Tag Archives: education

By Karene Booker

Local early childhood program hosts Cornell undergraduate

Local early childhood program hosts Cornell undergraduate

A new workshop series for local daycare programs teaches state-of-the-art theory and methods and gives back to community partners who provide Cornell undergraduates with experiential learning opportunities.

Elizabeth Stilwell, Lecturer in the Department of Human Development, was awarded a grant from the Cornell Public Service Center to train early childhood teachers and administrators in Tompkins County. The program targets the many dedicated daycare providers who take on additional responsibility and spend countless hours supervising Cornell student field placements.

The new course is based on the full semester course at Cornell, The Role and Meaning of Play. Stilwell adapted it to address the unique role that early childhood teachers and administrators have in fostering play in children’s lives.  The course covers the developmental importance of play, how it shapes the mind, opens the imagination and supports life-long learning.

“Many teachers have asked about auditing a course in child development at Cornell.” said Stilwell. “They are interested in knowing more about what the students they host are learning.  The grant allowed me to provide the course and books at no cost to the participants.  I planned to limit the course to 15 but in the first two days, 18 registered!   This is a way to acknowledge and appreciate their role in continuing to support service learning for Cornell undergraduate students.   These field experiences are what bring student learning to life, as they apply theory to practice.”

student intern

Student intern leading activity with children

“I am really enjoying the class on play!” said Ellen Garcia, a teacher at the University Cooperative Nursery School. “First of all, I love getting new ideas and strategies to use in the classroom.  I also like to have the research-based information to make me confident in what I'm doing and to understand what Cornell students are learning so I can make their experience better.  And finally, teaching young children can be isolating. I love getting to know other teachers so that I can use them as resources as well.”

In addition to support from the Faculty Fellows in Service grant from the Cornell Public Service Center, the project collaborates with the Ithaca City School District and the Child Development Council of Ithaca.

By Karene Booker

Gary Evans

Evans

Children in low-income families lag behind their higher-income counterparts on virtually all measures of achievement, and this gap tends to increase over time. There are many reasons why, but a Cornell environmental psychologist and his colleagues add a new culprit to the list: chronic stress from adverse neighborhood and family conditions.

Chronic stress, in addition to parents not investing much time in cognitively stimulating their children, "can hinder children's cognitive functioning and undermine development of the skills necessary to perform well in school," says Gary Evans, professor of design and environmental analysis and of human development, who has been studying the effects of poverty on children for more than two decades.

"Their homes, schools and neighborhoods are much more chaotic than those of their higher-income counterparts," he added. "They live with such stressors as pollution, noise, crowding, poor housing, inadequate school buildings, schools and neighborhoods with high turn-over, family conflict, family separation, and exposure to violence and crime. These conditions can produce toxic stress capable of damaging areas of the brain associated with attention, memory and language that form the foundation for academic success."

Writing in the winter issue of the magazine Pathways, a magazine on poverty, inequality and social policy published by the Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality at Stanford University, Evans and Columbia University's Jeanne Brooks-Gunn and Princeton's Pamela Kato Kebanov describe their Risk-Stress Model. They point to research that shows how growing up in poverty is linked with dramatically increased risk factors and how this elevated risk is linked to higher stress levels among poor children.

They also describe their reanalysis of a national dataset of very young at-risk children to explore the relationship between family income and blood pressure and body mass index. Both are measures of stress, reflecting wear and tear on the body and are precursors of lifelong health problems.

The researchers found that babies growing up in low-income neighborhoods had health trajectories indicative of elevated chronic stress. Disturbingly, these patterns emerged very early in the lives of these children.

The authors also examined the link between chronic stress and achievement. There is some evidence that several areas of the brain -- language, long-term memory, working memory and executive control -- are sensitive to childhood poverty. New data are beginning to shed light on the question of whether these differences are attributable to cumulative risk and stress, Evans said.

