Video Games: A New Perspective on Learning Content and Skills

• July 22, 2010 by Sherrelle Walker, M.A.

Being in the business of e-learning, I am fascinated by video games. No, I’m not a big player myself, but they amaze me for what they can do in terms of teaching and learning. While their primary goal may be to entertain, the core of what they do is perform a continuous process of teaching, simulated practice and assessment, all while engaging learners in learning from worlds rich with content and experience.

As teachers, we’ve always looked to various types of non-interactive content to engage and instruct students. Prior to the 20th century, we depended upon print. In the 1970’s, I remember cassette tapes and film strips coming into the classroom. In the 1980’s, it was video cassettes. Now, we show DVD’s and online video.

Today our digital native students are looking for the kind of interactivity that they experience in their lives outside of school—and that includes the video games that they play. But what skills and experiences can students gain through interactive gaming environments?

• Learning to try. According to James Gee of Arizona State University, the essence of gaming is that, by its nature, it integrates learning with embedded assessment. With textbooks and lectures, a learner gains knowledge by reading and hearing about subjects. In simulated environments, learners experience situations and content first-hand. They attempt solutions, experience failures and learn from mistakes to proceed to higher levels. They are rewarded for pushing the envelope.
• Thinking about the big picture. In A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink discusses six different senses essential for success in our age, one of which is "symphonic thinking," or the ability to see the big picture of situations, manipulate multiple variables and add invention to solve problems. In today’s rich and detailed game environments, players must successfully learn to do exactly that to achieve the goals of the simulation.
• Collaborating and cooperating. With the introduction of online video games, successful achievement of objectives requires communication and collaboration amongst multiple players. In today’s world, these are clearly skills that one needs to achieve success.

While the so-called edutainment market is small, educators and entrepreneurs alike are in the process of bringing the true educational value of computer games into the classroom.

Is the shift going to be rocky? Absolutely. As an example, look at the debate around a "historical action" game called Six Days in Fallujah and the mainstream discussion that has taken place on NPR and in Newsweek. Will this genre of game become a new form of documentary? If contextualized appropriately by a teacher, can this breed of games represent a serious way for students to experience the civics, political science or world history first-hand? After considering that, check out Games for Change, an example of a new breed of online games for teaching and learning a wide variety of topics with significant human impact. This is a challenging and productive debate, one that will take the marriage between computer games and the instruction of content and skills to the next level.

Edutopia recommends many resources for further exploration of the value of computer games in education, including:

• Let the Games Begin offers a wonderful perspective on the educational value of games.
• Schools Use Gaming for Learning and Assessment (video) presents an overview of the benefits of computer gaming simulations.
• In Big Thinkers, Professor James Gee (mentioned above) discusses the opportunities and advantages that gaming provides for learning and assessment.

What role do you think video games should play in education?  Share your perspective on our Scientific Learning Facebook page!

Categories: Education Trends, Family Focus, Reading & Learning

Tags: assessments, decision making, digital natives, innovation, learning environment, learning through play, motivating students, novelty, play, social studies, technology in education

Nevada Department of Education: Fast ForWord is a “High-Gain Program”

• July 21, 2010 by Melissa Agocs

The Nevada Senate Bill 185 (SB 185) funded districts to purchase and implement innovative and remedial educational programs, materials, and strategies specific to their academic needs. 

The Nevada Department of Education commissioned the Leadership and Learning Center (LLC) to conduct an in-depth evaluation of the programs that had been purchased with SB 185 grants.  Their 2010 Interim Report includes a review of the performance of Fast ForWord products.

To quote from the Report….“Emphasis was placed on measuring student growth toward academic proficiency and mastery using state and local assessments… The analyses were completed as a result of extensive site visits, phone interviews, and an examination of two-year sets of school cohort achievement data for Criterion-Referenced Tests (CRT) for grades three through eight and High School Proficiency Exams (HSPE) for grades nine through twelve.” 

