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July 19, 2006 -- The University of Virginia Curry School
of Education has been awarded $10 million from the U.S.
Department of Education’s Institute of Education
Sciences to determine if a new method for training preschool
teachers results in their students, especially disadvantaged
children, learning language and literacy skills better.
The stronger foundation would enable them to continue building
academic success. A significant goal of the nationwide
study is to help close the achievement gap between children
at risk of failing in school and their more academically
successful and affluent peers.
Nearly 70 percent of the nation’s 3- and 4-year-olds
are enrolled in preschool programs, and the number is growing,
according to the National Institute for Early Education
Research. Yet “there is little evidence that current
approaches to training produce demonstrable gains for children,” said
Robert Pianta, the Novartis US Foundation Professor of
Education. He and his U.Va. research team have found a
way to enhance
teachers’ effectiveness in the classroom, using one-on-one
coaching via a Web-based conference system, called My Teaching
Partner. Pianta will head the National Center for Research
on Early Childhood Education, where student-teachers will
be trained to use the MTP program before they get their
own classrooms, and the center will provide consultation
to the new teachers in their first jobs.
This five-year study will be the first of its kind to conduct
a large-scale, randomized, controlled experiment with partner
teacher-education colleges to test whether this new method
of including a course developed for preparing preschool
teachers actually makes them better teachers and shows
in children’s learning and social interactions.
Colleagues at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill and UNC-Greensboro, plus the University of California
at Los Angeles, and the U.Va. researchers, will work with
about 550 student-teachers mostly from two- and four-year
institutions in several large urban areas in Chicago, Los
Angeles and central Florida.
“The partners are showing a willingness to participate
and accept a large amount of innovation,” Pianta said. “The
grant for the center will allow us to have a considerable
impact on the policy, practice and training of early childhood
educators, in addition to the research.”
Preschool programs exist in a variety of places — from
public elementary schools to typically smaller settings — private
schools, churches, day-care centers. The teachers have
a variety of educational backgrounds. Although they probably
have learned basic child development and curriculum ideas,
they are not taught how to apply that curriculum or how
to interact with the diversity of children in their classes,
Pianta said.
Several recent studies have shown that teachers’ education
and experience do not show whether or not they teach well.
Yet studies also have shown that children’s early
success in school influences their continued academic achievement.
Pianta and his research team have made the connections
between teacher and student by capturing on video what
it is a great teacher does that makes children succeed.
In a recent Child Development article, Pianta and his team
showed that teachers who provide high levels of instructional
support and emotional support for children close the achievement
gap for at-risk children — they get higher marks
on standardized tests and are better adjusted socially
and emotionally.
“A lot of terrific teachers aren’t aware of the really good
things they do,” Pianta said. “When we point it out, it becomes
an insight they can share with others.”
Student-teachers will get exposure to videos that demonstrate model classrooms.
Clips of the videos are slowed down and edited to pinpoint specific examples
of interactions so that viewers might better understand the effects of
nuances, such as tone of voice, verbal feedback and emotional dimensions,
and to trace the richness of vocabulary and language used. The videos show
the teacher’s performance isn’t too didactic, but also doesn’t
look like an accident, said Pianta, who has taught at the University since
1986.
Some student-teachers will take part in both activities, the course and
consultation; two other groups will get one or the other, and another group
will serve as the control group, receiving the education presently offered
in the program in which they’re enrolled.
"Bob Pianta's work is of tremendous importance, not simply because
he's
focusing on how to prepare teachers of young children, but because he focuses
on high quality interactions between teachers and children," said
Samuel J. Meisels, president of the
Erikson Institute, a graduate school devoted to childhood development. "His
work is
leading the way to improving the early childhood profession."
“We are geared up to make a big impact on the training needs of early
childhood
educators. This is rigorous and programmatic research on teacher-training
that could be used by any teacher or program,” Pianta said. The study
also creates a new precedent for research on teacher education at any grade
or age level, not just pre-kindergarten, he added.
In addition to the U.Va. center on early childhood education and development,
the Institute of Education Sciences recently awarded centers on three other
areas: gifted and talented education, local and state policy, and postsecondary
education. The IES mission includes developing and evaluating the effectiveness
of programs, strategies and products that are intended to increase student
learning and achievement, and ensuring that information on what works and
how to implement it is conveyed to education practitioners and policy makers.
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