Teachers Weekly - November 2011 Archives
UC's spectacular campus has gained worldwide attention. Come spring, it will hold another unique feature for the community's littlest learners.
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 | Helping at-risk high schoolers succeed in the classroom has always been difficult. Binghamton University professor David Sloan Wilson thinks that he has a solution: design a school program that draws upon general theories of social behavior. ...> Full Article |
Previous positive psychology studies have shown the value of dispositional optimism and conscientiousness in the workplace; However, the academic context has not been particularly well studied as yet. In Icekson's study, each participant completed an anonymous self-report questionnaire, for which extra course credit was awarded.
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A provocative new article in the American Journal of Education argues that many teachers in the age of rigid curricula, high-stakes testing, and reduced classroom autonomy are finding it difficult to access the "moral rewards" of their profession. This demoralization of teaching threatens to drive away even the most passionate and dedicated of teachers.
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High school health classes fail to help students refuse sexual advances or endorse safe sex habits when teachers focus primarily on testing knowledge, a new study reveals. But when teachers emphasized learning the material for its own sake, and to improve health, students had much better responses. In these kinds of classrooms, students had lower intentions of having sex and felt better able to navigate sexual situations.
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Students with cognitive impairments may learn to comprehend written texts much better than commonly thought, according to Monica Reichenberg and Ingvar Lundberg, reading researchers and professors at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
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University of Illinois researchers have received funding from the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development for a series of workshops that will help researchers learn about physical activity in preschool-aged children.
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Preschool children who hear their parents describe the size and shape of objects and then use those words themselves perform better on tests of their spatial skills, researchers at the University of Chicago have found. The study is the first to show that learning to use a wide range of spatial words predicts children's later spatial thinking, which in turn is important in mathematics, science and technology.
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 | A new study from the University of Missouri shows that children who are abused can return to school and do well academically if teachers can help them control their emotions, pay attention to detail and stay motivated. ...> Full Article |
 | A new Web-based software package developed by Michigan State University educational researchers delivers tools to help teach writing skills formed through peer review and revision. A university/software company joint venture is distributing the new product to K-12 schools and colleges. ...> Full Article |
Linguistic features that are typical of academic and school-related language use are used more systematically by students in higher school years. Educational language can present a challenge for multilingual students, depending on when they first encountered the language of education. Promoting factors can include having a well developed mother tongue, which is why it is important for mother tongue teaching to be supported by the school. This is shown by a new thesis from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
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Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it's good for the student. That's the conclusion of a new study published in Perspectives in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
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A study of 436 pairs of identical and same-sex nonidentical twins at age 10 and again a year later at 11 finds that children's reading achievement at age 10 predicted their independent reading at 11, regardless of how much independent reading they were doing at 10. These findings suggest that reading achievement influenced later independent reading. The reverse was not found to be true.
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Researchers studying 1,300 mostly low-income children looked at demographic characteristics, household environment, parenting quality, and cortisol levels when the children were 7-24 months old and executive functions when the children were 3. They found that children in lower-income homes received less positive parenting and had higher levels of cortisol in their first two years than children in slightly better-off homes, and that higher levels of cortisol were associated with lower levels of executive function abilities.
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A study of 330 ethnically diverse 4-year-olds enrolled in 49 preschool classrooms used beginning- and end-of-year language skills assessments to find that that preschoolers' language growth was associated with the average level of language skills shown by their classmates. Researchers also found that relatively less-skilled pupils seemed to be more affected by their classmates' skills than highly skilled pupils. These findings bring into question the customary practice of tracking within preschool classrooms.
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Researchers gain greater insight into earthquake cycles
The millennium-old olive trees of the Iberian Peninsula are younger than expected
Science nugget: Lightning signature could help reveal the solar system's origins
Antarctic octopus sheds light on ice-sheet collapse
Power generation technology based on piezoelectric nanocomposite materials developed
Scientists make stunning inner space observations
Molecular spectroscopy tracks living mammalian cells in real time as they differentiate
Mini cargo transporters on a rat run
Women have bigger pupils than men
Novel radiation surveillance technology could help thwart nuclear terrorism
Purple sea urchin metamorphosis controlled by histamine
Scholars to apply facial recognition software to unidentified portrait subjects
World's largest digital camera project passes critical milestone
'Inhabitants of Madrid' ate elephants? meat and bone marrow 80,000 years ago
Robots fighting wars could be blamed for mistakes on the battlefield
X-rays create a window on glass formation
Can sound science guide dispersant use during subsea oil spills?
How Usain Bolt can run faster -- effortlessly
Jellyfish inspires latest ocean-powered robot
Growing market for human organs exploits poor
Chimpanzees have policemen, too
Can consuming caffeine while breastfeeding harm your baby?
Discovery of extremely long-lived proteins may provide insight into cell aging
Detailed picture of how myoV 'walks' along actin tracks
Enhancing cognition in older adults also changes personality
A new artificial intelligence technique to speed the planning of tasks when resources are limited
Film coatings made from whey
If a fat tax is coming, here's how to make it efficient, effective
The teacher is central to successful use of computers in schools
Real science in virtual school labs
Policy language regarding girls education often limiting, not empowering
Countries that best prepare math teachers share similarities