This webinar, will offer research-based recommendations for reducing school dropout rates. Marlene Darwin, Senior Research Analyst at the American Institutes for Research, and Nikola Filby, Director of WestEd’s Innovation Studies Program, will showcase the recommended practices in the Institute of Education Sciences Practice Guide, which includes strategies for identifying and advocating for at-risk students, implementing programs to improve behavior and social skills, and keeping students engaged in the school environment. The webinar will also provide a brief introduction to the resources from the Doing What Works website illustrating how these recommendations have been carried out.

See the webinars page on SchoolsMovingUp for further information, including specific topics to be addressed by this webinar, at http://www.schoolsmovingup.net/webinars.

blog.  This is the second article in a four part series.

How a kid goes about doing his homework can be very revealing. A lot of parents are dismayed when their child seems to just leap right into tasks without first contemplating the best course of action. Courtney, a sixth grader, fits this bill. Her mother describes her as a “bull in a china shop” when it comes to homework (and incidentally, most other times when a methodical approach is called for as well). When Courtney gets to a math word problem she seems to start scribbling calculations before she even finishes reading it. Sometimes she answers almost all of questions in social studies assignments before realizing that the directions wanted her to do something else. But above all, writing is a disaster. The notion of starting with an outline is totally alien to Courtney, who would much rather just get to writing; as a result, many of her great ideas never make it to the page or get hidden in a disorganized stream of sentences.

Courtney has a weakness in an aspect of her attention called production control, which is like the brain’s dashboard; her mind doesn’t have a reliable speedometer, meaning that she jumps into tasks too quickly, without first coming up with good plans. Dashboards also provide many signals to let you know how well things are working (such as a low fuel light and a door ajar signal), but Courtney’s production control doesn’t monitor her work very effectively. Her mother gets exasperated by all of the “careless” mistakes she makes in her homework. For example, she might miscalculate in math or misspell a word, but when prompted to take a second look, she readily finds these kinds of errors and fixes them.

Tate is a fourth grader and his dad says that homework “takes forever to get done.” The reason? Tate is very susceptible to distractions and daydreaming due to his attention processing control. His dad frequently reels him back in with little reminders like, “stick with it, Tate” or “come on back, dude!” Getting homework done in a reasonable amount of time usually requires staying focused on the task at hand.

Everyone, including adults, experiences difficulty with concentration from time to time. Even if you’re working in a place with few distracting sights and sounds, your thoughts may wander like Tate’s. For some people, processing control does not do a sufficient job of resisting “mind trips” and avoiding distractions. If given a choice between finishing homework and spending time on recreational activities, most kids would choose the latter; but kids with weak processing control are pulled even more strongly than other kids toward fun stuff and away from work.

A kid can have a hard time staying on task for reasons other than weak attention, however. Active working memory is what we use to mentally juggle or manipulate information. Monika frequently gets lost in the middle of homework tasks. As a seventh grader, much of her work involves multiple steps (such as when solving a math problem) or numerous components that have to be attended to simultaneously (such as all the aspects of writing a book report). In other words, she has to handle a lot of moving parts and her parents see her losing track of a lot of them. So she may get lost in the middle of a math computation and complain that she is confused about what to do next.

Dr. Pohlman conducts and supervises learning assessments for Southeast Psych and is available to present on learning issues. Feel free to contact him at 704-552-0116 or speakersbureau@southeastpsych.com. His new book is due out on Sept. 28th.  You can also see some other references to his work on this blog:

• How Can My Kid Succeed in School – Part One
• Assessment and Today’s Learner
• The Perils of Handwriting in Schools
• Thinking About Thinking

>click here to read the article…

This article was originally published by the The Center for Learning Differences.

Jennifer Zwiebel is a Professional Organizer and Coach who partners with students to help them discover systems that will work for them, both in their space and in their minds. By teaching time management and organizational skills through hands-on work and by providing consistent support for her clients, she helps them live, work and think more clearly. Jennifer is the co-author of The Organized Student: Teaching Children the Skills for Success in School and Beyond (www.jenniferzwiebel.com).

