Think Differently and Deeply, Volume 4

THE CENTER for TRANSFORMATIVE TEACHING & LEARNING TM

AT ST. ANDREW’S EPISCOPAL SCHOOL

The Transformational Classroom: How Research in Educational Neuroscience Enhances Teaching and Learning

VOLUME 4

Foreword DENISE POPE.............................................................................................................................................................

lntroduction: Promising Research GLENN WHITMAN......................................................................................................................................................

I. Emotion and Cognition: Creating a Positive Classroom Culture KRISTIN WEBSTER.....................................................................................................................................................

II. The Science of Forgetting and the Art of Remembering (Part II) KAREN KAUFMAN......................................................................................................................................................

III. The Tiny House Project: Creating Agents of Change SUNG HEE KIM........................................................................................................................................................

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Throughout this resource, the following icons will indicate important aspects of each article:

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IV. How an Unplanned Action Research Project and a Small Dose of Vulnerability

Led to Better Student-Teacher Relationships and Joy in the Classroom

DEVON ROTHSCHILD...............................................................................................................................................

V. Chasing Sleep SARAH SCHWARTZ ‘20............................................................................................................................................

VI. Dialing Down Stress Without Dumbing Down My Class DR. IAN KELLEHER..................................................................................................................................................

VII. Planting Seeds of Kindness: It All Begins in Preschool DENISE KOTEK........................................................................................................................................................

VIII. Going Big on Retrieval Practice WILL CIRRITO ‘21, CECE FAINBERG ‘21, MAYA NOBOA ‘21 . . ...................................................................................

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RESEARCH

14 16 18

STRATEGIES

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KNIHT YLTNEREFFID DNA YLPEED IX. Using Creative Writing to Improve Memory

LIZ REGAN KIINGI AND JULIA DEAN......................................................................................................................

X. Belonging and Middle School: Not Such an Odd Couple

DR. RODNEY GLASGOW.. .........................................................................................................................................

XI An International Experience with the CTTL’s Sumer Academy

KRISTIN SIMMERS..................................................................................................................................................

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METACOGNITION

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MINDSETS

XII. Boosting Investment and Motivation: Creating a Space

for Choice in Your Curriculum

SARA GRAHAM.. ......................................................................................................................................................

XIII. Is that a Threat?: Language to Buffer Identity Threat in the Classroom

EVA SHULTIS...........................................................................................................................................................

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WELL-BEING & RIGOR

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XIV. Developing Students’ Voices: An Intricate Part of a Student’s

Lifelong Learning, Self-Confidence, and Advancement

DR. KENNETH WATERS.. ..........................................................................................................................................

XV. Design Thinkers in the Kindergarten Classroom

VAS POURNARAS.......................................................................................................................................................

XVI. On Pilgrimage in the Classroom

AMY SAPENOFF . . .....................................................................................................................................................

XVII. Mind, Brain, and Whole Child Coaching

DR. SHEILA OHLSSON WALKER.......................................................................................................................................

XVII. Context Matters

ANNE-MICHELLE ENGELSTAD ’12...........................................................................................................................

XIX. A Parent’s Mind, Brain, and Education Science Journey

PRISCILLA ANG.......................................................................................................................................................

XX. Training Optimization Using Neuromotor Thresholds

RYAN MARKLEWITZ................................................................................................................................................

XXI. Student Manifestos DALE KYNOCH.........................................................................................................................................................

XXII. Towards the Possible: The Creative Mindset CHARLES C. JAMES.. ..............................................................................................................................................

Afterword: “To Know and Inspire Each Child”

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St. Andrew’s Episcopal School and The Center for Transformative Teaching

4 EMULOV and Learning have created the “Think

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Differently and Deeply” podcast which

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Google Play, and SoundCloud. Check it

52 Endnotes.. ......................................................................................................................................................... 54 ROBERT KOSASKY...................................................................................................................................................

We have a podcast!

can be found on Apple Podcasts,

out and let us know what you think.

The Transformational Classroom: How Research in Educational Neuroscience Enhances Teaching and Learning

VOLUME 4

Foreword DENISE POPE, PH.D.

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Co-Founder, Challenge Success Senior Lecturer at Stanford University

When

I was a high school English teacher, I longed to know whether I was truly reaching my students. Were they falling in love with poetry and literature the way that I did when I was in high school? If they weren’t exactly falling in love, did the works spark empathy as students encountered characters and worlds far different from their own? Could they read critically, ask good questions, and write cogently about how the stories related to their lives? These questions eventually led me to graduate school where I studied student engagement.

