all Kurt Fischer stories

Advances in genetics can help kids learn

50443248 — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:34:19 -0400

Education was becoming a no-brainer, some people at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education (HGSE) complained.

Kurt Fischer and his colleagues looked at the revolution in brain scanning, genetics, and other biological technologies and decided that most teachers and students weren’t getting much benefit from them. Brain scans are now available to watch what’s going on when someone is learning — or not learning. Finding genes that are involved in leaning disabilities is a hot area. Why, they asked, aren’t the powers of such technologies helping teachers in classrooms?

'Usable Knowledge' Web site delivers research to educators

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:28:29 -0400

The Harvard Graduate School of Education on Dec. 6, 2006, launched a new Web site aimed at connecting the research of its faculty with educators in the field. The Usable Knowledge Web site features a diverse set of media - text, video, and audio - to make the leading research of its faculty accessible to educators all over the world.

The Usable Knowledge Web site is organized around five topic areas that align with high priorities for educators: leadership and policy; learning and development; decisions through data; community and family; and teaching and curriculum.

Reserved children more likely to be violent than their outgoing peers

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:25:29 -0400

Kurt Fischer from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Brandeis' Malcolm Watson tracked 440 children and adolescents over seven years to determine what causes children to become aggressive and violent. They found that two characteristics strongly predict the development of aggression. Violence in the home, including physical parental punishment, was the strongest predictor of aggression in the child. While that indicator already is well-known, the second finding was unexpected: inhibited temperament was the second strongest predictor of aggression and violence in children. “Inhibition stood alone as the one personality characteristic that predicted aggression, which suggests possible connections with the isolated, alienated children who have committed school attacks,” says Fischer. Fischer and Watson recommend that teachers, school counselors, and parents attend to students who seem withdrawn, offering them opportunities to connect through clubs, study groups, and other social and academic outlets. The study was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and presented at the Society for Research in Child Development's biannual conference and the European Conference of Developmental Psychology.