PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Evolutionary practices in schools can benefit at-risk students

Can also work for general population

Evolutionary practices in schools can benefit at-risk students
2011-11-22
(Press-News.org) BINGHAMTON, NY – Helping at-risk high schoolers succeed in the classroom has always been difficult. Binghamton University Professor David Sloan Wilson thinks that he has a solution: design a school program that draws upon general theories of social behavior.

Wilson, who has studied the evolution of social behavior throughout his career, recently had an opportunity to advise a new program for at-risk 9th and 10th graders in the upstate community of Binghamton, NY. Known as the Regents Academy, the program initiated in the Binghamton City School District was a huge success during its first year, as described in the current issue of PLoS ONE, the Public Library of Science's open access online publication. Wilson's consulting relationship with the school is part of a more general effort to apply evolution to everyday life, which he describes in his newly published book The Neighborhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve My City, One Block at a Time (Little, Brown 2011).

Working with a graduate student, Richard A. Kauffman, the Regents Academy Principal, Miriam S. Purdy, and a dedicated staff of four teachers, Wilson designed a school environment that that is maximally conducive toward cooperation and learning. Some of the ingredients included a positive group identity, an atmosphere of safety and trust, and consensus decision-making. Other elements include the monitoring of good behavior in a non-threatening fashion, quick resolution of conflicts regarded as fair by the students, and consistent efforts in meeting long-term learning objectives in a way that also engages over the short term. A key ingredient was for the program to be provided with the authority to govern itself by the Binghamton City School District.

"None of these design features are unusual," said Wilson. "But we brought them together to form an unusual package. A well-functioning group is like an organism. Just as an organism needs all its organs and will die if any one of them is removed, a group needs numerous design features in combination and can become severely compromised if any one of them is missing."

After identifying 117 9th and 10th graders who qualified for the RA by failing three or more courses during the previous year, 56 were randomly chosen to enter the program. The rest were tracked as they experienced the normal routine at Binghamton's high school. By the first marking period, the RA students were performing much better than the comparison group. Fewer of them dropped out during the year. The most outstanding result came at the end of the year when the RA students not only outperformed the comparison group on the state-mandated Regents exams, but performed on a par with the average Binghamton high school student. Boy, girls, blacks, whites, and Hispanics all improved their performance to an equal degree.

"The fact that the RA students started doing better right away illustrates that people are like chameleons," said Wilson. "Just as chameleons can quickly change their colors to match their background, at-risk high school students can quickly respond to a school environment that favors cooperation as a social strategy, even when the rest of their lives remain harsh. The fact that they performed as well as the average high school student on the state mandated exams, after failing three or more courses during the previous year, demonstrates a surprising degree of resilience in kids that have experienced a lot of hardship in their lives."

Why don't schools automatically adopt the design features of the Regents Academy if they make so much sense and are so successful? According to Wilson, all educational practices have a surface logic, based on background assumptions.

"If students aren't learning the basics, it makes sense to cut back on play, arts, and sports, which are seen as superfluous," said Wilson. "It seems efficient to create classes where students interact primarily with others of their same age. It makes sense to do things according to the experts without consulting the students. It makes sense to standardize practices and limit the opportunities of teachers to implement their own strategies. The problem is that all of these policies have unintended consequences that weren't anticipated by their rationales."

But as Wilson points out, worse yet are negative effects which are typically indirect and diffuse.

"They can't be traced to their causes without a rigorous assessment, such as the randomized control design that we employed for the Regents Academy," said Wilson.

Unlike most other successful programs for at-risk high school students, which require expensive measures such as extending the school day and year, the RA is affordable by the average public school district.

"The same principles that inform the RA can improve the social environment of all students and indeed all groups whose members are attempting to achieve shared goals," said Wilson.



INFORMATION:


[Attachments] See images for this press release:
Evolutionary practices in schools can benefit at-risk students

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Research group proposes first system for assessing the odds of life on other worlds

2011-11-22
PULLMAN, Wash. – Within the next few years, the number of planets discovered in orbits around distant stars will likely reach several thousand or more. But even as our list of these newly discovered "exoplanets" grows ever-longer, the search for life beyond our solar system will likely focus much more narrowly on the relatively few of these new worlds which exhibit the most Earth-like of conditions. For much of the scientific community, the search for alien life has long been dominated by the notion that our own planet serves as the best model of conditions best suited ...

