Efficient Learning For The Poor

"Large-scale efforts have been made since the 1990s to ensure that all children of the world go to school. But mere enrollment is not sufficient, students must become fluent in reading and calculation by the end of grade 2. Fluency is needed to process large amounts of text quickly and use the information for decisions that may ultimately reduce poverty. State-of-the-art brain imaging and cognitive psychology research can help formulate effective policies for improving the basic skills of low-income students. This book integrates research into applications that extend from preschool brain development to the memory of adult educators. In layman?'s terms, it provides explanations and answers to questions such as: Why do children have to read fast before they can understand what they read? How do health, nutrition, and stimulation influence brain development? Why should students learn basic skills in their maternal language? Is there such a thing as an untrained teacher? What signs in a classroom show whether students are getting a quality education? How must information be presented in class so that students can retain it and use it? What training techniques are most likely to help staff put their learning into use? This book would be useful to policymakers, donor agency staff, teacher trainers, supervisors, and inspectors, as well as university professors and students."

To most of us, learning something "the hard way" implies wasted time and effort. Good teaching, we believe, should be creatively tailored to the different learning styles of students and should use strategies that make learning easier. Make It Stick turns fashionable ideas like these on their head. Drawing on recent discoveries in cognitive psychology and other disciplines, the authors offer concrete techniques for becoming more productive learners. Memory plays a central role in our ability to carry out complex cognitive tasks, such as applying knowledge to problems never before encountered and drawing inferences from facts already known. New insights into how memory is encoded, consolidated, and later retrieved have led to a better understanding of how we learn. Grappling with the impediments that make learning challenging leads both to more complex mastery and better retention of what was learned. Many common study habits and practice routines turn out to be counterproductive. Underlining and highlighting, rereading, cramming, and single-minded repetition of new skills create the illusion of mastery, but gains fade quickly. More complex and durable learning come from self-testing, introducing certain difficulties in practice, waiting to re-study new material until a little forgetting has set in, and interleaving the practice of one skill or topic with another. Speaking most urgently to students, teachers, trainers, and athletes, Make It Stick will appeal to all those interested in the challenge of lifelong learning and self-improvement.

Research shows that by improving the wellbeing of learners, we also improve their learning. Effective Learning and Mental Wellbeing is a crucial resource, filled with ready-to-use and thought-provoking activities that support wellbeing within your school, college, organisation, community group or on your own. Woven throughout are ideas and activities that support learning and wellbeing for many different kinds of learner. Supported by well-researched content, this essential book will enrich and improve both the wellbeing and the learning of all who use it. Areas covered include but are not limited to: How we learn and blocks to learning Mental health and self-efficacy Positive steps to mental wellbeing Wellbeing in the connected learning community The future of wellbeing and learning This book is an essential resource for teachers, therapists, health professionals, parents or carers and those in the community who work to improve learning through improving wellbeing.

As South Africa transitioned from apartheid to democracy, changes in the political landscape, as well as educational agendas and discourse on both a national and international level, shaped successive waves of curriculum reform over a relatively short period of time. Using South Africa as a germane example of how curriculum and pedagogy can interact and affect educational outcomes, Pedagogy in Poverty explores the potential of curricula to improve education in developing and emerging economies worldwide, and, ultimately, to reduce inequality. Incorporating detailed, empirical accounts of life inside South African classrooms, this book is a much-needed contribution to international debate surrounding optimal curriculum and pedagogic forms for children in poor schools. Classroom-level responses to curriculum policy reforms reveal some implications of the shifts between a radical, progressive approach and traditional curriculum forms. Hoadley focuses on the crucial role of teachers as mediators between curriculum and pedagogy, and explores key issues related to teacher knowledge by examining the teaching of reading and numeracy at the foundational levels of schooling. Offering a data-rich historical sociology of curriculum and pedagogic change, this book will appeal to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of education, sociology of education, curriculum studies, educational equality and school reform, and the policy and politics of education.

Efficiency in Learning offers a road map of the most effective ways to use the three fundamental communication of training: visuals, written text, and audio. Regardless of how you are delivering your training materials—in the classroom, in print, by synchronous or asynchronous media—the book’s methods are easily applied to your lesson presentations, handouts, reference guides, or e-learning screens. Designed to be a down-to-earth resource for all instructional professionals, Efficiency in Learning’s guidelines are clearly illustrated with real-world examples.

