Below is a listing of stories focusing on the work and achievements of SESP's faculty and students. For more news about SESP, see the SESP News Center.
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SESP Professors Address Teachers at AP Institute Professors David Figlio and Edd Taylor are the keynote speakers for the sixth annual Advanced Placement Summer Institute at Northwestern from July 21 to 31. The two SESP faculty members are addressing nearly 300 teachers attending Northwestern workshops to prepare them for teaching AP courses.  Taylor was the keynote speaker for the first one-week session with a talk on July 20 entitled “Moving beyond Culture as Category: Exploring Mathematical Expectancy of Meaning in Communities and Schools.” The purpose of his talk was to consider the influence of cultural practices in the development of students' understandings in schools. Taylor, an assistant professor of Learning Sciences, discussed his research that explores children's meaning making in mathematics by examining links between students' out-of-school practices, mathematical understandings and classroom instruction. His talk drew on analyses of data gathered during teacher professional development designed to support consideration of out-of-school practices in instruction, and from interviews with children and parents about shopping and tithing (church giving) and the mathematical understandings linked to these practices.  Figlio is delivering the keynote speech to the second session of the AP Institute on July 27, entitled “Intended and Unintended Consequences of School Accountability Plans.” Figlio, the Orrington Lunt Professor of Education and Social Policy and a National Bureau of Economic Research research associate, will discuss the popular policy worldwide of evaluating schools (and increasingly, teachers) on the basis of the standardized test performance of their students. It has been national policy in the United States since 2002, and other countries continue to introduce new accountability policies. “The purpose of these policies is to increase the productivity of schools and teachers by shining a light on high and low performance, rewarding strong performance and sanctioning low performance,” Figlio notes.Figlio’s presentation will provide the economic rationale for these policies, and then demonstrate the incentives for both productive and unproductive responses to school accountability pressure. He will also describe his research documenting that school accountability policies can lead to improved test scores for students and substantive changes in school policies and practices but can also lead to negative behaviors by educators. Both keynote addresses introduce high school teachers to some of the major education issues that SESP faculty are studying. Paula Olszewski-Kubilius, director of SESP’s Center for Talent Development is introducing both sessions with a welcome and an overview of the School of Education and Social Policy. The Center, which serves more than 2,300 gifted students annually with enrichment classes and other programs, offers AP courses online. Led by experienced members of the AP community, the Advanced Placement Summer Institute offers teachers support and preparation for teaching AP classes. Topics covered in the workshops include course design, text selection, responding to student feedback and using proven teaching methods. Teachers also learn about diagnosis of scores and test-taking strategies. Training sessions are offered in 12 subject areas, including English literature, English language, economics, calculus, Spanish, psychology, U.S. history, European history, U.S. government, world history, geography and environmental science. Northwestern University’s School of Continuing Studies offers the institutes, which this summer are being attended by 290 teachers from across Chicago and the Midwest. by Marilyn Sherman  E-mail this story
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