For my dissertation, I conducted an ethnography from September to June where I shadowed five students who had been identified by school leaders as “engaged.” I attended a full day of classes each week with each student, went to after school activities, and talked about the students’ experiences and connection to learning. What I found was a bit depressing: many of these so-called “engaged” students were actually just going through the motions of learning. They were “doing school” – playing the game, acting their part to get the grades and test scores they believed they needed to be successful – but not retaining skills or knowledge. They were obsessing over performance rather than mastery, often at great cost to their mental and physical well-being. Eventually I used this research to help launch Challenge Success, an organization that partners with schools, families, and communities to broaden the definition of success and to implement research-based strategies so that all kids are healthy and engaged with learning.

At Challenge Success, we share the CTTL’s belief that the best way to improve outcomes for students is to collaborate with teachers, school leaders, and families to translate and use research to inform policies and daily practices. We know that research has to be relevant, accessible, and applicable to the people who work directly with kids, and that all of these stakeholders need time, resources, and plenty of support to be able to effectively translate the research into practice.

In our work, we partner directly with teachers, helping them to apply evidence-based best practices to truly engage students in learning; to implement authentic projects and alternative assessment strategies; to think critically about homework practices; and to facilitate student balance and well-being within the school environment. We share research with families about protective factors known to promote physical and emotional health for youth, including the importance of maintaining daily playtime, downtime, and family time, as well as the critical importance of sleep.

We help school leaders collect student and parent survey data to assess their school’s strengths as well as specific areas to consider targeting for change – for example, the bell schedule, homework policies, or student wellness programs and practices such as advisory and mindfulness. We invite everyone to consider broader definitions of “success” and explore how we communicate the values we cherish such as life-long learning, connection, critical thinking, kindness, and purpose. We encourage all of our constituents to engage in their own informal research, collecting evidence in their classrooms, schools, and homes to inform intentional change and better support our kids on their various paths.

Like the CTTL, we know that every school community has different needs and priorities, concerns and goals – a different narrative, or story, to tell. We advocate listening carefully to these stories, considering them alongside other data, and identifying research-backed strategies that can be implemented to maximize benefits to students, both immediately and for the long-term. We encourage teachers, students, and school leaders to reflect on those change efforts (both big and small) and share their stories of successes and challenges with others. By engaging in this cycle of both using evidence and contributing to evidence, educators also model the engagement they hope to inspire.

We are honored to introduce Volume 4 of the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning’s “Think Differently and Deeply.” The articles compiled here illustrate the power of storytelling to create change. They concretely demonstrate how research can be applied directly to classroom practices to make real, intentional changes to benefit students. These stories help us to broaden our understanding of “research” and “data” and show that this work is “do-able” and even potentially fun. We hope you’ll find this volume as inspiring as we do and consider it a call to action.

Denise Pope, Ph.D., is co-founder of Challenge Success, a Senior Lecturer at Stanford University Graduate School of Education and co-author of “Overloaded and Underprepared: Strategies for Stronger Schools and Healthy, Successful Kids.”

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Introduction GL E NN W HI T M A N

What

promising research should ALL public, charter, district, private, international, and homeschool teachers and leaders know about the learning brain?

This question inevitably emerges in each of the talks or workshops I have been privileged to facilitate with my colleagues since we launched the CTTL in 2011. Teachers, school principals, and district leaders ask this synthesizing question as they, too, recognize how the promising research and strategies in Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) Science are a pathway for elevating teacher quality, student achievement, and the whole child’s school experience in their context with their students. “Yes, Glenn, I can see how MBE can help.

But exactly what research and strategies should we all know?”

Promising research in the field of MBE gives teachers, schools, and districts a variety of opportunities to leverage strategies in, for example, multiple modality instruction, memory, feedback, metacognition, social and emotional learning, cognitive load, and assessment. But MBE research remains just “promising” until it is tried out in a school or program’s context with a school or program’s students, and its impact is evaluated.

Evidence of impact in real-classroom and real-school settings needs to be established before we can go beyond saying an MBE principle is anything more than “promising.” It is why we welcome and enjoy collaborating with Dr. David Daniel of James Madison University who talks about teachers and schools as “evidence generators.”1 This is, and will continue to be, a challenge to schools who want to make MBE a core part of how they function.

In advance of considering promising MBE research, we start by saying it is important that teachers should be experts in the subject areas and ageappropriate developmental range of the students that they work with. But even when we layer knowledge of pedagogy on top of this foundation, it is just a starting point. The magic comes when professional teaching wisdom and MBE research insights are entwined — practitioners who can separate and understand each of these strands in their mind, but who live them tangled together in every moment of a busy school day. When we do this, we might say that we have developed a science of teaching and learning.

