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"Economics Study and teaching (Middle school)"
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Science Educational Outreach Programs That Benefit Students and Scientists
Both scientists and the public would benefit from improved communication of basic scientific research and from integrating scientists into education outreach, but opportunities to support these efforts are limited. We have developed two low-cost programs--\"Present Your PhD Thesis to a 12-Year-Old\" and \"Shadow a Scientist\"--that combine training in science communication with outreach to area middle schools. We assessed the outcomes of these programs and found a 2-fold benefit: scientists improve their communication skills by explaining basic science research to a general audience, and students' enthusiasm for science and their scientific knowledge are increased. Here we present details about both programs, along with our assessment of them, and discuss the feasibility of exporting these programs to other universities.
Journal Article
Foundations of Financial Well-Being: Insights into the Role of Executive Function, Financial Socialization, and Experience-Based Learning in Childhood and Youth
During childhood and youth we build the foundations for financial well‐being later in life, acquiring the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and personality traits that enable us to manage our finances as adults. This article reviews literature from consumer science, developmental psychology, and allied fields to gain insight into moments during youthful development when interventions are likely to have greatest impact. We find promising avenues for influence during each developmental life stage. Many present truly novel approaches to financial education—such as focusing on improving executive function in young children (critical despite lacking apparent “financial content”), emphasizing financial attitude development through dual‐generation financial modeling for elementary and middle school students and their parents, or intentionally teaching financial heuristics and other practical skills to later adolescents and young adults. Overall, this article proposes a range of innovative strategies to improve financial education, from early childhood through young adulthood.
Journal Article
Converging Trajectories: Reading Growth in Language Minority Learners and Their Classmates, Kindergarten to Grade 8
Using longitudinal data on a nationally representative U.S. cohort, this study examined the roles of language minority (LM) status and English proficiency in English reading growth across the elementary and middle school years. Piecewise growth modeling was used to compare English reading growth trajectories for native English speakers and LM learners of differing initial English proficiency, with and without controlling for socioeconomic status. LM learners who enter kindergarten fluent in English catch up with native English speakers nationally by first grade and maintain nationally average levels through eighth grade. LM learners with initially limited English proficiency demonstrated English reading trajectories that remain substantially below national averages, but converge with those of their peers from similar socioeconomic backgrounds during middle school.
Journal Article
A Review of Middle School Vocabulary Interventions: Five Research-Based Recommendations for Practice
Purpose: The purpose of this tutorial is to explain key concepts about vocabulary acquisition and instruction and to translate research from middle school vocabulary interventions into practice recommendations for practitioners. In this tutorial, we consider the relationship between vocabulary and reading comprehension, describe vocabulary acquisition including the development of semantic networks, provide a review of high-quality middle school vocabulary studies, and make recommendations for practice. Method: We reviewed the experimental and quasi-experimental literature examining the impact of vocabulary instruction on the vocabulary and reading comprehension development of middle school students. We searched multiple electronic databases (e.g., PsycInfo, ERIC, Scopus, Google Scholar) using combinations of specific search terms (i.e., \"vocabulary,\" \"intervention,\" \"instruction,\" \"middle school,\" \"adolescent\"), searched reviews of vocabulary research, and conducted bibliographic searches of included studies. We then extracted information from each included study about the intervention, participants, and outcomes. Results: We identified 17 studies meeting our inclusion criteria. The majority of studies were conducted with students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds. Only 1 study focused exclusively on students with learning disabilities, language impairments, or reading disabilities, highlighting the need for more vocabulary experimental research studies with special populations of students in middle school. Conclusion: After reviewing the middle school studies, we make 5 recommendations based on the literature: (a) teach vocabulary intentionally, (b) teach independent word-learning strategies (morphological analysis), (c) focus on developing semantic networks, (d) increase opportunities to use new words in discussion and writing, and (e) provide a motivating and language-rich learning environment.
Journal Article
Who Benefits from KIPP?
The nation's largest charter management organization is the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP). KIPP schools are emblematic of the No Excuses approach to public education, a highly standardized and widely replicated charter model that features a long school day, an extended school year, selective teacher hiring, strict behavior norms, and emphasizes traditional reading and math skills. No Excuses charter schools are sometimes said to target relatively motivated high achievers at the expense of students who are more difficult to teach, including limited English proficiency (LEP) and special education (SPED) students, as well as students with low baseline achievement levels. We use applicant lotteries to evaluate the impact of KIPP Academy Lynn, a KIPP school in Lynn, Massachusetts that typifies the KIPP approach. Our analysis focuses on special needs students that may be underserved. The results show average achievement gains of 0.36 standard deviations in math and 0.12 standard deviations in reading for each year spent at KIPP Lynn, with the largest gains coming from the LEP, SPED, and low-achievement groups. Average reading gains are driven almost entirely by SPED and LEP students, whose reading scores rise by roughly 0.35 standard deviations for each year spent at KIPP Lynn. © 2012 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.
