Harnessing the science of learning on behalf of children

Submitted by Erna Boettigheimer

The August 19 Issue of Science contained a number of articles dedicated to issues involved in improving education. This is not a synopsis of that issue but instead highlights topics covered in the published articles.

1.     A review of interventions for improving executive function development in kids (by Diamond and Lee). Several posting on this site (including the posting below this one) present details of some of the methods used and the results obtained.

2.     Bruce Alberts presents findings of the effectiveness of early childhood interventions in supporting more successful school performance.

3.     Jeffrey Mervis provides lots of details for laying the foundation for lifetime learning focusing on longitudinal studies of high quality early education.

4.     Barnett examines the value of early educational intervention to partially offset the impact of poverty including poor learning environments.

5.     David Klar provides a taxonomy for classifying research and scientific thinking from  developmental perspective.