While the science of teaching and learning suggests many great strategies, there are three areas that we prioritize when we begin training St. Andrew’s preschool through 12th grade teachers and leaders and they are a core thread of our virtual training tool, Neuroteach Global. We believe the following three principles and mindsets — informed by MBE Science research and adapted by the lived experience of classroom teachers — are of paramount importance in each teacher’s journey to be an even better teacher.

Neuroplasticity The old myth that the brain was set around the age of 3-4, or 11-12, or even 18 is just that – a myth. We now know that neuroplasticity exists throughout our lives – our brains alter over time in reaction to our environment and experiences. While there is a significant genetic component to how our brain is wired, there is also a very significant environmental component — all the experiences we have and how we unpack them contribute to shaping the brain we currently have. Our brain is never “set” as neurons are formed, myelinated, connected and pruned all through our life. This is the basis of possibly the most important research-to-classroom-instruction contribution from neuroscience — that every teacher must see themselves as a “brain changer,” and that

THE CENTER for TRANSFORMATIVE TEACHING & LEARNING TM

AT ST. ANDREW’S EPISCOPAL SCHOOL

every student, regardless of race, class, or gender can learn through deliberate practice, scaffolded support, a knowledge-rich curriculum, and positive relationships in school.

Emotion and cognition are intertwined Students bring their emotions, their identity, and their whole mental and physical selves to every school day. For example, the emotional switching-station of the brain, the amygdala, is part of the brain’s limbic system — a system that also includes one of the key memory centers, the hippocampus. The limbic system is also involved in the process by which incoming sensory information passes through to the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s higher order thinking region. But this is not always the case. When students experience trauma, toxic stress, or even episodic stress, their fight, flight, and freeze response can kick in, making learning difficult to impossible.

Early in the work of the CTTL we were introduced to the concept of “downshifting” by Dr. Mariale Hardiman at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education, “as a metaphor to describe how negative emotions cause us to process in our brain’s emotional center and lose focus on higher order thinking.” We all can recall our own moment when a teacher, coach, mentor or even colleague downshifted you and paralyzed your learning.

Despite the impact it has, some stress can be helpful in learning. But lots is not.

Sustained high levels of stress can lead to significant physical and mental health consequences and can even have epigenetic effects. High levels of stress need to be attacked by a multi-pronged approach. The work of Denise Pope, Stanford Professor and author of the Foreword to this volume of “Think Differently and Deeply,” is particularly useful, and we recommend that you investigate the work of her organization, Challenge Success.

The work of the Mindset Scholars Network is also helpful. This network identifies three mindsets that teachers should be familiar with and be using to inform their work: growth, belonging and purpose and relevance. We would argue that the belong-

ing mindset is perhaps the most important of the three. If a student does not feel like they belong in a class or school, providing a level of challenge and support for them to develop a growth mindset would be difficult. Belonging also means having high expectations for all students, but recognizing that all students might not take exactly the same pathway to the appropriately high-learning objectives you set.

others are right-brained.

• Children must acquire their native language before a second language is learned.

If they do not do so neither language will be fully acquired.2 This said, a challenge remains that “educators and individuals with high neuroscience exposure continue to endorse about half or more of the ‘classic’ neuromyths, despite their training.”3

Eliminate neuromyths

Conclusion

One of the barriers to creating learning environments that align with current research in Mind, Brain, and Education Science research is the persistence of neuromyths that could be considered detrimental pedagogy. The most prolific neuromyth, despite the preponderance of research and the valiant efforts of the Twitter world, is the continued belief in learning styles.

Belief in learning styles leads to teachers, students, and even parents having a fixed mindset and runs counter to what we know about neuroplasticity. In addition to learning styles, other neuromyths include: • There are critical periods in childhood after which certain things can no longer be learned.

• We only use 10% of our brain.

• Some people are left-brained whereas

The best part of my work at St. Andrew’s is the two hundred minutes a week I get to teach history to 10th grade students. I am confident that I am supporting and challenging this group of scholarly historians better than the first group of history students I taught when I first began teaching in Spokane, Washington in 1991. Promising research in Mind, Brain, and Education Science has made this possible for not only me, but also for each of my St. Andrew’s colleagues. And it is a journey that continues.

Glenn Whitman (gwhitman@saes.org; @gwhitmancttl) is the Director of the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning at St. Andrew’s (www.thecttl.org) and co-author of “Neuroteach: Brain Science and the Future of Education.”