In a recent follow-up in a longitudinal study of children in poverty, Evans and colleagues found that working memory at age 17 deteriorated in direct relation to the number of years the children lived in poverty. Importantly, this effect only occurred among the low-income children with chronically elevated physiological stress. Early childhood poverty did not lead to working memory deficits among children who had somehow escaped the stress that usually accompanies poverty.

Childhood poverty leads to lower academic and occupational achievement, in part, because the multiple risks typically faced by children growing up in poverty lead to chronic stress, which in turn, negatively affects children's cognitive abilities to succeed in school.

"We don't dispute the important roles of cognitive stimulation and parenting styles in socio-economic status differences in children's cognitive development," Evans says. "However if this new pathway is confirmed, it suggests new ways of understanding and ultimately intervening to break the income-achievement gap."

 

Thomas E. Fuller-RowellAttending a high-achieving school can increase the social cost of achievement for students of color for allegedly "acting white" among their peers, according to a new study in the November/December issue of Child Development.

Thomas E. Fuller-Rowell '10, HD graduate and now research fellow at the University of Michigan, led researchers at Cornell in analyzing data on more than 100,000 students of black, white, Asian, Native American and Hispanic students in grades 7-12 from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. They compared students' grade point averages with a measure of students' feelings of loneliness, social support, and sense of belonging.

"We already know that social acceptance is one of the primary concerns of adolescence,” said Fuller-Rowell. “If achievement comes at a social cost, there are obviously going to be differences in teenagers' motivation to achieve." Read the full story

By Karene Booker

students in classroomWhen assessing education, much attention goes to the administrative control of the school district, teaching and testing. But little goes to the growing evidence that where learning occurs matters. American school buildings are aging and in disrepair, with the worst conditions found in those that serve low-income children.

Low building quality negatively affects student achievement, and this effect is exacerbated when students change schools often; both conditions are more often found in low-income districts, according to a new study by Cornell researchers Gary Evans, professor of design and environmental analysis; Min Jun Yoo, M.S. '08; and John Sipple, associate professor of education; and published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology (Vol. 30).

The researchers studied the relation between school building quality and student stability, socio-economic background and scores on standardized achievement tests in 511 public elementary schools in the New York City school system. Prior studies had confirmed a link between building quality and student performance independent of socio-economic status, but most did not address the question of why. One study provided a clue. It indicated that one reason for this relationship was because of absenteeism. Independent of socio-economic status, students in poorer quality buildings were absent more often. Students do not learn as much if they spend less time in school.

Thus, Evans and his colleagues investigated how student mobility might also contribute to the linkage between school building quality and student achievement.

"We found that students attending schools with lower building quality and those attending schools with high student mobility had lower test scores," says environmental psychologist Evans.

Furthermore, they found that when these two risk factors were combined, it was particularly damaging to academic achievement. These negative effects on test scores occurred independently of socio-economic and racial composition of the school. Further research at the individual student and teacher levels may shed light on the mechanisms for these synergistic effects.

While it is widely understood that teacher experience, curriculum and school social climate influence children's learning, this study underscores the importance of the physical environment as well. It is the first study to demonstrate the interaction between the condition of school facilities and student mobility.

"Our findings highlight a serious issue in American education -- inequality," says Evans. "Although we controlled for socio-economic status and race in our analysis, in reality low-income children are both more likely to change schools and more likely to attend schools with lower quality buildings. We conclude that the school environment contributes to the income-achievement gap and, therefore, warrants greater attention."

The study was supported in part by the New York City Department of Education, the William T. Grant Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Network for Socioeconomic Status and Health.

Reference

Evans, G.W., Yoo, M.J. & Sipple, J. (2010). The ecological context of student achievement: School building quality effects are exacerbated by high levels of student mobility.  Journal of Environmental Psychology, 30, 239-244.

