All Kinds of Minds today announced that for a limited time it will provide free access to research-based online learning modules designed to build teachers’ expertise in how students learn.

A national nonprofit dedicated to closing the learning gap in schools, All Kinds of Minds has spent more than a decade developing courses and tools for educators based on the latest research on the mind and learning variation. Motivated by continuing nationwide cuts in education budgets, which have drastically reduced funds available to support high-quality professional development for teachers, the organization has decided to offer free and unlimited access to three Internet-based learning modules.

“Nearly half of all teachers say their students’ learning abilities are so varied that they can’t do an effective job of teaching,” said All Kinds of Minds CEO Mary-Dean Barringer and author of the new book, Schools for All Kinds of Minds, citing a survey published by MetLife. “Our research and experience show that when teachers are able to understand and make instructional decisions based on their students’ unique learning needs, student success improves. Our online modules help teachers build this expertise.”

The free online modules are based on groundbreaking research from neuroscience and other disciplines on how children learn – and vary in their learning – and provide a powerful framework that teachers can use in the classroom. These modules focus on three essential components of learning – attention, memory, and language. Each self-paced module includes information to deepen knowledge of these topics, in-depth case studies that demonstrate how to identify specific learning strengths and weaknesses, and strategies for working with students struggling in these areas. Featuring a mix of audio, video, text, diagrams, and animation, the modules will be accessible from the All Kinds of Minds website through the summer. The free courses do not qualify for continuing education credits.

“Our vision is for every educator to be able to use this knowledge on behalf of students – particularly those who are struggling to learn,” stated Barringer. “We hope that by making some of this knowledge more accessible, a greater number of educators will realize how it can be the key to helping them unlock the promise of students they are struggling to reach. In particular, we’re hopeful that teachers working with students in low-performing schools will find these resources valuable – especially since research shows that students from lower socio-economic backgrounds are more likely to be struggling with school and learning tasks related to attention, memory and language.”

To learn more or to participate in an online module, click here. Or visit www.allkindsofminds.org

We are pleased to invite you to ACS Athens for the 5^th Annual Conference on Learning Differences, “Leading by Example:  Holistic, Meaningful and Harmonious Approaches to Teaching All Children”.

This conference run on the 14-15 May 2010, offers us, as a community of educators and parents, an opportunity to reaffirm our belief that as unique individuals, we learn in different ways.

Practitioners from around the world will share best practice and current research, acknowledging that these differences can be a source of richness in the classroom, and that instruction must address these differences so that all students can succeed.

This is a wonderful conference and I can highly recommend it!

>download the conference program…

>download the conference flyer…

>click here for more information…

We would like to wish you all of the very best for the New Year. At Foundations for Learning we have just moved into our new offices at Freiestrasse 175 and are preparing for our second practitioner meeting on Saturday, January 16th. The duration of the meeting will be from 10:00 to 12:00 followed by nibbles. Robin Hull of Hull’s School has very generously offered us a venue at Hull’s School, Falkenstrasse 28a CH-8008 Zürich.

On the agenda, a variety of items will be addressed:

10:00 Welcome

10:10 Update on the progress of the Foundation – where we are, what happens next

10:20 Review of upcoming courses hosted by Foundations for Learning:

- Paul Nichols: All kinds of Minds

- Vrenni Bollag: Sibling Jealousy

- Beatrice Lucas: Autistic Spectrum Disorder

- Teacher Assistants Course

- Opportunities for other courses and initiatives

10:30 Showcase of three of our practitioners – (each meeting we will have speaking slots for three practitioners to speak about their work.

11:00 FFL Special Educators Professional Development Forum

The forum will meet four times a year and aims to host guest speakers, share resources, review the latest assistive technology, extend the network of special educators, initiate and pursue research projects and much more.

11:30 Introduction to the Practitioner Community on our website where you can exchange, share and communicate within this group.

12:00. Nibbles – The photographer Philip Horn will be taking photographs of individual practitioners for our website during the break.

We look forward to meeting again. If you have not yet confirmed your attendance, please confirm with a reply email.

With warm regards and wishes for the season and beyond!

Sylvia and Allison

The program focuses on cutting-edge methods for individualizing the teaching process to address the needs of a wide range of learners. Within this context, the conference addresses the recent work on motivation, effort, persistence, resilience and executive function. Novel approaches are discussed for assessing and teaching students with learning and attention problems across different grade-levels and content areas.
>more information…

The British School Bern has worked with All Kinds of Minds since 2003 to embed the science of learning into the art of teaching throughout the school.  The British School’s mission has long supported the philosophy of All Kinds of Minds.  All Kinds of Minds bestows this award on schools around the world that have a relentless focus on applying the latest scientific research on learning and its variations to ensure that every child finds success.

In Schools of Distinction, at least fifty percent of their faculty have acquired and are applying expertise on the brain and learning through the programmes offered by All Kinds of Minds.  These educators use new knowledge and tools for understanding the learning struggles encountered by students, integrating strategies for how each student learns and identifying unique strengths and talents. 

Many curriculum changes have occurred at the British School Bern as a result of Schools Attuned to All Kinds of Minds training.  Teachers now have a common language to discuss strengths, weakness and accommodations for a student.  In addition, parents have participated in workshops and programmes to help them better understand the way their students learn.

“The British School Bern is remarkable, not only because they’ve invested resources in acquiring new programs, but because they make this new research on learning work for students and in doing so, demonstrate how you can transform education so all students are on a path to success in school and life,” says Mary-Dean Barringer, CEO of All Kinds of Minds.  She added, “Schools are looking to teach students in ways compatible with how their minds are wired to learn.  This results in a strong academic foundation while nurturing the innovative and creative minds that the 21^st century requires.”

For more information on the Schools of Distinction programme click here.

We would like to invite you to attend one of our newest courses, Understanding Learning and Learners, at Hull’s School in Zurich.  Join your international school colleagues, participate in discussions with educational thought leaders and enjoy Swiss hospitality!

Saturday 6^th February, 2010

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE COURSE >

Where:
Hull’s School, Falkenstrasse 28A,  Zurich, Switzerland

Cost:
120 CHF per participant (approximately €80 or £72).  This includes 6 hours of instructional time, course materials, refreshments and lunch. CEU credits and a certificate are available for this course.

Registrations:
Please complete and fax (+41 22 354 0141) or email the registration form to us.

Travel and accommodations:
Participants are responsible for their own travel and lodging.  Suggestions include:

Steigenberger Hotel
044 254 40 00
www.steigenberger.com

Hotel Opera
044 258 99 99
www.operahotel.ch

 Seefeld Hotel
044 387 41 41
www.hotelseefeld.ch

Please forward this invitation to any of your friends and colleagues who you think will be interested.

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).