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Emotion and Cognition: Creating a Positive Classroom Culture KRISTIN WEBSTER

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very teacher knows how critical the opening days of school are, and in preparation for them, we run around setting up bulletin boards, building websites, composing lesson plans, mapping curricula, writing course expectations, and more often than not, waiting in long lines at the photocopier. It is the time of year when we think carefully about what we want to teach and how we want to teach it, and then take the steps to bring our vision to fruition. I believe that there are two other integral questions, however, that teachers often overlook but need to ask themselves as they head into the school year: how do I want my classroom to feel and what steps can I take to create this feeling in my learning space?

Students need to feel safe, seen, and valued in order for deep learning to take place. As Carissa Romero has argued, “students who are confident they belong and are valued by their teachers and peers are able to engage more fully in learning. They have fewer behavior problems, are more open to critical feedback, take greater advantage of learning opportunities, build important relationships, and generally have more positive attitudes about their classwork and teachers.

In turn, they are more likely to persevere in the face of difficulty and do better in school.”1 It is our task then as teachers to take deliberate and thoughtful actions to build trust and a sense of community in our learning spaces. What transpires in our classrooms during the opening weeks of

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instruction—how we speak to our students, the opportunities we offer (or don’t offer) to them—conveys an unspoken and essential narrative. This is when our students develop their understanding of what happens in this space and determine how they want to behave within it. As Lisa Quay has eloquently summarized, “almost every situation is open to interpretation, and how people make sense of things determines their behavior.”2 Building a culture of trust and respect in the classroom begins with empathy, attention, understanding, and most importantly, a willingness to be flexible. Below are three tenets of this process; the list is by no means exhaustive, but will hopefully provide a helpful starting point for conscious and deliberate community building.

Focus on the Good and Create Spaces to Shine As the CTTL has noted, “teachers should work to not only increase positive emotions in the classroom, but to also limit negative emotions”3 by using positive, inclusive, and encouraging language. This does not mean that we should stop being critical. Identifying areas for growth, communicating these clearly, and determining strategies that enable students to tackle challenges head-on are all essential practices if we want our students to learn and progress. How we present this feedback to them, however, has a monumental impact on its efficacy,4 and therefore teachers should strive to convey feedback in a way that “forestalls negative interpretations.”5

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By acknowledging and celebrating our students’ achievements, we show them they are seen and valued, which in turn fosters positive emotions and builds self-efficacy.

We can do this through our verbal communications, written feedback, or providing a space in the classroom for students to showcase their own successes, such as an I’m Proud Of… bulletin board. The latter is a particularly powerful tool, since it promotes a broader, self-determined definition of triumph and offers a space for public recognition.

Read the Room and Be Flexible One of the simplest and most effective things we can do to foster empathy in the classroom is to provide our students with opportunities to communicate their feelings.

Whether we ask them to circle their current emotional state on a Blob Tree, place a sticky note onto a Feelings Chart to communicate their mood (e.g. I’m great, I’m okay, I’m struggling), or do individual check-ins, we are conveying the crucial message that they are seen and cared for. It is also important to recognize that when students are in a heightened negative emotional state, it is hard for learning to happen.6 As Mary Helen

Immordino-Yang and Antonio Damasio have made clear, “any competent teacher recognizes that emotion and feelings affect students’ performance and learning as does the state of the body, such as how well students have slept and eaten or whether they are feeling sick or well.”7 Taking five to ten minutes to acknowledge this and provide students with outlets to release anxiety or shift their headspace, rather than ploughing ahead with a lesson, not only validates them, but also results in more productive learning afterwards. By having a handful of stress-relief activities at the ready that are still connected to your content-area (in my case, this includes going outside to write out verb forms in sidewalk chalk or toss a beach ball to practice noun cases), you can help students refocus their energy and bring joy to the learning process.

Step Back and Let Them Lead Giving students a voice in the classroom, whether it is designing a project, leading a review session, or rearranging the furniture, helps build a sense of inclusion and investment in their learning space. When we invite students to be active participants in our classrooms, to share their thoughts on

the classroom culture and how this can be improved, we are communicating our belief in their abilities, showing our respect for their opinions, and creating a space where their needs can be vocalized and fulfilled.

By stepping back and allowing students to take the lead, we are also introduced to new vantage points—things we may have never seen or accounted for on our own.

Asking students to create their own community norms or classroom expectations, for example, rather than dictating a list of rules to them, broadens the input, ensures more needs are being met, fosters a sense of inclusion, and promotes student interest in upholding these guidelines, since they were the authors of them.

Building a classroom environment of trust and respect, where students feel safe, seen, and valued, requires thoughtful and conscious planning, open communication, and the willingness to take risks and remain flexible. The effort invested in this process, however, has immediate and long-lasting results: a learning space where students can flourish and deep learning can take place.

