Prof Karin James' Research Sailing the Popular Media

Professor Karin James' cutting-edge research on the diverse benefits of writing by hand has been riding a wave of interest in popular media. Last year it was featured prominently in the Wall Street Journal, in an article that received almost 10,000 Facebook "Likes." Since then, her work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune and LA Times, The Globe and Mail, and throughout the blogosphere. Her research finds that handwriting, which many consider to be a forgotten skill, actually has strong benefits beyond fine penmanship. Learning to actively write on paper improves letter recognition (a strong predictor of reading ability) in ways above and beyond merely learning the appearance of letters.

Prof Goldstone Featured in NYTimes Article

Professor Rob Goldstone's work has been featured in a recent New York Times piece on teaching abstract concepts. Toward the end of the article, Goldstone's work with local Jackson Creek Middle School students is described. His recently-published research project (with Samuel Day) investigated how abstract concepts learned in one context might spontaneously transfer to another context. This work is relevant to educators who hope that, when teaching abstract material such as mathematical operations, students will generalize what they've learned toward new situations that weren't explicitly described when learning. As the article notes, "This ability to transfer, as it’s known, is fundamental to scientific reasoning and is among the highest goals of teachers at all levels."