Ideas In Action
Combining language richness with teacher professional development could close achievement gap
Nov. 25, 2013—A new approach to teaching pre-kindergarten could take a bite out of the achievement gap and level the playing field for America’s growing population of English language learners, according to a published study by researchers at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of education and human development.
Pre-K promise, new research on early learning
Nov. 25, 2013—Positive interactions in a pre-kindergarten classroom may be equally or more important to the future academic development of 4-year-olds than learning letters and numbers, according to Dale Farran, senior associate director of the Peabody Research Institute at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College.
Language intervention grants target children with autism
Nov. 25, 2013—Peabody professors Paul Yoder and Ann Kaiser are recipients of new grants from the National Institutes of Health Autism Centers of Excellence (ACE). Yoder and Kaiser of Vanderbilt have received ACE grants to study language interventions for young children. “Early intervention with autism is one of the big success stories,” said Paul Yoder, professor of...
Fall 2013 Texts
Nov. 25, 2013— Homeschooling in America: Capturing and Assessing the Movement; Joseph Murphy; Corwin, 2012 More than 2 million children in the United States are now homeschooled, up from only 15,000 40 years ago, but little research has been done on the academic and social outcomes of this student population. In a first-of-its-kind analysis, Joseph Murphy examined...
Most math being taught in kindergarten is old news to students
Nov. 22, 2013—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 setting foot in the kindergarten classroom, new research finds.
Not all reading disabilities are dyslexia
Nov. 22, 2013—A common reading disorder goes undiagnosed until it becomes problematic, according to the results of five years of study by researchers at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College in collaboration with the Kennedy Krieger Institute/Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Results of the study were recently published online by the National Institutes of Health. Dyslexia, a reading disorder in...
Early spatial reasoning predicts later creativity and innovation, especially in STEM fields
Nov. 22, 2013—Exceptional spatial ability at age 13 predicts creative and scholarly achievements more than 30 years later, according to results from a Vanderbilt University longitudinal study, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Team incentives alone do not boost student performance
Nov. 22, 2013—In recent years, policymakers concerned with how to compensate teachers have increasingly sought to tie teacher pay to student outcomes. Market-minded education reformers have also begun to experiment by offering incentives to teachers who demonstrably add value to students’ education. But how effective are such programs? Does altering traditional compensation practices actually improve teaching and...
Faculty Notes and Honors
Nov. 22, 2013—Leonard Bickman was named professor of psychology, emeritus. Vera A. Stevens Chatman was named professor of human and organizational development, emerita. Chatman will also be inducted into the Academy for Women of Achievement by the YWCA of Nashville and Middle Tennessee and First Tennessee. Sun-Joo Cho, assistant professor of psychology, has received a National Academy...
Peabody professor receives AERA Outstanding Book Award
Nov. 22, 2013—The American Educational Research Association (AERA) presented its 2013 Outstanding Book Award to Vanderbilt University professor Christopher Loss for Between Citizens and the State: The Politics of American Higher Education in the 20th Century (Princeton University Press, 2012) in April. Loss’s book tracks the dramatic results of the federal government’s growing involvement in higher education...
Ford wins SEC Faculty Achievement Award
Nov. 22, 2013—Donna Ford, professor of special education, is one of 14 university professors recognized by the Southeastern Conference for achievement in research and scholarship. The SEC announced April 10 the winners of its 2013 Faculty Achievement Awards. These annual awards honor professors from the SEC’s 14 member universities who have meritorious records in teaching and scholarship...
Free Vanderbilt teacher professional development course to be offered online
Nov. 22, 2013—K-12 teachers across the country will have the opportunity to take a professional development course from Vanderbilt University faculty in 2014 via the university’s partnership with leading massive online open course provider Coursera. “Teacher professional development is one of the thorniest challenges in PreK-12 education. Teaching suffers because teachers lack the necessary networks of professional...