Equal Justice Under LawLast semester a team of instructional designers worked with Dr. Charles Brainerd to enrich his current course "Memory and the Law" with interactive content, quizzes, additional links, and video of his lectures. The Memory and the Law course at Cornell is a cross-college course (Law/Human Ecology) and students in this course come from very different backgrounds. The course is lecture-based, and the units of the course progress from exploring the science of memory to the application of memory issues in the courtroom. Brainerd saw this project as an opportunity to repurpose and augment his materials so that students could review the course content, but also so that professionals and other types of learners could benefit from the portions of the course that were specific to their immediate needs. The intention was to simultaneously provide materials for Cornell students, and to create materials that could be used in a future distance learning format.

Noni Korf Vidal, project manager for this project, and instructional projects manager for CIT, worked on this project with her colleague Eric Howd, and 3 of Dr. Brainerd's students, Courtney Eisner, Eric Zember, and Liz Curran. Their insights into how the course materials could be improved for students were an essential element in the process.

A comprehensive online FAQ document was among the course enhancements developed, based on analysis of past tests to identify concepts more frequently misunderstood. Dr. Brainerd’s lectures were recorded, benefiting both current students who may need to miss a class as well as distance learners. Supplementary video lectures were identified as well. Interactive diagrams were developed for some of the more complex models presented in the course. But most fun are the recreations of memory tests which are conducted in the classroom.

Click here and you can try a few examples! http://courses.cit.cornell.edu/hd3190/demo/

This project was one of the Faculty Innovation in Teaching (FIT) Program projects, 20 of which are awarded annually. The FIT program is part of a larger distributed learning initiative supported by the President and the Provost. The program is designed to allow faculty to develop innovative instructional technology projects that have the potential to improve the educational process. The program provides faculty with the technical staff and other resources necessary to plan and implement their projects, thus allowing faculty to focus on their pedagogical objectives.

The CIT staff who work on the FIT awards are also part of the Faculty Support Services team at CIT. They provide consultation for instructional design, use of course technologies such as BlackBoard, and helping faculty adapt technology for their teaching needs.

For Further Information

Faculty Innovation in Teaching Program http://innovation.cornell.edu/index.cfm

Law, Psychology and Human Development: http://www.human.cornell.edu /HD/Research/concentrations/law-psychology-and-human-development.cfm

Wendy M. Williams and Jessica Zulawski

Starting last winter, second-graders in an Ithaca elementary school classroom have enjoyed riveting discussions about how to distinguish good from bad sources of information, the differences between causation and association, and the elements of sound experimental design. While this may sound like material targeted at high school students, the second graders were taught the underlying concepts using age-appropriate teaching modules as part of the ongoing Thinking Like a Scientist (TLAS) project.

TLAS is an ongoing Cornell educational outreach program developed by Human Development professor Wendy Williams. TLAS has many variants, each aimed at teaching critical thinking and reasoning skills to a different group of young people. The underlying goal of TLAS is to train students to use the scientific method to solve problems in their daily lives. One format of TLAS targets under-represented demographic and socioeconomic groups in science—such as African American, Latino, and economically-disadvantaged White students—at the high school level, with the goal of fostering both an interest in science and stronger critical thinking skills. For high school students, the TLAS curriculum includes in-depth classroom discussions focused on the scientific method and how it can be applied to everyday situations.

Elementary students, however, represented new territory for the program. Thus, Williams enlisted Cornell Human Development senior Jessica Zulawski to help design a new variant of TLAS for these younger students. For her honors thesis, Jessica (under the supervision of Williams), translated the high school TLAS lesson plans into a format appropriate for a second-grade classroom. Laurie Rubin, a twenty-year veteran Ithaca teacher who has taught at Beverly Martin as well as Cayuga Heights elementary schools, played a critical role in the development process by providing invaluable input and guidance, and by teaching the TLAS lessons to her class of second graders.

The lesson plans were taught once a week in forty-five minute segments, but Ms. Rubin also reinforced the knowledge gained during this time by reiterating the material during other class time. The six TLAS modules taught by Rubin were titled “What is Science?,” “Define the Problem,” “Know Fact vs. Opinion,” “Weigh Evidence and Make Decisions,” ”Move from Science to Society, ” and finally, an overarching module that tied together all previous material. Examples in these lessons focused on the central theme of the psychology of food and eating behavior. The curriculum involved discussions on the effects of visual cues on appetite, advertising and healthy eating, and how to find good sources of nutrition information.

