Mary-Dean Barringer, CEO, All Kinds of Minds
March has come to be associated with "madness," particularly for NCAA basketball fans. We cheer for our favorite college team during the tournament, but we are enthralled by the unexpected Cinderella story. We love the team – previously overlooked or counted out – that surprises us all with stunning performances. In recent years, Davidson, George Mason, Gonzaga have each worn the Cinderella label. We wonder... where did they come from? Who knew they could play like that? But we shouldn't be surprised. These Cinderella teams have something in common: well-prepared coaches and otherwise-overlooked stars who found the right environment in which to perform.
Schools face their own version of March Madness in the form of state and district-wide testing. Principals know that their school will be ranked and judged by this performance, fearing that test performance may obscure an otherwise successful season. They will get data needed to assist segments of students, but they worry about inadvertently defining groups by what they do and do not know. Most importantly, principals and teachers know that this kind of data won't help them discover the students who could be part of their Cinderella story. But there is help on the way.
March 2009 brings a new twist to the madness and possibly a huge opportunity. It's not NCAA, but ARRA, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. By now you probably know that a mini-tsunami of money is coming to schools by April 1. The challenge of ARRA is to spend it "quickly and wisely," in the words of the press release, while addressing the four education reform targets of the Obama administration.
I've included a little background and links so that you can access the latest guidelines for using these so-called stimulus funds. The bottom line is that the U.S. Department of Education is in the process of sending Title I and IDEA money to your state right now. The U.S. DOE is urging education leaders to "focus these funds on short term investments with the potential for long term benefits." Principals and school leaders who want to fund professional development to expand the capacity of their staff have a window of opportunity. Let your state department know you want to fund programs that enable teachers to become learning experts and better assess and manage students' unique learning profiles through descriptive data and targeted research-based strategies. [You can track the distribution of funds on the official government recovery website: www.recovery.gov]
At All Kinds of Minds, understanding HOW students learn is our specialty. Giving educators this knowledge to ensure that students learn is our mission. We stand ready to collaborate with you to understand how to bring the science of learning to the art of teaching. Together, we'll discover the promise within your most puzzling learners and help all students maintain a thirst and eagerness to learn.
Join the discussion about how students learn and share your own "student Cinderella story" on our blog.
Stimulus Update: How do programs from All Kinds of Minds fit recovery goals?
With our newly expanded suite of professional development programs, we are eager to partner with schools and districts to maximize the opportunity presented by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).
How do All Kinds of Minds' programs fit with the goals of the ARRA?
The ARRA seeks to simultaneously spur immediate economic growth while strengthening education by driving reforms and improving results for students over the long term. The U.S. DOE has stated that ARRA funds should be used for school and teacher effectiveness improvements and for capacity-building investments that can be sustained beyond the infusion of the stimulus funds. All Kinds of Minds' professional development programs have been shown to improve academic performance and student engagement, increase teacher efficacy with diverse learners, and build school-wide collaboration around addressing learning issues. More than 23 studies show that when implemented, our programs deliver on their promises.[Read more about these studies]
How can All Kinds of Minds' programs help schools and districts use Title I and IDEA funds?
Within ARRA, significant stimulus dollars are being directed to supplement Title I, Part A ($10 billion) and IDEA, Part B ($11.3 billion). Our professional development programs, which deepen teacher expertise in understanding how students learn and how to effectively address learning barriers, address a number of the U.S. DOE’s stated objectives for Title I and IDEA dollars:
Approved stimulus dollar uses: |
All Kinds of Minds programs: |
Establish intensive training for all teachers and the principal in a Title I elementary school in corrective action or restructuring to either address reading curriculum to improve student’s oral language skills and vocabulary or, in some other way, build teachers’ capacity to address academic achievement problems. (Title I, Part A) |
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Provide intensive professional development for special education and regular education teachers that focuses on scaling up, through replication, of innovative evidence-based school-wide strategies in reading, math, writing and positive behavioral supports to improve outcomes with students with disabilities. (IDEA, Part B) |
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Provide professional development to teachers on the collection and use of data to inform and improve instruction for eligible students. (Title I, Part A and IDEA, Part B) |
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So how can I use stimulus funds to bring All Kinds of Minds to my school?
Half of the Title I, Part A and IDEA, Part B stimulus dollars have just been released to state departments of education, and will be distributed to LEAs in the next few weeks. If your school or district already uses Title I, Part A or IDEA, Part B funds for professional development, you can use these additional stimulus dollars to bring All Kinds of Minds' programs to your school.
The second 50% of the Title I and IDEA stimulus dollars will be released to the states by the end of September, provided that SEAs submit information about how they and their LEAs plan to use the funding "in a fiscally prudent way that substantially improves teaching and learning." If you want to expand professional development in your school or district to include programs from All Kinds of Minds, your district needs to amend its Title I and IDEA plans with your state to include professional development designed to build teacher and instructional leader capacity to understand individual learners and to more effectively reach students who struggle academically.
For more information or to talk to us about partnering with All Kinds of Minds, email at info@allkindsofminds.org.
Determining Your Game Plan: Getting Ready to Tackle Those Standardized Assessments
All kinds of minds need all kinds of ways to show what they know. Throughout the school year, we use lots of measures to determine what students are learning, like projects, presentations, written assignments, and responses given during a class discussion. These opportunities offer students the chance to leverage their strengths and affinities while increasing their knowledge and skills.
And then there is the test – the assessment at the end of a course or the end of a grade that seeks to measure the knowledge and skills students have acquired. Often organized in a standardized format that includes multiple-choice questions, these tests often place heavy demands on Memory, Language, Attention and Higher Order Cognition.
Help your students develop their own game plan for tackling these tests! Here are some strategies to try with your students:
- Encourage students to read the questions before reading the passage on a reading comprehension test. This technique supports saliency determination, a function of Attention.
- Encourage students to spend a few minutes thinking what they already know about a topic before reading. They might ask themselves: What does this remind me of? What can I associate with it? Can I picture it in my mind? What pops into my head? (Adapted from Devine, 1987). This strategy engages students Memory and supports their Attention.
- Encourage students to underline or circle key words and mark out unimportant information in written materials, questions, and math and science word problems. This technique supports the processing controls of Attention.
- Have students draw pictures to represent what is going on in a word problem. Students may draw actual objects from the problem (e.g., 3 shirts, a 6 by 12 garden plot, etc.), or they may represent objects with check marks or dots. This approach helps with conceptualization, a function of Higher Order Cognition. It can also help with Active Working Memory and Attention.
- Help students develop their semantic awareness – their familiarity with the meanings of words and how words relate to each other. Incorporate synonym, antonym, and homonym activities into daily lessons, use word games such as crossword puzzles and Scrabble to build word familiarity. Helping students develop rich semantic networks supports their Language and Higher Order Cognition.
For additional strategies, check out the Learning Base at www.allkindsofminds.org/learningBase.aspx.
To learn more about the neurodevelopmental constructs:
www.allkindsofminds.org/researchreviews.aspx
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