The Report closely examined CRT results at Goolsby Elementary School (which implemented Fast ForWord across all grade levels).  They concluded that each year of Fast ForWord implementation resulted in an increase in the percentage of grade-level proficient students. To quote the Report, “CRT data indicate a statistically significant increase in Reading and Writing proficiency levels…   CRT data indicate that Reading increased from 67% to 82% proficient, [and] Writing increased significantly from 55% to 82% proficient… from 2006 to 2008.”

This graph summarizes the main conclusions from the Report. The red bars represent programs that were found to have undetermined effects or low gains. Blue bars indicate high-gain programs, in which students made high gains according to the LLC standards. The green bar represents Fast ForWord, which was also found to be a high-gain program. In fact, the Report concludes that Fast ForWord products increased student reading achievement by an average of 22.2 percentage points, which was the largest average impact of all programs reviewed in the Report.

For more information, please see the Educator Briefing on this study as well as any of our 200+ additional reports on Fast ForWord results.  If you have questions about any of our research studies, please contact us.

Categories: Education Funding, Grants, and Stimulus, Fast ForWord®, Reading & Learning

Tags: academic proficiency, academic success, accelerated learning, child reading development, elementary learning, elementary school learning, improving reading skills, increased test scores, innovation, learning to read, middle school learning, Nevada, remedial education, SB 185, struggling readers, struggling students, student growth, technology in education, writing

The Results of Fast ForWord Use at the Westfield Washington Schools in Indiana

• July 13, 2010 by Melissa Agocs

 

The Westfield Washington Schools are located just north of Indianapolis, in Indiana. During the 2007 - 2008 school year, the Westfield Intermediate School implemented Fast ForWord products.

For this study, the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) were used as a pre- and post-test. The MAP assesses language arts, math, and reading skills. Ninety-eight students used the Fast ForWord products and had MAP scores that could serve as pre- and post-tests.

School personnel administered the assessment and then reported scores to Scientific Learning for analysis. On average, students used the products over a period of six months. The majority of students used three or more Fast ForWord products, starting on the Fast ForWord Literacy product, then advancing to the Literacy Advanced product, and then on to one or more Fast ForWord Reading products.

MAP scores are reported in terms of RIT scores, which indicate a student’s achievement level within a specific subject. To provide a performance comparison, participants’ gains were compared to the student’s expected gains, which were based upon RIT growth norms in the three subject areas of language arts, math, and reading.

Students showed exciting results and exceeded the expected RIT growth norms. Students who used Fast ForWord products made 7 points of RIT growth in language arts, which is 67% greater than the expected growth of 4.2 points. Gains of 10.1 points were seen in math for the Fast ForWord participants, which is 35% greater than the expected growth. Students gained 8.8 points in reading, which is nearly double the expected 4.5 points growth.

The differences between the gain scores and the expected gain scores were statistically significant in all three subject areas. These results suggest that using the Fast ForWord products strengthened the students’ foundational skills and better positioned them to benefit from the classroom curriculum.

For more information, please see the Educator Briefing and Full Report on this study as well as any of our 200+ additional reports on Fast ForWord results. If you have questions about any of our research studies, please contact us.

Categories: Fast ForWord®, Progress Tracker, Reading & Learning, Scientific Learning® Research

Tags: academic success, accelerated learning, assessments, brain training, child reading development, curriculum, improving reading skills, increased test scores, Indiana, investing in innovation, language learning, learning to read, literacy, MAP, math, phonemic awareness, school leader effectiveness, teacher effectiveness, technology in education

The Imperative of Cultivating Healthy Adolescent Sleep Habits

• July 8, 2010 by Bill Jenkins, Ph.D.

As dedicated parents and teachers, when we talk to adolescents, we tend to focus our coaching on coping with the big dangers like drugs, alcohol and sex. We talk a lot about the imperative of developing good eating and study habits. But when was the last time you talked to the teen in your life about sleep? Research has shown us that our young people’s sleep habits are suffering, creating negative ripples across their waking lives. Quite simply, we need to become better "sleep coaches."