Improvement in students’ critical thinking skills was measured by rating students’ verbal responses to open-ended questions. Students were tested individually by Jessica, who transcribed their answers. Testing was conducted two months before the program began, just before program inception, and then two months later, at the conclusion of the program, to provide baseline improvement data for the students as well as program-related improvement data. Questions posed to students involved hypothetical children in real-world scenarios common in the students’lives, and the students were asked if the individual in the scenario was exercising “Good thinking” or “Not-so-good thinking,” and why. The responses were scored by two independent raters on a scale of one to five, indicating the students’ level of ability to generalize the scientific method to solve real-world problems.

The results on the effectiveness of the elementary program showed a great deal of promise. On average, students improved in their scores on each question by one full point by the completion of the program, demonstrating a significant increase. This finding suggests that this curriculum could be useful in additional classrooms to improve the critical thinking abilities of other elementary school students, and warrants further exploration of TLAS for young students.

The hope motivating the expansion of TLAS to this younger group of students was that these students would use the critical thinking skills gained through TLAS to become responsible consumers and users of information. Growing up in the information age, these children are surrounded by a vast world of facts and figures, so it is important that they know what information they can and cannot deem reliable. Real-world problem solving means knowing how to sift relevant from irrelevant information and trustworthy from less-trusted sources, with the aim of building solid solutions responsive to multiple aspects of a problem (for example, how to create a healthy lifestyle). The knowledge and abilities these students gained from participating in the TLAS program are a start on their journey toward thinking like a scientist in everyday life.

Jeffrey Valla

As part of the annual 4-H Cornell Cooperative Extension Career Explorations program for teens on July 1-3, Professor Wendy Williams and Human Development Graduate Student Jeff Valla hosted a group of twenty-five 4-H youth who participated in the “Thinking Like A Scientist” (TLAS) extension education program. 2008 was the 8th consecutive year that TLAS was offered as part of the summer Career Explorations program. Over three days, these 4-H students were exposed to a wide array of current research and ideas in psychology. In addition to “thinking like scientists,” these students were exposed to hands-on activities in which they learned about how to properly design and perform psychological research like “real” scientists.

TLAS is an NSF-funded extension program led by Williams that aims to teach youth about the scientific method, scientific research, and what it is like to be a practicing scientist, in addition to teaching everyday critical thinking skills. The broader goal of TLAS is to foster an early interest in science in young people from groups traditionally underrepresented in science careers—such as youth of color and those from disadvantaged backgrounds—by providing exposure to engaging science-related experiences.

TLAS takes a dynamic, novel approach to teaching the scientific method TLAS uses concepts and research carefully chosen to be more intrinsically engaging and familiar to junior high and high school youth than topics typically covered in schools. Topics include E.S.P., Depression, Violent Videogames, and other material relevant to teenagers. TLAS students learn about correlation versus causation, controlled experiments, and the implications of research for public policy and society at large. Thus, students are learning the scientific method in contexts they already know about and can relate to.

This year’s program, taught by Valla (himself a N.Y.S. 4-H success story), and assisted by undergraduate student Jessica Zulawski, also included hands-on activities in which students designed their own experiments to test the effects of violent videogames on aggression and whether or not ESP exists, coupled with in-depth discussions of how different policy groups would react to the findings of their studies. Participants were even given a firsthand look at actual research going on here in the department—they had a chance to play Human Development professor Matthew Belmonte’s new “Astropolis” videogame, a work-in-progress prototype that uses a “space invader”-style interface for autism testing and therapy. The program concluded with the annual trip to the must-see Cornell Brain Collection display in Uris Hall, to the excitement of many students and slight dismay of those with weaker stomachs.

