A book recommendation

I sometimes write about the issue of translating research into educational practice and what seems to me to be an oblivious state when it comes to recognizing the failure of research to support a specific practice. I would argue that recognition of this situation should be a concern to all interested in practice. Imagine public and policy maker concern should the same situation exist for medical research and medical practice.

From the ivory tower to the schoolhouse (Schneider, 2014) takes on this thorny issue. The book takes an interesting approach. Rather than focusing on failures of translation, the book takes a historical approach trying to understand what the author believes have been research to practice successes. The ideas the author regards as successful include multiple intelligences, project based learning, Bloom’s taxonomy and direct instruction. These are ideas that are not without controversy and that may even be contradictory (project based learning and direct instruction). To me, the author seems to be suggesting that the consideration of effectiveness and the specifics of when and where to do what must follow a common interest (academics and practitioners) in a practice. I  see the potential in examining the problem from this perspective.

Larry Cuban wrote the Forward for this book. Here is the related post from his blog.

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