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Composite Learning Index Information Session, January 18, 2006
CCL is hosting an information session in Ottawa on January 18, 2006, to present the framework of its Composite Learning Index (CLI).
The CLI will provide a regular “snapshot” of the state of learning in Canada using an innovative approach that is both accessible and informative. The actual index will be released in spring 2006.
If you are interested in attending, please view the invitation for more details. Participants must register by January 13, 2006. If you cannot attend in person, you may log on to a live Webcast or dial in to the presentation portion of the session via teleconference. Simply indicate how you would prefer to participate on the registration form and you will be sent the appropriate information.
A list of Frequently Asked Questions has been compiled to help explain the CLI.
For more information about the event, please contact Josée Plouffe at (613) 786-3230, ext. 222.
CCL works with the Canadian Teachers’ Federation to review research literature about K-12 education
The Canadian Council on Learning is collaborating with the Canadian Teachers’ Federation (CTF) to undertake a number of systematic reviews of the research literature devoted to topics relating to K-12 education and instruction. This project will systematically compile and analyze the evidence-based research and then provide the results to Canadian teachers.
Representatives of the teachers’ organizations affiliated with the CTF identified the topics to be addressed, such as: homework; the inclusion of special needs students in conventional classroom settings; and developmentally appropriate curricular outcomes for pupils from junior kindergarten to grade 3.
“The CTF collaboration with CCL will benefit teachers across Canada,” says Noreen O’Haire, Director of Professional Development Services for the CTF. “CCL has the analytical expertise to take a dispassionate look at the evidence about these important topics. CTF has expertise communicating with teachers. CCL will review the evidence and CTF will be responsible for communicating the evidence to teachers to help inform and guide their practice.”
Systematic reviews are large-scale, well-documented and transparent endeavours that require the co-operation and collaboration of many individuals. CCL’s team of research analysts and graduate student interns are working with the CTF, university library staff, and professionals in the field to gather, assess and evaluate the research evidence on topics important to education in Canada.
For more information about this initiative, please contact Terri Thompson, the research analyst at the Canadian Council on Learning who is managing the review process, or Noreen O’Haire, Director of Professional Development Services for the Canadian Teachers’ Federation.
First language not necessarily linked to reading proficiency, CCL researcher finds
A collaboration between Zohreh Yaghoub Zadeh, a research analyst with the Canadian Council on Learning, and Esther Geva, a professor at the University of Toronto, has produced research that challenges the conventional wisdom about the reading efficiency of children learning English as a second language (ESL).
Conventional wisdom says that inadequate oral language proficiency is the root cause of difficulties that young ESL children may experience in developing reading efficiency, even when they read simple materials. But the research by Geva and Zadeh indicates that the true impediment to the development of reading skills may be inaccurate and dysfluent word recognition skills and deficits in the underlying cognitive-linguistic processes. The researchers found that this held true for young, first-language learners, as well as young ESL learners.
The article, Reading Efficiency in Native English-Speaking and English-as-a-Second-Language Children: The Role of Oral Proficiency and Underlying Cognitive-Linguistic Processes, was published this month in the prestigious journal Scientific Studies of Reading (volume 10, number 1, pages 31–57). The journal is available by subscription. In the article, Geva and Zadeh argue that such children may benefit from intervention approaches that focus on the development of efficient word recognition skills, as well as oral language development.
A full version of the article is available to subscribers of Scientific Studies of Reading.
CCL helps pull together research in speech-language pathology and audiology
The Canadian Council on Learning, the Canadian Association of Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists, the Canadian Cochrane Network and Centre, the University of Waterloo, and Research Works! for child literacy, are jointly supporting a workshop to facilitate systematic reviews of research for evidence-based practice in speech-language pathology and audiology.
The workshop, designed and conducted by the Canadian Centre for Knowledge Mobilization, will focus on finding and evaluating research evidence. Teams of students, clinicians, and faculty members representing seven Canadian universities will take part in the sessions conducted to January 13 - 15, 2006, at the University of Waterloo.
According to Charles Ungerleider, CCL’s Director of Research and Knowledge Mobilization, “CCL supports this initiative because having high quality research on learning depends upon building the capacity for doing that research. It is an investment that will yield immediate and continuing results for Canada.”
For more information, please contact Charles Ungerleider or visit the Canadian Centre for Knowledge Mobilisation.
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