People with early Alzheimer's disease may be more likely to have lower BMI

2011-11-22
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Studies have shown that people who are overweight in middle age are more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease decades later than people at normal weight, yet researchers have also found that people in the earliest stages of Alzheimer's disease are more likely to have a lower body mass index (BMI). A current study examines this relationship between Alzheimer's disease and BMI. The study, published in the November 22, 2011, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, examined 506 people with advanced brain imaging ...

Poor recycling of BACE1 enzyme could promote Alzheimer's disease

Poor recycling of BACE1 enzyme could promote Alzheimers disease
2011-11-22
Sluggish recycling of a protein-slicing enzyme could promote Alzheimer's disease, according to a study published online on November 21 in The Journal of Cell Biology (www.jcb.org). Abeta, the toxic protein that accumulates in the brains of Alzheimer's patients, is formed when enzymes cut up its parental protein, known as amyloid precursor protein. One of those enzymes is beta-secretase or BACE1. BACE1 cycles between the Golgi apparatus and the plasma membrane, traveling through endosomes on the way. A protein complex called the retromer helps transport proteins back from ...

YourHomeSupply.com Introduces New Line Of Home Security Cabinet And Door Hardware

2011-11-22
Your Home Supply, a one stop shop for cabinet and door hardware needs, has recently introduced a new range of products that include First Watch Security, a premium line of home security hardware. The new selection of bolts, latches, strike plates, latch guards, drawer, cabinet, mailbox and window locks, door reinforcers as well as patio and replacement knobs is available at the lowest prices with an unmatched quality. The new First Watch Security product not only adds to the security of a home, but also lends a door a new style. Customers can even get custom designed products ...

Researchers shrink tumors and minimize side effects using tumor-homing peptide to deliver treatment

Researchers shrink tumors and minimize side effects using tumor-homing peptide to deliver treatment
2011-11-22
LA JOLLA, Calif., November 21, 2011 – The trouble with most anti-cancer therapies is that they are lethal to most cells in the body, not just cancer cells. As a result, patients experience side effects like nausea, increased susceptibility to infection, and increased risk of developing secondary cancers later in life. Researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham) are developing techniques to deliver cancer drugs directly to tumors, increasing their effectiveness and decreasing collateral damage. In a study published the week of November 21 ...

New breast cancer screening guidelines released

2011-11-22
New breast cancer screening guidelines for women at average risk of breast cancer, published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/site/embargo/cmaj110334.pdf, recommend no routine mammography screening for women aged 40-49 and extend the screening interval from every 2 years, which is current clinical practice, to every 2 to 3 years for women aged 50-74. The guidelines also recommend against routine clinical breast exam and breast self-examination in asymptomatic women. The guidelines, aimed at physicians and policy-makers, ...

DesignPractica Expands eCommerce and Custom CMS Services

2011-11-22
DesignPractica has been creating and maintaining custom websites for small businesses in Greater Vancouver area for several years. Now, in addition to offering WordPress, Django and Google Application Engine websites, DesignPractica will also provide support and development services with all top open-source and hosted eCommerce and CMS systems, such as Magento, Drupal, Volusion, Shopify, Satchmo and others, for small, medium and large businesses in the greater Vancouver region. DesignPractica has a successful history of helping local manufacturers, farmers, restaurants ...

More than one-quarter of Canadian adults projected to have hypertension in 2012/13

2011-11-22
Hypertension in Canada is increasing, and it is projected that more than one-quarter of Canadian adults will be diagnosed with hypertension by 2012/13, according to a study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/site/embargo/cmaj101863.pdf. Older women were more likely to be diagnosed with high blood pressure compared with men, and people in the Atlantic provinces had the highest rates of hypertension. Canadian researchers looked at data on 26 million adults aged 20 years and over between 1998󈟏 and 2007/08 to ...