Kristin Webster (kwebster@saes.org; @ MagistraWebster) teaches Middle and Upper School Latin at St. Andrew’s.

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The Science of Forgetting and the Art of Remembering (Part II) KAREN KAUFMAN

Editor’s Note: You can find Part I of Karen’s experience with this research-informed strategy in “Think Differently and Deeply Volume 3.”

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ave we learned this before?” is one of the most unsettling questions a teacher can hear from students at the end of what was thought to be a successful school year. It is also the first line of an article I wrote in 2017 for Volume 3 of the CTTL’s “Think Differently and Deeply” publication.

This article, “The Science of Forgetting and The Art of Remembering,” described how a colleague and I implemented spaced repetition and interleaving in our Algebra 2/Trigonometry classes.

If you are thinking, hold on, topics in math courses don’t lend themselves to spacing and interleaving, you are right.

But this might be because you are thinking of the math classroom you are used to.

Traditionally, math topics are presented linearly, each building on the prior one — envision a textbook’s table of contents that a class spends the year working through.

However, I was at a point in my teaching career when I could no longer deny the dissatisfaction that students and I both felt at the end of a school year when it was time to prepare for the final exam.

Student stress and lower-than-anticipated final exam grades had become an expected end of year norm. The final exam

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seemed to be a measurement of how well students crammed for the exam rather than how well they had learned throughout the year. And, our math teachers were spending the better part of each new school year revisiting prior year’s content to make up for students forgetting much of what they had learned.

Since math is a subject that continues to build on prior knowledge, this was a debilitating cycle for all involved. What’s more frustrating is that we knew why the forgetting was happening. As researchinformed educators, we were familiar with Hermann Ebbinghaus’ study of memory retrieval aptly named the “forgetting curve.” The forgetting curve has the shape of a decreasing exponential-like function with the greatest decline in memory (steepest portion of the curve) occurring within the first few hours or days of learning a new topic. The antidote to forgetting was to revisit the topics at appropriatelyspaced intervals.

So, after years of frustration, and armed with this compelling research, my brave colleague and I decided to try spacing and interleaving. We completely deconstructed and reorganized our Algebra 2/Trigonometry course to provide ongoing and multiple

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opportunities for student exposure to new content. We abandoned the linearly presented order of topics in our textbook and instead connected subtopics based on their relation to other subtopics.

We peppered topics strategically and repeatedly throughout the course. To fully establish interleaving and spacing, we chose to lag all homework by establishing a weekly homework review sheet.

Homework was assigned based on ideas presented in prior units. A topic would never appear on a weekly homework review until it had been practiced extensively and repeatedly in class. Assessments were also lagged often several weeks after a topic was first taught and after students had multiple practice opportunities.

At the end of my 2017 article I promised to update readers on the outcome of this new pedagogy. As a math teacher and numbers person, the plan was to collect quantitative data on student final exam grades (in precalculus) from year to year as a way to determine if students coming from Algebra 2/Trigonometry were forgetting less. We collected and analyzed the data and found that final exam scores were in fact somewhat higher since we implemented spacing and interleaving.

However, these outcomes can’t be relied on as statistically significant since the composition of students in our classes vary from year to year. In this past year, there was an unusually large contingent of precalculus students who came from Honors Algebra 2/Trigonometry. Therefore, it is unreasonable to state definitively that the increase in exam scores was related to our new methods.

It turns out, perhaps the most compelling data to support spacing and interleaving is not quantitative at all. Instead, it is the qualitative feedback from students and

teachers. Students who experienced spaced repetition and interleaving in their math classrooms were happier and less stressed throughout the school year and especially during the final exam period. We know from a 2014 research study on happiness by the CTTL and Research Schools International that there is a statistically significant correlation between happiness and students’ GPA from elementary school through high school.1 One of our goals then as math teachers should be to generate happier more confident math students. In that regard, I do believe the data is compelling. This past year, four of our math courses adopted spacing and interleaving. At the end of the year, we surveyed students asking them specifically what they thought about their weekly review homework, and the interleaving of course content. Student feedback was overwhelmingly positive and only a few students surveyed said that they preferred a more traditional approach

to learning and homework. Here’s a small sampling of student feedback: “I really like the weekly review homework because it helps me quickly figure out what I know and what I don’t, and then I can get help with the things I don’t know and carry those skills over to the next assignment.”

“I really like the review homework because I feel like I am not reaching for help every time we encounter something older in class or during practice. It keeps me actively thinking about concepts that in other subjects, we would forget about in the next year after the summer. It allows me to manage my time better as well because I can space out the time I will need to complete it and work on homework when I have the time. As stated before, I truly feel like I benefit from this system more than previous ones.”

