Student social skills and screen time study

A new study suggests that, despite the large amount of time spent on smartphones and social media, young people today are just as socially skilled as those from the previous generation. Researchers compared teacher and parent evaluations of children who started kindergarten in 1998, six years before Facebook launched, with those who began school in 2010, when the first iPad debuted. The findings show that both groups of kids received similar ratings on their interpersonal skills, including the ability to form and maintain friendships and get along with those who are different. The two groups were also rated similarly on self-control, such as the ability to regulate their temper. There was one exception, however: Social skills were slightly lower for children who accessed online gaming and social networking sites several times a day.

Downey, D. B., & Gibbs, B. G. (2020). Kids These Days: Are Face-to-Face Social Skills among American Children Declining?. American Journal of Sociology, 125(4), 1030-1083.

Survey of digital material use by teachers

This researh adds new insights from English language arts (ELA), math, and science teachers on their use of digital materials. Drawing on data from the spring 2019 American Instructional Resources Survey, researchers share the digital materials that ELA, math, and science teachers across the United States reported using regularly for instruction during the 2018–2019 school year. Researchers then examine how teachers' use of these materials compares with their use of comprehensive curriculum materials, as well as teacher-reported barriers to digital material use. Researchers also explore several hypotheses regarding factors that might influence digital material use.

Key Findings

• Most teachers use digital materials both for planning and classroom instruction. However, they use these materials to supplement other curriculum materials rather than as main materials.
• For all subjects, the top digital materials used during instructional time include a mix of general resources, such as YouTube, and content-specific resources, such as ReadWorks and Khan Academy.
• Teachers who used standards-aligned curricula, who had more low-income students, or who attended certain teacher preparation programs were more likely to use digital materials.
• Expense was the most commonly cited barrier to digital material use, even more so among teachers with more low-income students.

Tosh, K., et al. (2020). Digital instructional materials: What are teachers using and what barriers exist? Santa Monica, CA: Rand.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2575z17.html?utm_source=WhatCountsEmail&utm_medium=NPA:2435:6021:Apr%2016,%202020%207:40:01%20AM%20PDT&utm_campaign=NPA:2435:6021:Apr%2016,%202020%207:40:01%20AM%20PDT

How schools should respond to pandemics.

“This resource provides the text of state statutes and regulations—as well as noncodified guidance from state health and education agencies—that relates to pandemic planning for schools. This tool is designed as a resource for educators, policymakers, and general audiences to learn more about pandemic planning for schools within their states; it is not designed to provide a comprehensive analysis of these policies.”
Nunez, B. (2020, Mar. 11).  As COVID-19 Spreads, Most States Have Laws That Address How Schools Should Respond to Pandemics.  ChildTrends. 

How to bridge homework gap with tech study

Enhancing connections between schools and communities could help close digital divides and curb the "homework gap," according to a study of schools in Alabama and Arizona. The study finds that bridging this divide relies on robust in-school technology programs and relevant community connections.
Lee, N. (2020). Bridging digital divides between schools and communities. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute.
https://www.brookings.edu/research/bridging-digital-divides-between-schools-and-communities/
 

Social-emotional learning

Schools that prioritize emotional and social development and other soft skills over test scores enable students to perform better in school and later in life, according to a Northwestern University study of more than 150,000 Chicago high-school students. "What we're showing is that schools that actually cause kids to become more gritty, those kids tend to be likely to persist more in college," says economist and study author Kirabo Jackson. Jackson has calculated that schools that build social-emotional qualities such as the ability to resolve conflicts and the motivation to work hard  are getting even better short-term and long-term results for students than schools that only boost test scores. The schools that develop soft skills produced students with higher grades, fewer absences and fewer disciplinary problems and arrests in high school. Later, the students who attended these high schools graduated and went to college in higher rates. 

This is still a working paper, which means it has not yet been peer-reviewed and may still undergo revisions. In February 2020, Jackson presented these early findings at conference of the National Center for the Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research.

Jackson, K. (2020).  School effects on socio-emotional development, school-based arrests and educational attainment. 

https://caldercenter.org/publications/school-effects-socio-emotional-development-school-based-arrests-and-educational

Pre-Service School Librarians’ Perceptions

New research explores graduate-level instruction on research designs and methods for pre-service school librarians. For their study, the research team f, examined the question, “How should a school library program prepare pre-service school librarians to integrate research into their future practice?” Using a focus group of pre-service school librarians, the team critically examined instruction through an existing two-course sequence of research methods in education with an emphasis on school libraries.

DiScala, Jeffrey, Elizabeth A. Burns, and Sue C. Kimmel. 2020. “Pre-Service School Librarians’ Perceptions of Research Pedagogy: An Exploratory Study.” School Library Research, 23.

http://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content/pubs/slr/vol23/SLR_PreserviceSchoolLibPerceptions_V23.pdf

Skills for coding

The ability to learn languages is a better predictor of success in computer programming and coding than math skills, researchers  found. The study points to stereotypes and math prerequisite courses as barriers to attracting more diversity to coding and connects coding more to the cognitive skills needed to learn languages and the working memory of students.

Prat, C.S., Madhyastha, T.M., Mottarella, M.J. et al. Relating Natural Language Aptitude to Individual Differences in Learning Programming Languages. Sci Rep 10, 3817 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-60661-8