Access to books is key to learning to read and sustaining a love of reading. Yet many low- and middle-income countries struggle to provide their students with reading materials of sufficient quality and quantity. Since 2008, RTI International has provided technical assistance in early reading assessment and instruction to ministries of education in dozens of low- and middle-income countries. The central objective of many of these programs has been to improve learning outcomes—in particular, reading—for students in the early grades of primary school. Under these programs, RTI has partnered with ministry staff to produce and distribute evidence-based instructional materials at a regional or national scale, in quantities that increase the likelihood that children will have ample opportunities to practice reading skills, and at a cost that can be sustained in the long term by the education system. In this paper, we seek to capture the practices RTI has developed and refined over the last decade, particularly in response to the challenges inherent in contexts with high linguistic diversity and low operational capacity for producing and distributing instructional materials. These practices constitute our approach to developing and producing instructional materials for early grade literacy. We also touch upon effective planning for printing and distribution procurement, but we do not consider the printing and distribution processes in depth in this paper. We expect this volume will be useful for donors, policymakers, and practitioners interested in improving access to cost-effective, high-quality teaching and learning materials for the early grades.

Health for All and Education for All have been rallying cries for a host of international development activities for more than a quarter century. Where did these global goals come from? Why have the health goals seemingly advanced so much faster than those in education? In this book, author Colette Chabbott explores the foundational role that international development organizations and the innovations they champion have played in shaping and advancing such goals. Chabbott demonstrates the importance of science and measurement in rendering some innovations more universal and compelling than others. Her analysis includes in-depth case studies of innovations developed at the grassroots and scaled up at the national and international levels by the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research and by BRAC, once a Bangladeshi now a major international NGO. These studies all suggest that greater investment in new types of education research, based in the Third World, but with strong ties to research centers of international scope in the First World, are likely the prerequisites for achieving better, cheaper, faster universal education. This important book will provoke scholars, students, and international development practitioners to think more deeply about the cultural and scientific underpinnings of education and international development. The author’s careful analyses are particularly needed as the international community defines new global goals for the post-2015 era. Book Features: Introduces the key international organizations and movements in the field of education for development. Provides a unique interpretation of the many tensions that characterize the field: government vs. non-government organizations; institutions vs. actors; and loose coupling between policies and action. Addresses the current debate about research methods in education, including quantitative indicators, randomized controlled trials, and case studies. Identifies new activities and potential directions related to the global goals phenomenon. “This is that rare book, one that is grounded in decades of policy experiences in the international development field, yet is also theoretically motivated.” —From the Foreword by Francisco O. Ramirez “Colette Chabbott brings years of development experience and exacting sociological analysis to challenge status quo understandings about the world development enterprise in this unique, ambitious, and important book.” —David P. Baker, professor of education and sociology, Penn State University, and author of The Schooled Society “In a masterful review of more than 50 years of global interventions aimed at achieving Education and Health for All, Chabbott utilizes the best in institutional theory and comparative analysis to provide a thought-provoking account of the organizational and institutional dynamics that structure, shape, and limit our ability to achieve some of the world’s most compelling goals.” —Karen Mundy, president, Comparative and International Education Society

In Teaching with Poverty in Mind: What Being Poor Does to Kids' Brains and What Schools Can Do About It, veteran educator and brain expert Eric Jensen takes an unflinching look at how poverty hurts children, families, and communities across the United States and demonstrates how schools can improve the academic achievement and life readiness of economically disadvantaged students. Jensen argues that although chronic exposure to poverty can result in detrimental changes to the brain, the brain's very ability to adapt from experience means that poor children can also experience emotional, social, and academic success. A brain that is susceptible to adverse environmental effects is equally susceptible to the positive effects of rich, balanced learning environments and caring relationships that build students' resilience, self-esteem, and character. Drawing from research, experience, and real school success stories, Teaching with Poverty in Mind reveals * What poverty is and how it affects students in school; * What drives change both at the macro level (within schools and districts) and at the micro level (inside a student's brain); * Effective strategies from those who have succeeded and ways to replicate those best practices at your own school; and * How to engage the resources necessary to make change happen. Too often, we talk about change while maintaining a culture of excuses. We can do better. Although no magic bullet can offset the grave challenges faced daily by disadvantaged children, this timely resource shines a spotlight on what matters most, providing an inspiring and practical guide for enriching the minds and lives of all your students.