The following is an excerpt from

Brady is a 2nd grader who’s having a very hard time learning to read and spell. He’s great at art, enthusiastically listens to stories, and absorbs information he hears (he loves learning about reptiles). He is picking up math skills with no trouble and is a natural when collaborating with peers. Both adults and kids really enjoy being around him, but his reading troubles are starting to deflate him. In 1st grade he dashed out the door every morning to get to school. Now he asks if he has to go, and longs for weekends and vacations.

Cetera is Brady’s classmate, and she also struggles with reading and spelling. Though not quite as social as Brady, she belongs to a very close threesome of friends. She loves sports, especially soccer and basketball. Cetera also is starting to have some trouble with math. Like Brady, she picks up information very nicely when listening, though sometimes she has a hard time making connections with her prior knowledge. Lately, she’s been complaining to her mother about how hard school is for her.

How can Brady and Cetera’s learning problems be conquered? How can their parents and teachers get them to enjoy school again? Figuring out what is causing their reading challenges is the first step. The good news is that their parents and teachers can gather lots of information, analyze it, and then select targeted learning strategies. But they have to know what to look for and how to make sense of what they find.

Like all students, Brady and Cetera leave plenty of clues about their learning. For example, Brady has a hard time coming up with rhyming words. When he reads aloud he drops out word sounds (like reading “block” as “bok”) and inserts letters that shouldn’t be there when he spells (like spelling “candy” as “canku”). Cetera struggles with memory for several types of information, like math facts and prior knowledge.

Brady’s clues add up to the conclusion that word sounds are very confusing to him. He doesn’t clearly process small sounds like /f/ in “leaf,” which means he has a hard time connecting sounds with letters (like /f/ with “f” or “ph” or even “gh”, as in “cough”). In contrast, Cetera processes small word sounds just fine (for instance, she can rhyme and move sounds around to change words). As it turns out, she has a hard time remembering which sounds go with which letters.

By the way, both Brady and Cetera probably would meet criteria for a learning disability (or, more specifically, a reading disability or dyslexia). But labeling them wouldn’t do much good. That would be akin to claiming that a child with stomach pain has something like Abdomen Soreness Disorder- a label that is pretty useless when it comes to a treatment. Labels tend to oversimplify students by not capturing unique characteristics, like the differences between Brady and Cetera. Also, labels don’t convey strengths and interests, like Brady’s affinity for reptiles or Cetera’s listening comprehension.

Brady and Cetera are experiencing unique challenges. Understanding the specifics of those challenges helps identify what they need in order to be more successful readers. For Brady, the key is to bolster his capacity to process word sounds. Cetera, on the other hand, needs drill in matching sounds to letters in order to solidify this information in her memory banks. By working in these specific areas, they can make strides in their reading and feel successful again.

Dr. Pohlman conducts and supervises learning assessments for Southeast Psych and is available to present on learning issues. Feel free to contact him at 704-552-0116 or speakersbureau@southeastpsych.com. His new book is due out on Sept. 28th.  You can also see some other references to his work on this blog:

• Assessment and Today’s Learner
• The Perils of Handwriting in Schools
• Thinking About Thinking

DURHAM, N.C. –  Responding to the urgent need to stem the chronic underperformance of too many elementary and secondary students, All Kinds of Minds, a world-recognized nonprofit institute, has launched new professional development programs aimed at bringing the science of learning to classrooms.

All Kinds of Minds integrates brain research, cognition and learning into groundbreaking programs for K-12 educators. Available in June, the new programs build on the organization’s renowned Schools Attuned program, which has equipped nearly 45,000 teachers worldwide to better understand, identify, and address learning differences among students.

“Helping teachers and schools meet the expectation that every student should be successful is central to our mission,” said Mary-Dean Barringer, Chief Executive Officer of All Kinds of Minds. “No one wants to see a student fail, but many do—not because they can’t learn, but because their brains are wired to learn differently. Our programs teach how students learn, how to pinpoint where learning has been stymied and where undiscovered learning strengths exist, and how to use this knowledge to make teaching more effective for all students. This builds the type of capacity that federal officials have identified as a goal of education stimulus dollars.”