Like breathing or eating, sleep is a physiological necessity. As sleeping and waking habits change during our adolescent years, youngsters begin to experience the effects of lost sleep. Even losing less than an hour a night on a regular basis can result in serious problems. In their 1998 study, "Sleep Schedules and Daytime Functioning in Adolescents", Amy Wolfson and Mary Carskadon examined the correlations between sleep/wake habits, student characteristics and daytime functioning (mood, performance and behavior). Their study of 3,120 students uncovered concerning trends:

• Forty-five percent of tenth to twelfth graders go to bed after midnight on school nights, and 90% go to bed later than that on weekends.
• On weekends, 10- to 15-year-olds get 30 to 60 minutes more sleep; by age 18, that difference goes up to over 2 hours.
• Reductions in sleep time were directly attributable to later bedtimes paired with no change to wake-up time.
• Students getting C’s, D’s and F’s got, on average, 25 minutes less sleep and went to bed 40 minutes later than their counterparts getting A’s and B’s.

See Wolfson and Carskadon’s paper for complete data, but on the whole, adolescents in their studies overall did not get enough sleep, which directly correlated with reduced capacities during the day.

So we know that these important minutes of sleep are being lost, but what are the neurological outcomes? In his 1999 study, "The Consequences of Insufficient Sleep for Adolescents," Ronald Dahl describes five effects that can create negative ripples across an adolescent’s life, such as: 1) sleepiness, 2) tiredness 3) mood, attention, and behavior, 4) impact of emotional and behavioral problems, and 5) bi-directional effects.

• Sleepiness: While highly stimulating activities can stave off sleepiness, a sleepy brain drops into sleep mode during periods of low stimulation. For a sleep-deprived adolescent, activities like reading, driving and classroom learning can be prime dozing times.
• Tiredness and decreased motivation: When we're tired, we find it difficult to initiate and follow through on tasks, especially those that we might find boring. Our motivation and ability to focus on future goals drops; we become less able to engage in activities like reading or studying.
• Emotional variability: Sleep-deprived brains experience a greater range of emotions. Adolescents who haven’t had enough sleep are more likely to experience more extremes of responses like anger, aggression, frustration, sadness and impatience.
• Attention and performance: Youngsters working with a lack of sleep experienced mental lapses in attention during simple tasks, as well as reduced abilities to perform more complex, multifaceted tasks.

So what can we do to change this trend and coach our young people to have healthier sleep habits? If knowledge is power, we can give them the facts. We can actively teach the importance of sleep and the science of circadian rhythms and our innate connection to natural cycles. We can inform our students about the importance of good, healthy sleep, and help them understand some of the real, serious consequences like those above. For some resources, check out this Circadian Rhythms Fact Sheet from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences or these five ideas for better sleep written specifically for teenagers.

Finally, as parents, we can create quiet, comforting evening environments and rituals in our homes to move our families from the fast pace of the day to a slower, protected, unpressured environment where sleep can come. For hints and tips, check out Sleep Rituals: Training The Body And The Mind by Dr. Michael Breus (from the Huffington Post, January 2010).

Are the teens in your life getting enough sleep?  Share your observations on the Scientific Learning Facebook page.

Categories: Brain Fitness, Family Focus, Reading & Learning

Tags: academic problems, attention, behavior, cognitive skills, health and well being, high school learning, sleep, struggling students, teacher effectiveness

Teaching Children to Read

• July 6, 2010 by Martha Burns, Ph.D

According to the Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read Reports of the Subgroups, the capacity to learn and grow as a reader depends on five essential skills:

Foundational Skills for Beginning Readers:

1) Phonemic Awareness: The insight that every spoken word can be conceived as a sequence of phonemes. Phonemes are the speech sounds that are represented by the letters of an alphabet.

2) Phonemic Decoding: The ability to capture the meaning of unfamiliar words by translating groups of letters back into the sounds that they represent, link them to one's verbal vocabulary, and access their meaning.

Skills Needed to Read for Meaning:

3) Vocabulary: Understanding the words in a passage, including the specific dimensions of their meanings or usage that matter in context.  For example, knowing that “tree” when reading about a “family tree” has a different meaning from “maple tree”

4) Fluency: The ability to read with sufficient ease and accuracy that active attention can be focused on the meaning and message of the text and the text easily retained.

