submitted by the Civil Rights Project at UCLA to the Supreme...
Parent-led Discussion Enhances Children’s Learning From Television
Nov. 16, 2012—Children learn more from television viewing when parents participate as they would during book reading, new research from Vanderbilt finds.
Students Displaced by School Closures Need High-quality Alternatives
Nov. 16, 2012—Closing schools can have negative effects on displaced students, but these ramifications can be counteracted if students are moved to schools that are substantially higher-performing. A new study from the RAND Corporation, Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College and Mathematica Policy Research finds that closing low-performing schools does not necessarily benefit their students and can undermine student...
Study Reveals Effects of Different Teaching Styles on Learning New Words
Nov. 16, 2012—Researchers at Peabody College are studying how people learn new words in hopes of determining optimal interventions for children who struggle with reading. A new educational neuroscience study offers clues on reading and plasticity in the brain that could lay the foundation for more targeted investigations of what types of training may work for particular...
Former Teachers’ Return to Classroom Feeds Workforce; Gender Differences Prevalent
Nov. 16, 2012—Former teachers may be an important source for the teacher labor supply, with as many as 30 percent of this population re-entering the field at some point, but who is most likely to return to the classroom after a hiatus? New research from Peabody College examines what factors affect teachers’ decisions to re-enter the teaching...
Sustaining, ‘Scaling Up’ Effective Practices of Urban High Schools Focus of Research
Nov. 16, 2012—The National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools at Peabody College announced in September the next phase of their partnership with Broward County Public Schools to study and “scale up” effective practices of these Florida high schools. As part of an ongoing, five-year study funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute on Education Sciences,...
Peabody Again Ranked Top Graduate Education School
Nov. 16, 2012—Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of education and human development maintained its No. 1 national ranking for the fourth consecutive year in the U.S. News & World Report annual ranking of graduate schools of education. Peabody has topped the rankings, selected through statistical indicators and expert opinions, since 2009. Its administration/supervision and special education programs were also...
Faculty Notes and Honors
Nov. 16, 2012—Kimberly Bess, assistant professor of human and organizational development, won the 2012 Harold Love Outstanding Community Involvement Award from the Tennessee Higher Education Commission. Laurie Cutting, Patricia and Rodes Hart Associate Professor of Special Education, was appointed to the Language and Communication Study Section of the Center for Scientific Review, National Institutes of Health. Kevin...