ETS Accommodating Students with Disabilities on State Assessments conference

Registration information is now available for the ETS sponsored "Accommodating Students with Disabilities on State Assessments: What Works?" conference.

The following was lifted from the web page.

• Date: March 19, 2006 - March 21, 2006
• Location: Savannah, Georgia

The No Child Left Behind Act and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act are examples of legislation that has had a profound impact on the assessment of students with disabilities in K-12 settings. Experts in the field of school testing have been caught between the need to ensure that test scores from assessments are valid and reliable and the need to provide accommodations that improve the accessibility of state assessments.

ETS, the College Board, the Council for Exceptional Children, and the National Institute for Urban School Improvement are hosting a conference that will provide a forum for practitioners and leading researchers to discuss current issues associated with accommodating students with disabilities on state standards-based assessments.

Be there to learn the latest on the following vital issues:

• the fairness and validity of test accommodations
• implementation of test accommodations in K-12 and postsecondary settings
• use of accommodations in instruction
• the influence of K-12 assessments on instructional practices
• helping Individualized Education Program teams make decisions about selecting accommodations
• legal concerns about accommodating students with disabilities.

Come with questions. Leave with a better sense of how best to provide fair, valid, and accessible assessments to students with disabilities.

Technorati tags: NCLB. accommodations. asessment. ETS. education.

E-assessment lit review posted

FYI from the "Authentic Assessment Web site"

E-assessment literature review

.......The National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA) Futurelab produce periodic literature reviews on educationand technology. One of the more recent reports looks at e-assessment. (A pdf version is available here.) It's a little UK-centric, but a jolly good read all the same, especially as 'open web' examinations get an honourable mention. A short critique of the report is also available at elearning-reviews.org.

Technorati Tags: education, psychological testing, assessment, web testing, computerized testing

Accessible reading assessments - NARAP and PARA

FYI....

• The National Accessible Reading Assessment Projects (NARAP) is a collaboration of projects funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) to conduct research to make large-scale assessments of reading proficiency more accessible for students who have disabilities that affect reading. Because public schools are accountable for demonstrating the reading proficiency of the diverse population of students in schools today, it is more important than ever that these assessments be accessible and reflect the students' true knowledge and skills.

[Disclaimer....I, Kevin McGrew (dictator of this blog) have a consulting contract with the U of M to work on this grant.]

The above center is also part of PARA as described below

• The Partnership for Accessible Reading Assessment (PARA) is a consortium of the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) , the National Center on the Research on Evaluation, Standards , and Student Testing (CRESST), and Westat, Inc. Together the partners are addressing the very challenging issues surrounding reading assessment, with CRESST leading the research activities and Westat leading the field test activities. PARA is conducting a program of research and development designed to make large-scale assessments of reading proficiency more accessible for students who have disabilities that affect reading. This research will contribute to the ultimate goal of making large-scale assessments more “universally designed,” that is, designed from the beginning to be accessible and valid for the widest range of students, including students with disabilities.

Technorati tags: reading. Grw. NCLB. universal design. accessible reading. education.

CHC human cognitive elements table

Over on the IAP CHC listserv someone suggested that there might be a need for a CHC table of human cognitive elements, to help impress others (from other fields) of the importance of the CHC taxonomy to the field of cognitive testing and theory.

Bingo....I crafted such an animal back in 1999. It can be viewed/downloaded by clicking here. Understanding the abbreviations can be aided by viewing the CHC Definition Project page. It does not reflect recent changes/revisions to CHC theory and, if someone wants to be creative, it could be extended in many ways.

Technorati tags: teaching tool. CHC theory. psychology. intelligence. cognition. educational psychology. iq testing. psychological testing. intelligence theory.

Cross-cultural 3 to 5 year old cognitive development study

Cross-cultural study compares cognitive development in 3-to-5-year-olds

Thanks to Adrew Livanis for a post regarding the following article.

• Sabbagh, M.A., Xu, F., Carlson, S.M., Moses, L.J., Lee, K. (2006). The development of executive functioning and theory of mind.Psychological Science, 17, 1, 74-81.

As stated by Livanis, "I find this article extremely interesting for many reasons. The
researchers decided to compare a group of Chinese preschoolers to American preschoolers. They administered tests of verbal abilities to match controls and then they administered several tests of executive functioning....... Click on link above to visit School Psychology blog for more indepth discussion.

Technorati Tags: intelligence, Gc, crystallized intelligence, executive function, neuroscience, brain, school psychology, CHC theory

Quote to note - Certainties and doubts - Sir Francis Bacon

Sir Francis Bacon

• "If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties."

New normal children fMRI database project

Thanks to Mind Hacks for the FYI re: a new fMRI database of normally developing childrens brains.

Revolutionary child brain database launches

A database of MRI scans of normally developing children has been launched that could revolutionalise the understanding of childhood brain function, injury and disease. It includes brain scans of 500 children from 7 days to 18 years-old and aims to be representative of the population at large.

Click link aboved for more info............

Risk taking and intelligence - thanks to the DI blog

Nice post and discussion, plus links to other comments re: methodological study flaws, regarding recent research that suggests a link between risk taking and intelligence. A tip of the hat to Developing Intelligence for this note. I'm becomming a big fan of the DI blog and will keep my readers posted on interesting DI posts

Risk Taking and Intelligence

Technorati Tags: intellignece, risk taking, CHC theory, conative

Off task - quantoid art - photo equations

For the quantoids of this blog. Thanks to Boing Boing for the FYI post regarding mathematical equation photo art. My Xmas shopping for next year is now made easier

Photos of mathematical equations -- London show open Feb 1

Justin Mullins, an artist who produces framed equations with textual material explaining their meaning to everyday life, is having his first exhibition in London, Feb 1-12, at Lauderdale House. Mullins's work -- which he calls "mathematical photography" -- goes beyond gimmicky amusement. Sustained attention to the equations and diagrams he's chosen really does inspire the same kind of moving feeling that photos of the physical world can bring

Technorati Tags: Gq, mathematics, photography, art, quantoid

Memory and autistic children study - with CHC interpretation

Hat tip to Andrew Livanis for posting information regarding a recent research article dealing with memory functioning in autistic children. More importantly, Andrew inserts his CHC ability interpretations in his summary of the article.