Participants finished the program with a more dynamic understanding of the scientific method, an understanding of how the scientific method can be used in everyday critical thinking, a better understanding of the fact that “real” scientists aren’t just people in white lab coats mixing chemicals, and an understanding of how psychologists actually go about designing, implementing, and revising experiments to answer important questions. While we hope that some of these students will one day decide to pursue science careers themselves, even those who do not will be more scientifically literate and more aware of how science affects their world.

For Further Information

Thinking Like a Scientist Online Resources

To compete in the 21st century global economy, knowledge of and proficiency in mathematics is critical. Solid mathematics skills are a foundation for success in college, the workforce and life. To help ensure our nation's future competitiveness and economic viability, President George W. Bush created the National Mathematics Advisory Panel in 2006.

The panel was charged with providing recommendations on the best use of scientifically based research to advance the teaching and learning of mathematics. Panelists included Valerie Reyna from the Department of Human Development at Cornell University among the leading experts on cognitive psychology, mathematics, and education. The panel worked for more than two years reviewing the best available scientific evidence to advance the teaching and learning of mathematics. The final report and its findings were released in March 2008.

Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings lauded the report saying, "This report represents the first comprehensive analysis of math education to be based on sound science." "The National Math Advisory Panel's findings and recommendations make very clear what must be done to help our children succeed in math. We must teach number and math concepts early, we must help students believe they can improve their math skills and we must ensure they fully comprehend algebra concepts by the time they graduate from high school. The Panel's extensive work will benefit generations of American students."

Instead of defining methods for teaching, the report offers a timeline of when students must master critical topics. The panel determined that students need to develop rapid recall of arithmetic facts in the early grades, going on to master fractions in middle school. Having built this strong foundation, the panel stated students would then be ready for rigorous algebra courses in high school or earlier. Noting changing demographics and rising economic demands, Secretary Spellings stressed the significance of the panel's findings on algebra."

The panel's research showed that if students do well in algebra, then they are more likely to succeed in college and be ready for better career opportunities in the global economy of the 21st century," said Secretary Spellings. "We must increase access to algebra and other rigorous coursework if we hope to close the achievement gap between poor and minority students and their peers."

The panel also found that the earlier children learn math, the better their chances of success. "Just as with reading, the math knowledge children bring to school at an early age is linked with their performance in later grades," said Secretary Spellings. "I hope parents will seize upon this finding and, just as we encourage with reading, they also spend time with their children working on numbers and core mathematics concepts."

Secretary Spellings noted that we must encourage children to believe that working harder in math will lead to achieving better results. “Studies have shown that it is effort, and not just inherent talent, that makes the critical difference between success and failure. When it comes to math, it seems hard science says it is truly worth the effort!"

For More Information

http://www.ed.gov/MathPanel

Human Development Today e-News

Human Development Outreach & Extension

By Roger Segelken
In press, Spring issue of Cornell Human Ecology Magazine
Remember the first time you saw the Periodic Table of Elements? It was probably hanging above the blackboard in high school chemistry class; the arrangement of its inscrutable rows of little boxes was supposed to reflect the properties of the elements—to help you “think like a scientist.”