Families report adverse events in hospitalized children not tracked by health-care providers

2011-11-22
Families of hospitalized children can provide valuable information about adverse events relating to their children's care that complements information documented by health care professionals, states a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/site/embargo/cmaj110393.pdf. Hospitals in Canada have instituted systems to encourage reporting of adverse events — things that may negatively affect the recovery or health of a patient — in patient care. In pediatrics, it is estimated that 1% of children in hospital ...

NIH researchers identify key proteins of inner ear transduction channel

2011-11-22
National Institutes of Health-funded researchers have identified two proteins that may be the key components of the long-sought after mechanotransduction channel in the inner ear—the place where the mechanical stimulation of sound waves is transformed into electrical signals that the brain recognizes as sound. The findings are published in the Nov. 21 online issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation. The study used mice in which two genes, TMC1 and TMC2, have been deleted. The researchers revealed a specific functional deficit in the mechanotransduction channels ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Scientists uncover key to decoupling economic growth from pollution in developing countries

Frailty fuels gut imbalance and post-surgery gastrointestinal risks

BMS-986504 demonstrates durable responses in MTAP-deleted NSCLC, including EGFR and ALK-positive tumors

Phase III trial finds hypofractionated radiotherapy with chemotherapy offers comparable survival and lower toxicity to conventional schedule in LS-SCLC

Lung cancer screening benefits adults up to age 80 if surgical candidates, UK study finds

Video assisted thoracoscopy surgery reduces mortality by 21 percent compared to lobectomy

NADIM ADJUVANT trial suggests benefit of adjuvant chemo-immunotherapy in resected stage IB–IIIA NSCLC

EA5181 phase 3 trial finds no OS benefit for concurrent and consolidative durvalumab vs consolidation alone in unresectable stage 3 NSCLC

Training to improve memory

Are patients undergoing surgery for early-stage cancer at risk of persistent opioid use?

Black youth, especially Black girls, use mental health services less than their White peers

Canada must protect youth from sports betting advertising

First-in-human trial shows promising results for DLL3-targeted antibody-drug conjugate SHR-4849 in relapsed small cell lung cancer

Ifinatamab deruxtecan demonstrates high response rate in previously treated extensive-stage small cell lung cancer: Phase 2 IDeate-Lung01 trial

Higher blood pressure in childhood linked to earlier death from heart disease in adulthood

AI helped older adults report accurate blood pressure readings at home

High blood pressure in childhood and premature cardiovascular disease mortality

Zidesamtinib shows durable responses in ROS1 TKI pre-treated NSCLC, including patients with CNS disease and ROS1 G2032R mutations

Crizotinib fails to improve disease-free survival in resected early-stage ALK+ NSCLC

Ivonescimab plus chemotherapy improves progression-free survival in patients with EGFR+ NSCLC following 3rd-generation EGFR-TKI therapy

FLAURA2 trial shows osimertinib plus chemotherapy improves overall survival in eGFR-mutated advanced NSCLC

Aumolertinib plus chemotherapy improves progression-free survival in NSCLC with EGFR and concomitant tumor suppressor genes: ACROSS 2 phase III study

New antibody-drug conjugate shows promising efficacy in EGFR-mutated NSCLC patients

Iza-Bren in combination with osimertinib shows 100% response rate in EGFR-mutated NSCLC, phase II study finds

COMPEL study shows continuing osimertinib treatment through progression with the addition of chemotherapy improves progression-free survival in EGFR-mutated NSCLC

CheckMate 77T: Nivolumab maintains quality of life and reduces symptom deterioration in resectable NSCLC

Study validates AI lung cancer risk model Sybil in predominantly Black population at urban safety-net hospital

New medication lowered hard-to-control high blood pressure in people with chronic kidney disease

Innovative oncolytic virus and immunotherapy combinations pave the way for advanced cancer treatment

New insights into energy metabolism and immune dynamics could transform head and neck cancer treatment

[Press-News.org] Evolutionary practices in schools can benefit at-risk students
Can also work for general population