Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Online Workshop - join in!

My first experience at doing an online workshop will be on January 29th, 12-1pm. Cool! I'll present an overview of the HIPPY model, and share with other parent educators some HIPPY strategies that I think they could adapt to their programs. This is being organized for the Texas Association of Parent Educators (TAPE) through the Collin Community College.

I've attended a few online presentations and hope that I can keep mine interesting, useful and interactive. Join in if you can, if not, spread the word!

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Increasing Educational Achievement


Can we put to rest the question whether preschool education is necessary? "One of the challenges for policy makers is sorting through the evidence..." says Steve Barnett, of Rutgers University, in a video interview on the Teachers College Record. His recent statistical summary of the impact of early childhood education reviewed over 120 studies over several decades and demonstrated that us that preschool has impact on cognitive, social/emotional development and schooling outcomes. The immediate impact of preschool is that it closes 70% of the achievement gap! What matters? The design must include intentional teaching and individualization - these increase effect size. HIPPY does this by providing parents with a well laid plan of activities over the course of 30 weeks, and teaches them how to adapt to their child's particular learning styles and needs.

Watch the full interview here:
http://www.tcrecord.org/voice.asp