Specific memory issues found in autistic children

(Tip for Andrew....you may want to insert a link to IAP's online CHC definition page when inserting CHC ability codes in posts. URL is: http://www.iapsych.com/chcdef.htm

Technorati Tags: CHC theory, intelligence, Glr, Gsm, long term retrieval, short-term memory, cognition, autism

Flynn Effect in UK - "Intelligence in UK declining?"

Interesting post at Gene Expression regarding the Flynn Effect.

Intelligence in UK declining?

"..........Today's London Sunday Times (January 29) has an article in the Education section on new research which claims that British children's 'intelligence' has declined dramatically in the last 30 years. If the link works, the article is here.


Technorati Tags: intelligence, IQ, Flynn Effect, CHC theory, cognition, eduction

Recent literature of interest 01-28-06 posted

This weeks "recent literature" of interest can be viewed/downloaded by clicking here.

Technorati tags: teaching tool. psychology.

Neural oscillations and Mozart Effect fyi

Check out the very nice treatment and discussion of the "Mozart Effect" over on the Developing Intelligence blog. A hat tip to Chris Chatham.

Neural Oscillations and the Mozart Effect

Technorati Tags: Ga, auditory processing, Mozart effect, neuroscience, cognition, education, intelligence

Gv (Visual spatial processing) teaching tool

A video demo at the Mind Institute (click on "Upright JiJI" demo) might be a good teaching tool for demonstrating the Gv ability of Vz (visualization).

• Visualization (Vz): The ability to apprehend a spatial form, object, or scene and match it with another spatial object, form, or scene with the requirement to rotate it (one or more times) in two or three dimensions. Requires the ability to mentally imagine, manipulate or transform objects or visual patterns (without regard to speed of responding) and to ?see? (predict) how they would appear under altered conditions (e.g., parts are moved or rearranged).

Technorati Tags: Gv, visualization, CHC theory, intelligence, psychology, educational psychology, teaching tool, cognition

Werner Wittman gender differences - more discussion

Society Decides Against Boys

A return tip of the hat to Al Fin for following up on my FYI post regarding Werner Wittman's presentation on gender differences at the 12th biennial meeting of the ISSID in Adelaide.

Technorati Tags: gender, gender differences, intelligence

Bilingualism and growing your brain

Bilingualism is Good for You post over at the Eide Neurolearning Blog.

• "Although it does require extra cognitive work and attention to be bilingual, bilingualism builds more gray matter in the language parts of the brain...
  

Technorati Tags: bilingualism, neuroscience, brain, psychology, intelligence

Wittman paper/presentation re: gender and academic success posted

Werner Wittman has updated his web page with links to a paper/presentation (Gender Differences in Academic Success) made at the 2005 International Society for the Study of Individual Differences (ISSID) conference.

Interactive metronome - synchronized metronome tapping

Andrew Livanis has weighed in with his thoughts regarding synchronoized metronome tapping as a potentially useful academic-related intervention. He, like I, appears to be viewing this as a positive skeptic. In addition to Andrew's musings, below are the various posts I've devoted to this intriguing intervention method.

• Ryythm(Ga?)-mental time-keeping and reading post
• More on mental time-keeping post
• Brain "tunning" synchronization post
• Mental time-keeping: More on Interactive Metronome post
  
• Mental time keeping post

Technorati tags: psychology. intelligence. cognition. interactive metronome. mental time keeping. temporal tracking. working memory. dyslexia.

More on gender IQ difference research.

Al Fin takes off on my recent gender difference study post re: the NNAT test, adds a little visual humor (Al Fin - beware of the PC police), and provides additional links. A tip of the hat to Al Fin.

Technorati tags: psychology. intelligence. cognition. iq testing. intelligence theory. gender differences. gender. IQ differences. gender differences. Gf. fluid intelligence.

Intelligence and national wealth

Ok....this is getting off-the-beaten path re: practical applications of intelligence theory and tests....but.....it can make for good cocktail party trivia.

In 2002 Lynn and Vanhanen published the book IQ and the Wealth of Nations which established an empirical link between the mean intelligence and economic wealth (GDP) of countries. Various scholars have commented/criticizied this controversial work and many have reanalyzed the primary data.

A Intelligence "in press" article by Dickerson presents a new methodological twist on the data. Although the mathematics and statistics may turn off most readers, the conclusions are relatively easy to digest

Abstract

Plots of mean IQ and per capita real Gross Domestic Product for groups of 81 and 185 nations, as collected by Lynn and Vanhanen, are best fitted by an exponential function of the form: GDP=a *10b*(IQ), where a and b are empirical constants. Exponential fitting yields markedly higher correlation coefficients than either linear or quadratic. The implication of exponential fitting is that a given increment in IQ, anywhere along the IQ scale, results in a given percentage in GDP, rather than a given dollar increase as linear fitting would predict. As a rough rule of thumb, an increase of 10 points in mean IQ results in a doubling of the per capita GDP.

To read the article........

Technorati tags: GDP. psychology. intelligence. wealth of nations.