Free Presentation at San Diego Center for Play Therapy

Improving Your Child’s Language & Literacy Skills

3 Sensory-Cognitive Functions that Affect the Language Processing Spectrum

Friday, Feb. 22, 7-8pm

For decades educators have argued over how to teach reading. Phonics methods, sight word methods, and whole language methods have all proved insufficient to provide the level of reading ability individuals need to become independent learners.

Kristen Coley will discuss three sensory-cognitive functions—concept imagery, phonemic awareness and symbol imagery—that can improve your child’s language and literacy skills. Whether your child struggles with reading, spelling, or comprehension, or you simply want to learn a few extra ways to support your child in these areas, we hope you join us!

Presenter: Kristen Coley is the Center Director of the Lindamood-Bell^® Learning Center in San Diego, CA. Lindamood-Bell’s scientifically-based learning programs develop language and literacy skills for reading, spelling, comprehension, critical thinking, and math. As Center Director, Kristen conducts learning ability evaluations, creates individualized learning plans, and oversees program implementation and instruction.

Cost: Free!

Where: San Diego Center for Play Therapy, 16885 West Bernardo Dr., Ste 110, San Diego, CA 92127 (directions can be found at www.sdplay.org)

RSVP: To San Diego Center for Play Therapy at (858) 675-9600 ext. 1 or to awickstrom@sdplay.org to reserve your spot. Space is limited.

School of Their Dreams (originally posted on October 31, 2007)

“Education should not close children's eyes to the wonder of learning as it presently does, but should give children the opportunity to feed their mind and never get tired of life before theirs has even begun."

Christine found this article and I thought to post it here. It’s both inspiring and sad. What would you have wanted (or what do you want) your education to have been like?

~Danielle

Schooled the Film (originally posted on October 23, 2007)

Christine and I are pretty excited for this film! It’s based on a “free school.” At this time, Christine is working to bring a screening here to San Diego. For more details see their website at http://www.schooledthefilm.com

Update (10/24/07): I’ve been emailing with Brooks, the director, and asked how he got inspired to make this film, here’s what he said:

“I read Summerhill, then discovered Sudbury Valley, then joined the fierce ‘Taking Children Seriously’ on-line debates and over the years I kept learning more and more and becoming more and more fascinated with alternative ways to respect the autonomy of children.

The subject ran so primal for me that I HAD to make a film about it, so that I could learn even more and define for myself how much I had already learned, by sharing what I thought I knew.

At the point I first discovered this community, I had left the film business. But my interest in the subject of "Children's Autonomy" was so strong that I was called to return.

It's been a wonderful ride....”

Mind, Brain, and Education (originally posted May 2, 2007)

[B]iology is becoming more important for learning about learning. Along with cognitive science, Fischer says, “It is laying the groundwork that will eventually transform education.”

My hypothesis: Collaboration of academics enriches each field collectively and separately more than treating each as a separate entity.

The American education system faces a tragic paradox: we have the world's most advanced research in psychology, neuroscience, and educational methods, yet we perennially mire among the bottom of developed countries in the quality of our K-12 education. How is it that we know so much about teaching, but are still so poor at it? The problem is one of communication between researchers and educators: it takes decades for advances in the science of learning to be implemented in the classroom. Often, notes disabilities consultant Dorothy van den Honert, the findings are not even passed on at all.

But what if programs implemented change now, instead of 10 years later? That’s exactly what Harvard University’s Mind, Brain & Education field is looking into today, and has been for the last four years. The International Mind, Brain and Education Society (IMBES) also brings together researchers and practitioners to further development in this much needed area.

Specifically, IMBES’s mission is to facilitate cross-cultural collaboration in biology, education and the cognitive and developmental sciences. Science and practice will benefit from rich, bi-directional interaction. As research contributes to usable knowledge for education, practice can help to define promising research directions and contribute to the refinement of testable hypotheses.

Currently, Innovations Academy is looking to partner with IMBES and Harvard’s Mind, Brain and Education department. In collaborating and contributing, we hope to give back by furthering research directions, and then by designing assessment measures and observational methods, which we can then use to offer data on the application of these programs.

Locally, we have been looking to collaborate with the Center for Behavioral Teratology at SDSU (CBT) to look at how we can implement neurological testing which will help us as educators and staff to better facilitate learning for our students. Furthermore, we hope to be able to help research institutes (like CBT) to find participants for their studies.

In my private practice (when I’m not working on this great project!) I use the neurological testing offered by CBT to inform myself about how my students cognitively function. For example, if I notice that they test high on verbal memory but not on visual memory, I’ll try to teach as much to their strength as possible. After students have this testing, as an educator I come in with a more thorough understanding of what strategies I’m going to use with them. It’s more than learning styles, it’s matching their cognitive makeup.

The connection between mind, brain, and education is a very important aspect of Innovations Academy. In the future, we look forward to attending conferences and partnering with research institutes so that the latest publications can be brought into practice in our community. “A better understanding of the role that timing plays in human learning could lead to improved teaching technique and alter the trajectories of countless human lives,” says Dr. Garrison W. Cottrell, a researcher who brings neuroscience and education together. Furthermore, he states in his article, “What brings us all together is a realization of the important role of time in learning. We are studying everything from ‘spike-time dependent plasticity’ - our current best guess at how neurons learn - to the timing of social interactions between teachers and students.”

Why is this collaboration important? Because we are not closed systems, neurology isn’t separate from psychology or education, or vice versa. This partnering of sciences and education is called Translational Research. If we continue to treat fields separately, the education researchers will hopefully come to similar conclusions…but years, is way too late.

If you are a researcher, academic, or community member interested in partnering with our community, please contact us.

~Danielle