But all you could think was: “I’ll never learn the difference between magnesium and manganese!” Or “Why can’t the symbol for lead be Ld?”
Middle-class students slog through, and with effective teaching, most come to see the wisdom of the Periodic Table. But poor kids in under-resourced schools lack the necessary scaffolding, and they opt out. For Wendy M. Williams, professor of human development, the Periodic Table of Elements and how it is traditionally taught have become a symbol for why disadvantaged youth have so much trouble turning on to science.
“In fact, the scientific method is a perfectly good way to do fact-finding, reasoning, and analysis about real-world problems of everyday life, and it is essential that we bring this message to underserved youth,” Williams says. “When and if kids get deeper into chemistry with the benefit of good teaching, they come to appreciate the Periodic Table as a thing of beauty and a useful tool. But if we tell them they have to learn the Periodic Table before they can think like a scientist, then most would rather not.”
And they will lose, perhaps forever, the chance to acquire skills they need, to discover for themselves the truth and what it means, and to be liberated from the “thought police”—television advertisers, closed-minded parents, or prejudiced schoolmates. They also lose a valuable mechanism for escaping the cycle of poverty through education and careers in science.
Thinking Like a Scientist (TLAS) is sounding better and better to schoolchildren across the United States who are exposed to curricula by that name.
The TLAS curriculum has been under development, with funding support from the National Science Foundation, in the Cornell Institute for Research on Children since 2002, with Williams and former graduate students Matthew C. Makel and David M. Biek as the principal authors. The lessons were tested first at inner-city schools and Indian reservations, where many children drop out before graduating from high school and few consider careers in the physical sciences and social sciences to be even a remote possibility.
The ultimate audience for TLAS, says Williams, co-director of the Cornell institute, are low-SES (socio-economic status) female and minority youth and young adults in high schools and community colleges. A secondary audience is the same population in community centers, religious organizations, and adult-education venues. Wendy Williams, herself, came from a disadvantaged background—she was a self-supporting high-school dropout at age 16, who earned a G.E.D. to enroll in college.
Fortunately for science, the young dropout’s potential was recognized; she got a second chance in the form of a scholarship from a school with ample resources, motivated students, and teachers with a passion for teaching. Williams wound up graduating cum laude with distinction from Columbia, earned two master’s degrees and a Ph.D. from Yale, garnered a slew of awards, authored dozens of articles and eight books, became a widely cited authority on the societal implications of intelligence, and co-founded the Cornell Institute for Research on Children.
Unfortunately—for millions of girls, minorities, and other at-risk kids— not every young person has the benefit of such an education. But virtually every school has some passionate teachers, even though resources are woefully inadequate, Williams insists. To prove the worth of TLAS, it was piloted in the toughest, neediest cases: in a five-week summer program for Chicago’s inner-city youth where 100 percent of the participants were kids on public assistance, and in 100 percent Native American Tribal Reservation high schools in North Dakota, among other locations.
After tests of the TLAS curricula in Arizona, North Dakota, Iowa, and Alabama, the project moves closer to home—for studies with black and Latino students in New York City and with poor white and Native American students in rural Saratoga County, N.Y. Pre-tests of scientific thinking ability are administered before the program, and post-tests are administered after the program, both to students in the program and to matched control students in neighboring classrooms. In every case, score improvements have been larger for students in TLAS classes.
Fact-Finding

Williams says that much of what is important in students’ lives is knowable; they can find out facts for themselves; and they can use proven information to make important decisions and changes in things that matter to them.
Many of the facts the TLAS students learn to uncover come from recently published meta-analyses in major scientific journals. They learn how scientific consensus is reached by the re-examination and conglomeration of previous, smaller studies.
The 13 modules in one current collection of TLAS materials cover a spectrum of social, physical, cognitive, and medical sciences. Each two-hour long module helps students discover, by doing, the many ways the scientific method can help answer questions: by defining the problem, seeing multiple sides of an issue, and distinguishing fact from opinion. They learn how to determine what constitutes evidence and how to weigh evidence and make decisions.
The 4 Rs of the Scientific Method

Students who have trouble making decisions seem to love the Four Rs of TLAS: Revisit, Reflect, Re-evaluate, and Review. For some, it is the first time they are encouraged to have “second thoughts” about anything.
When it came to choosing topics for the TLAS exercises, Williams tried to think like a curious kid. She and her graduate students built the lessons around questions such as “Effects of Violent Video Games: Do they Doom Kids to Mortal Kombat” (playing on the titles of two games), “Cigarettes: Stress Relief or Just a Bunch of Smoke?” and “Telling Lies: Can You Read It in Their Eyes?”
Some lessons are particularly—even uncomfortably— relevant to sensitive teenagers, such as “Depression: What Do We Do to Treat It?” Pregnant teens, who are at particular risk of dropping out, learn to apply some science to a question that most adults can’t answer: “Does Breastfeeding Make Babies Smarter Later in Life?”