Beginning in the 2019-2020 school year, all of our Middle and Upper School Math courses will adopt some form of spacing and interleaving. And we will design an improved action-research study to measure the impact. Over the coming years, we will continue to observe and report on the effects of this new pedagogy on student learning, particularly on retention from year to year, and on student attitudes toward math. Stay tuned... again.

Karen Kaufman (kkaufman@saes.org; @karen_ kauf) is Head of the Math Department and an Upper School Math teacher at St. Andrew’s.

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The Tiny-House Project: Creating Agents of Change SUNG HEE KIM

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an we teach 6-7 year olds to be agents of change? This was the question on our minds as grades K-2 embarked on a service-learning unit exploring homelessness in September of 2018. The initial goal of the unit was to teach empathy and perspective-taking as a vehicle for social competence.1 However, out of the lessons emerged rich opportunities for developing resilience, metacognition, creative problem solving, mechanical engineering, feedback loops, and above all, teaching students to turn empathy into action.

We chose to visit the the National Building Museum’s exhbit on eviction to explore how losing one’s home could make us feel and change our lives. Prior to the trip, teachers introduced the concepts of eviction and homelessness in their

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classrooms. The unit was augmented with a project in which each class would design and construct a home for a different fictional homeless family. Students had to “get to know” the homeless families and imagine their needs as they designed their living spaces, creating an opportunity to practice perspective-taking and empathy.

I provided materials and information and facilitated discussions to help them “get to know” their family. It was the first graders’ job to design and build a fitting home for an environmentally-minded homeless family of four. To this end, students had to distinguish between their existing mental models of homeless people and an actual homeless family. This entailed in-depth metacognitive efforts, which I scaffolded for the first graders, to help us examine and revise the pre-exist-

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ing thoughts we held about the homeless.

After learning about different homes, the first graders chose to build an eco-friendly tiny house for their family. We studied typical features of tiny homes such as water tanks, wall heaters, storage and composting toilets. Since space in a tiny house is limited, we also studied space-saving multi-use furniture. Together, we designed the layout of the house and sectioned it into various living spaces. Individually and in pairs, students chose to design and construct each living space. Their task was to solve the problem of how to engineer fixtures, appliances and multi-use furniture in the most space-saving yet usable way, while keeping the needs of the family in mind. In December, after having created initial blueprints for each of their sections, we headed to the Building Museum where they created their first 3-D models using recyclables.

After building the models, we visited the eviction exhibit where, among other things, first graders learned about the three main reasons why eviction is on the rise in America, as stated in the exhibit: lack of a living wage, rising rent, and fewer government programs for low-income people. We looked closely at an image of a family being evicted, whose belongings were piled on the ground with some boxes already loaded into a moving van, and used thinking routines to slow students’ thinking down, help them be great observers, and absorb the many details. Next, the students had the image explained to them in context. Finally, each first grader was asked to step “inside” one of the people within the image and speak from their perspective, revealing what that person feels, knows, and cares about. Students made powerful connections with the individuals pictured, showing deep empathy and understanding of the situation.

After leaving the exhibition, students chose to sit by a large ornamental water fountain when asked to pick a “safe space” in the great hall. When invited to share their thoughts and feelings, students expressed sadness about the plight of the tenants who were evicted. They said they were worried about future evictees, how they would fare, and if they would ever find a home. Their honesty allowed me to help them sort their feelings and address their concerns, while also validating their experience with purpose and relevance. It helped the children to know that while the exact timing of an eviction might come as a surprise, its imminence is often known by the tenants who could then possibly arrange temporary housing for themselves. Upon reviewing the three reasons for the eviction crisis as cited by the exhibit, students deemed them as unfair and due to a lack of caring on the part of

landlords, employers and the government.

Then we became metacognitive again as we examined our thoughts, separating our feelings from what we know. We determined that our goal in visiting the exhibition was not to leave saddened, but to become strong and walk away feeling resolute about learning how to care for people less fortunate than ourselves; thereby, growing up to be adults who will make the world a better place. Helping the students differentiate their feelings and distinguish them from their thoughts allowed them to use their cognitive abilities to manage a stressful situation and make an inspired determination about their future path.2 While their empathy provided motivation, their new-found knowledge gave them direction. And their ability to balance this mix of empathy/emotion and thoughts/knowledge as their day unfolded was helped by the prior knowledge we had built together in class beforehand.