Journal Article
How Does the Geography Curriculum Contribute to Education for Sustainable Development? Lessons from China and the USA
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) must play an important part in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and, while it may be advanced through harnessing the unique advantages of the geography curriculum, connections between the geography curriculum and sustainable development competencies have not yet been systematically investigated in China and America. In order to explore the value of geography education in promoting learner competencies in sustainable development, we conducted a detailed analysis of China’s geography curriculum standards and American geography curriculum standards, and explored the potential contribution of the geography curriculum to ESD. Learning objectives in China’s geography curriculum standards for middle school (98 items) and high school (141 items), and American geography curriculum standards for middle school (80 items) and high school (85 items) were analyzed using content analysis supported by WordStat 8.0. Our findings suggest that geography education plays an important role in cultivating learners’ cognition and ability regarding sustainable development, although there remains much room for improvement in cultivating learner attitudes and values towards ESD.
Journal Article
The undergraduate economics coursework of elementary and secondary school teachers
In this study, the authors analyze the undergraduate economics coursework of U.S. college graduates who became pre-college classroom teachers. The results show that teachers successfully completed on average the equivalent of about half an economics course in their undergraduate coursework. About 6 in 10 teachers earned no course credits in economics. Of teachers certified to teach social studies-the ones most likely to teach economics-40 percent did not take an undergraduate course in economics. The percentages are 19 percent for high school teachers, 48 percent for middle school teachers, and 76 percent for elementary school teachers. High school teachers certified to teach social studies completed an average of only about one and a half economics courses as undergraduates.
Journal Article
Patterns of Literacy among U.S. Students
How well do U.S. students read? In this article, Sean Reardon, Rachel Valentino, and Kenneth Shores rely on studies using data from national and international literacy assessments to answer this question. In part, the answer depends on the specific literacy skills assessed. The authors show that almost all U.S. students can \"read\" by third grade, if reading is defined as proficiency in basic procedural word-reading skills. But reading for comprehension—integrating background knowledge and contextual information to make sense of a text—requires a set of knowledge-based competencies in addition to word-reading skills. By the standards used in various large-scale literacy assessments, only about a third of U.S. students in middle school possess the knowledge-based competencies to \"read\" in this more comprehensive sense. This low level of literacy proficiency does not appear to be a result of declining performance over time. Literacy skills of nine-year-olds in the United States have increased modestly over the past forty years, while the skills of thirteen- and seventeen-year-olds have remained relatively flat. Literacy skills vary considerably among students, however. For example, the literacy skills of roughly 10 percent of seventeen-year-olds are at the level of the typical nine-year-old. This variation is patterned in part by race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic background. Black and Hispanic students enter high school with average literacy skills three years behind those of white and Asian students; students from low-income families enter high school with average literacy skills five years behind those of high-income students. These are gaps that no amount of remedial instruction in high school is likely to eliminate. And while the racial and ethnic disparities are smaller than they were forty to fifty years ago, socioeconomic disparities in literacy skills are growing. Nor is the low level of literacy skills particularly a U.S. phenomenon. On international comparisons, American students perform modestly above average compared with those in other developed countries (and well above average among a larger set of countries). Moreover, there is no evidence that U.S. students lose ground relative to those in other countries during the middle school years. Thus, although literacy skills in the United States are lower than needed to meet the demands of modern society, the same is true in most other developed countries.
Journal Article
Classroom Effects on Children's Achievement Trajectories in Elementary School
This nonexperimental, longitudinal field study examines the extent to which variation in observed classroom supports (quality of emotional and instructional interactions and amount of exposure to literacy and math activities) predicts trajectories of achievement in reading and math from 54 months to fifth grade. Growth mixture modeling detected two latent classes of readers: fast readers whose skills developed rapidly and leveled off and a typical group for which reading growth was somewhat less rapid. Only one latent class was identified for math achievement. For reading, there were small positive associations between observed emotional quality of teacher-child interactions and growth. Growth in math achievement showed small positive relations with observed emotional interactions and exposure to math activities. There was a significant interaction between quality and quantity of instruction for reading such that at higher levels of emotional quality there was less of a negative association between amount of literacy exposure and reading growth.
Journal Article