And some topics are just plain fun, including “Is ESP For Real? I Knew You Were Going to Ask That!” and “Smiles in Women Versus Men: Who Smiles More and What Does It Mean?”
Left Behind vs. Racing Ahead

Who needs Thinking Like a Scientist?
“The TLAS curriculum does get the students involved in the biological and social sciences, and by training scientific thinking, it helps students do well on many parts of standardized tests,” Williams maintains, “and they really excel in tests that measure underlying thinking—not just what was taught, by rote, in class.” Examinations completed by students in schools using TLAS are shipped to the Cornell Institute for Research on Children, where the tests are scored using “blind” evaluations to eliminate possible bias from knowing which participants are “controls” and which are not.
Scores on tests of scientific thinking ability have shown greater improvements pre-test to post-test for students in TLAS classes compared to matched control students in neighboring classes, in various populations Williams has studied; among them, Native American Tribal reservation youth in North Dakota, African American and disadvantaged white youth in Alabama, Mexican-American and disadvantaged white youth in Arizona, and disadvantaged white youth in upstate New York. The tests are fair to all students because their questions tap scientific thinking and reasoning ability completely unrelated to the specific content of the educational modules.
If funding holds out, the Cornell Institute hopes to track TLAS “alumni” as they go to college (or join the workforce) to see if they get more remunerative jobs as a result of their science training.
Pathways to Success

Williams looks forward to comparing overall results from the TLAS project with results from another study she is doing, also focusing on helping disadvantaged youth. Her project called “Pathways to Success for Underrepresented Youth: A 50-Year Retrospective Longitudinal Study” is looking at “life course outcomes” for 600 mostly poor and minority individuals who attended the Telluride Association’s free summer enrichment program at Cornell at age 17, between 1954 and 2004.

“Fortunately for us, Telluride kept meticulous records on everything—high school transcripts, test scores, letters of recommendation, and reviews of each student’s work by Cornell faculty who supervised them,” Williams says. “We are now collecting current information about these people’s career trajectories, successes, and failures—and the factors they believe account for their escape from the limitations of their socioeconomic backgrounds.

“We are conducting extensive interviews with each of the Telluride enrichment program alumni— and we’re hearing some amazing stories,” Williams says. “This research will help answer a critical question: How we can help youth change the direction and eventual outcomes of their lives before it’s too late?”
Anecdotal Evidence Is Appreciated

Staying in constant e-mail touch with the far-flung TLAS test sites, Williams hears that teachers are “enjoying” the process and that students are “excited” to discover that science can have some relevance to their lives.
For Williams, this is sure nice to hear while burning the midnight oil with a bunch of correlation coefficients, regressions toward the mean, and those darn confounding factors. No one ever said science was easy. It ought to be relevant, though.

Gratifying is not so bad either.
For More Information on Thinking Like a Scientist

Visit the CIRC website: www.human.cornell.edu/che/HD/CIRC
Contact Wendy M. Williams, wmw5@cornell.edu

Human Development Today e-News

Human Development Outreach & Extension

U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has appointed Valerie Reyna, professor and Director of Extension in the Department of Human Development in the College of Human Ecology to serve on the President’s National Mathematics Advisory Panel to advise the President and Secretary of Education “with respect to the conduct, evaluation and effective use of the results of research related to proven, evidence-based mathematics instruction in order to foster greater knowledge and improved performance in mathematics among American students.”

Her term, effective immediately, ends April 2008, unless extended by the President. Reyna is one of 20 members outside the federal government.

Reyna, who joined the Cornell faculty last year, was one of the highest-ranking scientists to serve in federal government when she was a senior research adviser to the assistant secretary for research, U.S. Department of Education from 2001 to 2003. While there, she served as an architect of the new Institute for Education Sciences, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education.