Ideas In Action

  • Laurie Cutting

    Not all reading disabilities are dyslexia

    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. Read More

    Nov 22, 2013

  • Early spatial reasoning predicts later creativity and innovation, especially in STEM fields

    Early spatial reasoning predicts later creativity and innovation, especially in STEM fields

    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. Read More

    Nov 22, 2013

  • Team incentives alone do not boost student performance

    Team incentives alone do not boost student performance

    Matthew Springer 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… Read More

    Nov 22, 2013

  • Faculty Notes and Honors

    Faculty Notes and Honors

    Sun-Joo Cho 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… Read More

    Nov 22, 2013

  • Vanderbilt University

    Peabody professor receives AERA Outstanding Book Award

    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… Read More

    Nov 22, 2013

  • Ford wins SEC Faculty Achievement Award

    Ford wins SEC Faculty Achievement Award

    Donna Ford 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… Read More

    Nov 22, 2013

  • Marcy Singer Gabella

    Free Vanderbilt teacher professional development course to be offered online

    Marcy Singer-Gabella 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… Read More

    Nov 22, 2013

  • Dean’s Message

    Dean’s Message

    Vanderbilt’s Peabody College begins the 2013–14 academic year with nearly a dozen new faculty members, 400 new master’s degree or Ed.D. students, and 35 new Ph.D. students—not to mention our usual complement of highly qualified undergraduates. We are excited! Our enthusiasm is also prompted by the establishment of a new… Read More

    Nov 22, 2013

  • Vanderbilt University

    Frequent moves hinder children’s early education

    The present housing crisis has disrupted the residential stability of families, which is adversely affecting many children’s educational development, according to researchers at Peabody College. Read More

    Nov 18, 2013

  • Peabody Welcomes New Faculty for 2013-2014

    Peabody Welcomes New Faculty for 2013-2014

    Department of Human and Organizational Development Sarah VanHooser Suiter (Ph.D., Vanderbilt, 2009), associate professor of the practice of human and organizational development, previously with Centerstone Research Institute Allison Patten McGuire (Ph.D., Vanderbilt, 2005), lecturer in human and organizational development Department of Leadership, Policy and Organizations Angela Boatman (Ed.D., Harvard, 2012)… Read More

    Nov 18, 2013

  • Vanderbilt’s Peabody No. 1 education school for fifth consecutive year

    Vanderbilt’s Peabody No. 1 education school for fifth consecutive year

    In March, Peabody College was named the top graduate school of education in the country for the fifth consecutive year by U.S. & News World Report. Peabody bested programs at Johns Hopkins University (No. 2) and Harvard (No. 3) for the top spot, in addition to having its programs in… Read More

    Nov 18, 2013

  • Redesigning Financial Aid System Could Make College More Accessible and Affordable

    Redesigning Financial Aid System Could Make College More Accessible and Affordable

    Vanderbilt University Professor William Doyle proposes a means of curbing college costs by replacing the existing federal aid system with a more-efficient model that emphasizes need-based aid and changing the way student loans are repaid to lower the default rate. With the largest declines in real average family incomes among those in the lowest 20 percent of the population, he argues that such reforms are crucial if college is to be more accessible and affordable. Read More

    Oct 23, 2013

  • Peabody, Vanderbilt Brain Institute Launch the Nation’s First Doctorate in Educational Neuroscience

    Peabody, Vanderbilt Brain Institute Launch the Nation’s First Doctorate in Educational Neuroscience

    Vanderbilt University is leading the way in research that merges the fields of education and neuroscience by launching the country’s first Ph.D. program in educational neuroscience. Read More

    Nov 16, 2012

  • Examining the Educational Trajectories

    Examining the Educational Trajectories

    Public school students who successfully complete English as a Second Language or bilingual education programs within three years appear to fare better in meeting basic math and reading proficiency standards than their peers who remain enrolled in language acquisition courses for five years or more. Read More

    Nov 16, 2012

  • Higher Education, Federal Government ‘Intimately Connected’

    Higher Education, Federal Government ‘Intimately Connected’

    Between Citizens and the State: The Politics of American Higher Education in the 20th Century; Christopher P. Loss; Princeton University Press, 2011 Where would American higher education be without government support for research and student aid? Not where it is today, says Peabody College researcher Christopher Loss, who examines… Read More

    Nov 16, 2012

  • Benbow Appointed to Education Sector Board

    Benbow Appointed to Education Sector Board

    Camilla P. Benbow 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… Read More

    Nov 16, 2012

  • Programs for Talented Youth Receives Grant to Aid Low-income Gifted Students

    Programs for Talented Youth Receives Grant to Aid Low-income Gifted Students

    Tamra Stambaugh 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… Read More

    Nov 16, 2012

  • New Peabody Graduates Fill Teaching Roles in Nashville’s Lowest-performing Middle Schools

    New Peabody Graduates Fill Teaching Roles in Nashville’s Lowest-performing Middle Schools

    Lanette Waddell 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,… Read More

    Nov 16, 2012

  • Sengupta Receives NSF CAREER Award

    Sengupta Receives NSF CAREER Award

    Pratim Sengupta 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… Read More

    Nov 16, 2012

  • Peabody’s Flores Co-develops Brief for U.S. Supreme Court in Support of University of Texas Diversity Policies

    Peabody’s Flores Co-develops Brief for U.S. Supreme Court in Support of University of Texas Diversity Policies

    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… Read More

    Nov 16, 2012