One student said, “I want to try to bring the rent down so people don’t get evicted.” Another said, “I want to change it so when poor people don’t have enough money and rent gets higher, the government helps fill the space!” Students understood that if one sees injustice in the world, one can take action.

First graders pumped their fists in the air galvanized to become change-makers!

This positive energy carried over into the next few months and into the spring as students worked tirelessly to build the best possible home for their homeless family. Students were driven to improve their chosen living spaces, deciding to create four thoughtful iterations of their tiny house sections

using peer-generated feedback loops. In addition, the natural spacing effect and interleaving created by putting the project aside for a while, then revisiting, reviewing and revising over a period of time, together with the accumulated effort of practicing the presentation process had a powerful effect. By the time the first graders completed their tiny house sections and presented them at the whole school assembly in May, they spoke and fielded questions with expert knowledge and confidence, because their ideas and work had been rigorously challenged over the course of months by their peers.

While the tiny house we built was of a small scale, and the homeless family a fictional one, the students’ strong desire to help and the concrete actions they took with self-imposed rigor to solve a real-world problem was authentic. Through this unit, they learned they are not too young to be agents of change, and that if they see a problem in the world, they can do something about it.

The students turned empathy into action and felt pride and exhilaration about their accomplishment. Empathy is a powerful emotion, and teachers can harness it to help students create extraordinary work. Remembering this feeling and the empowerment of having taken successful action could inspire an even bigger action in the future. One student voiced this thought as we gathered to debrief after the assembly, saying, “Maybe one day, we can do it for real.”

Sung Hee Kim (skim@saes.org; @sungheekim_ art) teaches First Grade at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School.

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How an Unplanned Action Research Project and a Small Dose of Vulnerability Led to Better Student-Teacher Relationships and Joy in the Classroom DEVON ROTHSCHILD

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he summer before beginning my third year of teaching Middle School Science, our faculty was tasked with reading “Neuroteach,”1 a book that focused on the connection between teaching and Mind, Brain, and Education Science. I also had the privilege of attending a five-day conference led by The Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning,2 which also emphasized the importance of bringing researched practices into the classroom.

Inspired by these two professional development opportunities, and with just enough teaching under my belt to know that I wanted to make more meaningful connections with my students, I knew my classroom was going to change. However, the changes that happened the following year and the impact on my students’ learning surprised even me, and made me love teaching more than I had imagined!

A New Year I began the school year with a commitment to deepening my relationships with my students and a challenge of making

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learning more fun. Fun because it is a way to increase students’ deep cognitive engagement, and relationships because these underpin many research-informed strategies. I shared these goals with my students the first week of school, thinking they would help hold me accountable. I also decided to be very honest about how nervous I was to change my current practices. To bring more joy into my classroom, I would have to give up some control, and this was a scary thought for a highly-structured teacher.

To my delight, my students responded well. Not only were they excited about the increase in fun, they were moved by my honesty and willingness to try things out of my comfort zone. I took them outside more. I started Fun Dart Friday, ending class ten minutes early every Friday to allow them to answer a formative question about the week’s learning and then earn points for their team by throwing darts at a dart board. (Don’t worry, they were plastic darts!) I made time to do a 2 x 10 with some students I was struggling to connect with—spending two minutes speaking to the same student about something

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other than school for ten days in a row.3 I learned about FortNite. I asked them about their weekends. Sometimes I even sang my lessons to them. We began to develop a strong classroom community based on trust and joy.

Surprise – An Action Research Project Appears A couple of weeks into the year, we set about establishing our classroom expectations. The previous summer, I learned that taking notes by hand allows for greater retention of information, as compared to taking those same notes electronically.4 Based on that research, I decided to require my students to take notes by hand.

Even though each student in my class had an iPad, they were not allowed to be out in my classroom except for specific assignments. However, my students questioned the findings of the research I was sharing.

Thankfully they were asking questions and were curious about the research. I assigned them a summary article on the research for homework.5 I believed this would be the end of the discussion. But seventh graders are not so easily convinced. They believed the research they read about did not apply to them and requested I change my policy.

And here is where the risk comes in! I asked my students if they would be willing to conduct an experiment in class to settle this issue once and for all. They agreed, but not before challenging me to change my note-taking policy if the results showed something different than what I had presented to them. I (reluctantly) agreed.

Thinking this a wonderful opportunity to teach my students about the scientific method, I had students design the experiment in groups and present each idea to the whole class. Each class then had a whole group discussion about the best way to move forward.

Ultimately, students were randomly assigned to either a hand-written or electronic note-taking group. Each student took a formative pre-assessment and then took notes using the method to which they had been randomly assigned. Finally, students took a post-assessment and the per-

Ultimately, students were randomly assigned to either a hand-written or electronic notetaking group. Each student took a formative preassessment and then took notes using the method to which they had been randomly assigned.

