University of Virginia Research Professor to Speak About School Reform

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David W. Grismmer

David W. Grissmer, a research professor of education at the University of Virginia, will speak at noon Friday, Feb. 12, on the University of Arkansas campus. His lecture title is "The Potential Role of Early Cognitive Skills in Accounting for the Puzzling Results of Long Term School Reform."

The lecture is part of the Department of Education Reform Lecture Series and will take place in Room 343, Graduate Education Building.

Those planning to attend any of the lectures in the series are asked to RSVP on the Department of Education Reform's website before 1 p.m. the Wednesday preceding the lecture.

Grissmer's research includes understanding the gaps in achievement between different ethnicities and advantaged and disadvantaged students. He studies the developmental origins of cognitive gaps prior to school entry using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey of entering kindergarten students and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey of a birth cohort. He is examining the strong relationships between cognitive skills and earlier forming motor and attentional skills, their relationship to "executive function" and tracing these relationships and links using evidence from developmental neuroscience.

Grissmer also performs a second area of research regarding the improvement of research and development policy in funding educational research.