5) Comprehension: Thinking about the meaning of each segment of the text as it is read, building an understanding of the text as a whole, and reflecting on its meaning and message.

Teachers today are fortunate to have access to a wealth of scientifically based research into what works when teaching children to read.  The links that follow are courtesy of the National Institute for Literacy:

Birth to Early Childhood

Children begin building literacy skills long before they go to school.  Even very young children can be prepared to become successful readers later on.  Research has identified certain skills that are important for later literacy development; these skills include knowing the names and sounds of printed letters, manipulating speech sounds, and remembering what has been said for a short time.  Here are some ways to teach younger children these pre-reading skills.

Childhood

From kindergarten through third grade, young readers are actively developing all five of the core reading skills from phonemic awareness to fluency and comprehension.  Research has shown that teaching children to read successfully during this window requires a combination of strategies and instructional approaches.  Teachers must know how children learn to read and be able to tailor instructional approaches to individual children--especially those who are struggling readers.  Here are some instructional approaches for the five essential skills.

Adolescence

While many adolescent readers have mastered phonemic awareness and decoding, they are often still challenged to fully understand what they read.  In middle and high school, it is common for literacy skills to be developed not only in language arts courses, but also in a variety of different content areas.  To prepare students for the literacy challenges of secondary school, language arts and content area teachers need to focus on the last three components of reading: vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.  Here are some approaches to teaching vocabulary and comprehension skills.

What are some strategies you have used when teaching children to read?  Which have been most successful?  Share your expertise on our Scientific Learning Facebook page!

Categories: Reading & Learning

Tags: child reading development, early learning, elementary learning, elementary school learning, fluency, high school learning, how children learn, improving reading skills, intervention, learning through play, learning to read, literacy, memory, oral language skills, phonemic awareness, phonics, reading comprehension, reading intervention, struggling readers, struggling students, teacher effectiveness, teacher impact, vocabulary

Fun Science Experiments for Classroom or Home

• June 18, 2010 by Norene Wiesen

Yesterday’s blog post from Sherrelle Walker about making science fun really inspired me—so much so that I gathered up a few interesting experiments that will delight kids in the classroom or at home any time of year:

Bending Light
With just a strong flashlight and an empty soda can, you can make a beam of light follow a stream of water wherever it flows.

Screaming Cup
All you need is a large plastic cup, a piece of string, and some water (violin rosin optional) to create this eerie sound-effect and learn about the "stick and slide" effect that can amplify sound.

Dancing Raisins
Round up a can of colorless soda (e.g., 7-Up or Sprite), a tall clear glass or plastic cup, and some raisins, and find out why the raisins dance to the top of the cup and back to the bottom—again and again! 

Build a Film Canister Rocket
If you can find some white plastic film canisters, an Alka-Seltzer tablet, and safety goggles, you can launch a rocket from your school playground just by adding water.  (This experiment has a lot of "cautions"—for your safety, please follow them!)

A few months ago I did a version of the dancing raisins experiment with my three-year-old.  He loved it, not only because it was intriguing and fun to watch, but because he got to eat the extras!  I sat at the kitchen table with him, and as we ate raisins together we lingered over the experiment, delighting in the human element of togetherness—sharing food and wondering aloud in communal awe at the mechanisms of the world we inhabit. 

Over the next few weeks, my son asked to do the experiment again and again, kindling my hope that his future experiences in school and life will similarly nurture his curiosity and create an interest in science that will last a lifetime.

Is there a science experiment or science experience that has made a difference for you or your students?  Please share it with us!

Categories: Reading & Learning

Tags: academic success, learning through play, motivating students, novelty, play, science, teacher impact

Using the Human Element to Make Science Fun and Approachable

• June 17, 2010 by Sherrelle Walker, M.A.

In recent years, our nation has been spending a great deal of time, energy and dollars to ensure that our students receive a solid educational foundation in reading, writing and mathematics. Today, much of the nation is also increasing its focus on the sciences.

