This may be old news for some of you, but I just came across a website – Child Trends that seems like it would be a really useful resource for planning new school programs or for writing grants. It covers research on children in many areas including child health, education, behavior, and more. Although not technology related, often it helps to reach out to other areas of research to justify practices that support technology use with youth.
For example, teaching children about online safety, dealing with cyberbullying and other online risks is not just about teaching technology. And looking to research to find out “what works” to prevent face-to-face bullying or preventing risky behavior means you aren’t reinventing the wheel.
Here are just a couple of their reports on youth development that offer some lessons for the design and support of well-rounded cybersafety programs:
Research Briefs (all PDFs)
- What Works for Acting-Out (Externalizing) Behavior: Lessons from Experimental Evaluations of Social Interventions
- What Works for Promoting and Enhancing Positive Social Skills: Lessons from Experimental Evaluations of Programs and Interventions
- Multiple Responses, Promising Results: Evidence-Based, Nonpunitive Alternatives to Zero Tolerance
The site is well worth exploring further.
Sylvia
Thanks for sharing. I have a special interest in interpersonal problem solving approaches for helping challenging kids with social and other cognitive deficits. The research here and elsewhere has showed that these strategies don’t work so well. The reason for this , I discuss below is that the way these approaches have been implemented has a negative impact on kids aquiring skills.
A relatively new approach which fits in well with Alfie Kohn and self determination theory is Ross Greene’s Collaborative problem solving approach where the lacking cognitive skills are aquired by addressing the kids and teachers concerns and finding mutually satisfying solutions to real problems instead of the top-down teaching of skills and reinforcing them with rewards
What schools need instead of the traditional discipline code is a combination of Alfie Kohn’s – beyond discipline , moving fom compliance to community and Ross Greene’s CPS
http://www.lostatschool.org/answers/index.htm
http://allankatz-parentingislearning.blogspot.com/2011/01/social-skills-training-and-adhd.html
Ross Greene’s site http://livesinthebalance.org
Allan