Research suggests that 20% of students struggle with at least some aspect of learning in school. While some of these students require and qualify for special services due to specific learning disabilities, many more struggle needlessly because their learning needs are misunderstood or unrecognized. Tragically, students with poor academic performance are at greatest risk for dropping out of school or otherwise “slipping through the cracks.”

Barringer added, “We have numerous independent studies, along with a decade of program evaluation data, that prove that training from All Kinds of Minds can lead to greater engagement in learning and higher academic achievement for students, as well as greater instructional effectiveness for teachers.”

New courses

The new programs include a three-day course, Teaching All Kinds of Minds, which introduces educators to eight “neurodevelopmental constructs,” illustrates how strengths and weaknesses within various areas of brain function affect student performance, and provides next-day activities and tools for classroom implementation. Participants also become more aware of their own learning styles, and how those styles influence their efficacy with different learners.

All Kinds of Minds will continue to offer its successful five-day course, Schools Attuned to All Kinds of Minds. Participants in this intensive program learn about the eight neurodevelopment constructs and explore how to use this knowledge to pinpoint and address learning breakdowns. Cohorts of educators who participate in the course gain knowledge to help them build a “learning expertise” team within their school. Two different tracks address implementation at the elementary and secondary school levels.

Graduates of either the new three-day course or the classic five-day course can also select from more than a dozen modules included in the new Tools for Learning Success Catalog. Designed to help educators and schools deepen and implement their knowledge about the science of learning and its applications, these modules address such topics as lesson analysis, parent engagement in student learning, and Response to Intervention (RtI).

For communities and schools interested in learning more about this groundbreaking approach, a new one-day “exploring level” workshop, Understanding Learning and Learners, introduces participants to All Kinds of Minds’ approach to helping educators understand how students learn and how this knowledge can help teachers more effectively manage diverse learning needs among their students.

Members of All Kinds of Minds’  faculty – highly qualified educators trained by All Kinds of Minds to teach these programs – deliver all programs in a face-to-face setting. Participants in these programs can earn continuing education units (CEUs); the number of hours earned varies by course.

All Kinds of Minds will also introduce its first online professional development for educators in September. These online modules will offer participant self-paced opportunities to develop their understanding of various neurodevelopmental constructs and their relevant in the classroom.

All Kinds of Minds’ new programs come at a time when the demand for teacher training based on the science of learning is growing. More than $20 billion in federal recovery (ARRA) funds going to state and local districts for education target, among other goals, professional development for teachers to help them boost academic achievement for at-risk students, improve outcomes for students with learning disabilities, and make better use of data to inform and improve instruction. At the same time, numerous states have implemented performance and assessment standards that require public school teachers to understand how different students learn and to be able to match their instructional strategies to student learning needs

In addition, the National Association of Independent Schools cites “brain-compatible teaching and learning” as one of the key areas that will drive educational reform in the coming years.

About All Kinds of Minds – All Kinds of Minds is a world-recognized nonprofit organization that translates groundbreaking research from neuroscience and other disciplines on how children learn – and vary in their learning – into a powerful framework that educators can use in their classrooms. In addition to delivering high-quality professional development for educators, All Kinds of Minds advocates for learning-focused education policies and reform efforts to help transform schools and school systems to better meet the needs of all students.

More information about the new programs is available on the All Kinds of Minds website at www.allkindsofminds.org/pd

This course is a great way to start the new school year and will help you to understand the unique learning profiles of the students you teach and discover how you can support every student reach their individual potential.  The course will provide you with core theory, ‘best-practice’ strategies and practical resources for you to use in your classroom.  

If you (and your colleagues) are interested in attending this course, please let me know as soon as possible, and I will be happy to send you more information.

We will be holding this course in collaboration with Foundations For Learning in Zurich.

>more information…

Mary-Dean Barringer also had an article entitled “The Science of Learning” published in a recent issue of Principal Leadership the monthly magazine from the NASSP.  You can read this excellent article here.