In a recent article, "Science is gaining momentum in American schools," EducationNews.org noted: "It has taken prodding by industry, business, and government leaders — alarms going off, even — but science education is getting an upgrade in many classrooms..." Why the heightened awareness? Given the changes in the global economy, parents, educators and policy makers alike are demanding that we provide students with more opportunities to develop the knowledge and skills that will serve to springboard them into fields like energy technology, health care and engineering.

So how can we cultivate our students’ passion for science and discovery? It comes down to the two parts of a single idea: "WE can spend more TIME."

Regarding TIME: If we simply spent more TIME teaching science, as it turns out, more students would be likely to end up pursuing science-related careers. At Springside School in Philadelphia, they have put a great emphasis on science, and in recent years, about half of their graduates have expressed an interest in pursuing such paths. (Read more at the Springside School site.)

But what if WE put more of OURSELVES into our classrooms? I propose that in bringing in the PEOPLE element, we can bring back the fun and the wonder. With our students, we can hatch more butterflies, build more baking soda and vinegar volcanoes, spend more nights stargazing, and maybe even make more electric pickles. Such experiences offer great ways to spur both discussion and show students that it’s wonderful and HUMAN to have a passion for scientific discovery.

Overall, I think we can simply do a better job of showing students that science is about people, and that it’s the people who make it exciting. We can bring in parents with science-related careers as guests to help with experiments and discussions. We also have a lot to learn from great "science celebs" like Bill Nye the "Science Guy" and Steve Spangler; they offer all sorts of resources and ideas that we can use to light that fire for discovery in our students.

Categories: Reading & Learning

Tags: academic success, learning through play, motivating students, novelty, play, science, teacher impact

Sleep: An Essential Ingredient for Memory Function

• June 3, 2010 by Bill Jenkins, Ph.D.

We all know the old Ben Franklin quote, "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." While I have not yet investigated the "wealthy" claim, Franklin was spot-on in the "healthy and wise" department; research has shown sleep to be a key contributor to optimal health and brain function.

Before we address sleep, here is a quick primer on some concepts regarding memory:

• Short-term memory, also known as "working memory," refers to memories that we use or refer to before discarding them or transferring them to long-term memory.
• Long-term memory refers to anything that happened more than a few minutes ago and breaks down into further categorizations, such as implicit/explicit and others. (See Posit Science, "Types of Memory" for a description of the different categories of memories.)
• Sleep benefits two specific forms of long-term memory: declarative (those memories that we can call up on-demand, such as facts and events) as well as procedural (those memories that are skills developed through repeated practice, such as playing the piano, keyboarding or wielding a tennis racquet).

How does the brain process information to turn it into memories? Memorization breaks down into three distinct stages:

• Stabilization, during which new data develops a resistance to interference from other information and “becomes” a memory.
• Consolidation, where memories are moved to structures in the brain where they become more permanent.
• Reconsolidation, whereby memories are strengthened, refined and modified for long-term storage as they are recalled and re-used.

Sleep plays a significant roll in the consolidation and re-consolidation stages of memory. Physiologically, slow-wave sleep (SWS) supports consolidation, while rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is more associated with reconsolidation processes.

From a purely practical standpoint, it boils down to this: a good memory requires a good night’s sleep. To keep one’s memory working, eight hours a night is a smart guideline. As for truly optimal memory function, the short daytime nap of sixty or ninety minutes—or even the five or ten minute cat nap—has been demonstrated to improve memory and recall.

For more reading, see:

• The memory function of sleep.  Diekelmann and Born.
• Memory Consolidation and reconsolidation: what is the role of sleep? (PDF) Stickgold and Walker.

 

Categories: Brain Research, Reading & Learning

Tags: cognitive skills, health and well being, memory, processing, sleep

Can Scientific Learning Products Improve School Test Scores?

• June 2, 2010 by Norene Wiesen

When making a buying decision about educational software for a school or district, one of the most important questions to ask is whether the product is effective.  Administrators considering the Fast ForWord® and Reading Assistant™ products want to know: Do they help students learn and succeed?  Do they improve school test scores?  Are they evidence-based?

The answer to all of these questions is yes.  Scientific Learning products have been proven to improve language, reading, and cognitive skills as well as to improve school test scores on state assessments and other standardized tests for schools that follow the prescribed protocols.  Our Scientifically Based Research page is your starting point for exploring the 200+ studies that have evaluated the effectiveness of the programs and that serve as evidence of improved learning outcomes.

On average, students see a 1-2 year improvement in reading level on school test scores in as little as 8-12 weeks.  English language learners, struggling readers, and special education students have all been positively impacted.  So have students performing at grade level and above.

Here are just a few examples:

Dallas Independent School District, TX (View PDF)

• Four year longitudinal study
• Fast ForWord participants significantly improved their reading achievement scores on the TAKS state assessment and maintained their improved reading skills
• Average decrease in the achievement gap for the 544 Fast ForWord participants was 25%

St. Mary Parish Public School System, LA (View PDF)

• After using Fast ForWord products, percent of Centerville, LA, 4th graders scoring proficient on state assessments exceeds state average
• Marked improvement in 4th grade Math, Science, and Social Studies test scores, highlights the impact of Fast Forword products on improving cognitive and foundational skills

Bridges Academy, Winter Springs, FL (View PDF)

• A private school serving students with learning disabilities with a goal of improving reading skills
• Case study on 2nd through 10th graders to evaluate the effects of adding Reading Assistant software to their existing Fast ForWord implementation
• Reading Assistant and Fast ForWord products are used concurrently and students are assessed before and after use
• In an average of three months, the students at the school improve their grade equivalent test scores by an average of one year and three months on the Basic Skills Composite, which combines the Word Identification and Word Attack subtests

The benefits of Scientific Learning products go beyond improving state assessment scores.  Researchers have measured improvements in self-esteem, communication skills such as vocabulary and pronunciation, improvements in listening and understanding, and stronger memory for things like phone numbers and event sequences.  Review our scientifically based research for detailed information.

Categories: English Language Learners, Fast ForWord®, Reading & Learning, Reading Assistant™, Scientific Learning® Research, Special Education

Tags: academic problems, academic success, achievement gap, brain training, child reading development, cognitive skills, elementary learning, elementary school learning, Florida, high school learning, improve test scores, improving reading skills, increased test scores, intervention, language learning, learning disabilities, literacy, Louisiana, math, memory, reading intervention, science, self-esteem, social studies, struggling readers, TAKS, Texas, vocabulary

The Brain Gets Better at What it Does: Dr. Martha Burns on Brain Plasticity

• May 21, 2010 by Norene Wiesen

In March, Dr. Martha Burns visited Australia to present the latest findings on how the brain learns.  Dr. Burns is an extremely knowledgeable and highly sought after speaker, so I'm pleased to let you know that an interview she gave on brain plasticity while there is now available online at nouspod.com.

The recording is presented in two parts, totaling about 20 minutes listening time.  If you don't have time to listen to both parts of the interview at once, either part works well alone.  But remember to come back later and listen to the other part of the interview--because the whole thing is too good to be missed! 

These are the points addressed in each part:

Dr. Martha Burns Explains Neuroplasticity 1:

• What is neuroplasticity, in simple terms?
• What are the differences in brain plasticity between younger and older people?
• What are neurotransmitters and what role do they play in neuroplasticity?
• What are neuromodulators and how do they influence learning?
• How do rewards and novelty influence learning?
• How does Ritalin affect the brain?
• What are the unique brain benefits of exercise?
• What is the role of brain plasticity in anxiety and depression?

Dr. Martha Burns Explains Neuroplasticity 2:

• Can brain plasticity influence intelligence?
• How important are grades vs. effort?
• What behaviors should teachers reward in their students?
• What role should technology play in schools?
• How can educators invite students to participate in class more?

These recordings are also a great source of brain information to share with your students in the classroom!

Categories: Brain Fitness, Brain Research, Reading & Learning

Tags: academic success, brain plasticity, effort, emotions in learning, health and well being, how adults learn, how children learn, intelligence, learning environment, learning through play, motivating students, novelty, teacher impact, technology in education