Finally, students took a post-assessment and the percentage increase in scores were averaged for each of three classes. Students graphed and analyzed the results. centage increase in scores were averaged for each of three classes. Students graphed and analyzed the results. To my relief (but not theirs), each class had greater improvement in the group of students that had taken hand-written notes than those that had taken notes electronically. Phew, the results supported what the research had shown!

The Impact on Student Learning What was most exciting about this action research was my students’ reactions! While they were disappointed that they hadn’t proved me wrong, they were engaged and thoughtful about the way they were learning. One student claimed the action research project made the students more attentive to the way they learn.

Metacognition, thinking about one’s own thinking,6 became a topic we discussed often in class. There were also strengthened relationships in the classroom based on my willingness to try something that might have failed. Students became more

willing to try new things and were more open to experiment and setbacks. Having a classroom built on trusting relationships that accepted that failure could be a part of learning led all of us to be more vulnerable and to take more risks. And this, in turn, led me to feel more comfortable letting go of more control to add more joy into the classroom. It was a win-win for all those involved.

A special thank you: While all of my students willingly participated in the action research project, several stepped out of their comfort zone and presented this research to faculty from Sandy Spring Friends School and to teachers throughout the country. Thank you to Eva Derryberry, Yousef Eldadah, Ethan Lee, Ian Neill, Ella O’Neill-Bryant, and Julia Purdy for their bravery and insight.

Devon Rothschild (dmroths@carrollk12.org) is a Middle School Science teacher for the Carroll County (MD) Public Schools. She is a former Science teacher at Sandy Spring Friends School, where this action research project took place.

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Chasing Sleep SARAH SCHWARTZ ‘20

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s a high schooler, I am constantly chasing sleep. In my role as a CTTL Student Research Fellow, I was asked to come to a meeting with teachers and talk about the research data we had collected on the school’s new schedule. Our discussion soon turned to the topic of Time by Design, a feature of our new schedule. On select Wednesdays, about half of the ones occurring during the school year, classes start an hour later and students have the option of coming to school to participate in activities or sleep in and come to school an hour later than usual.1 Some teachers told me they didn’t understand giving kids this downtime if they didn’t take advantage by participating in the activities offered, and instead used the time to sleep in and come to school late. That is when I spoke up and shared something that I believe is my truth, and probably the truth of many high school students: I am chasing sleep.

Sleep is a priority, yet too often for me, and other sleep-deprived teens, it falls to the wayside in favor of the never-ending to-do list, an attempt to balance our lives, without much of a margin for error. A never-ending sleep loss, being less efficient, staying up later to make up for it, and losing more sleep, has made a sleepdeprived insomniac of too many teens.

While sleeping in one day during the school week doesn’t necessarily make up for inadequate nights of sleep other days, it does promote, if not ensure, one night of healthy sleep. Teenagers’ brains need 9-10 hours of sleep a night to function properly,2 yet few actually reach this mark due to their environment; the lack of sleep affects teens’ brains, academics, and lives, thus it is crucial to re-work our school day to cre-

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ate an environment in which students can sleep well and finish the race for sleep.

Trying to balance school work, activities, sports, work, family, friends, self-care (genuine me-time), and the college application process means that searching for sleep gets lost in the process. During my sophomore year, my English teacher once asked my class what our ideal bedtime was. Expecting an absurdly late hour, he was surprised when I, along with the other sleep-deprived teens that filled my class, answered 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. It’s not that I don’t want to get a good night’s sleep – an early bedtime and 9 to 10 hours of sleep

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Teenagers’ brains need 9-10 hours of sleep a night to function properly, yet few actually reach this mark due to their environment; the lack of sleep affects teens’ brains, academics, and lives, thus it is crucial to re-work our school day to create an environment in which students can sleep well and finish the race for sleep. is my dream. It’s that as a high school student, to get everything done, my schedule is one of early mornings, late nights, and 6 or 7 hours of sleep — which would be a good night. Often the total is below that.

According to researchers at NIH, “Not only is a good night’s sleep required to form new learning and memory pathways in the brain, but also sleep is necessary for those pathways to work well.”3 Thus lack of sleep affects memory, decision making, attention span, and mood; causes the thinking process to slow,

and confusion to arise. However, it doesn’t take a neuroscientist to notice that when one is well-rested they work better and more effectively than when they are sleep deprived. When I’m well-rested I am more invested in class, I’m better at conveying my thoughts, I recall information quicker, I can manage my time better, and I’m less tired by the time I get to my homework.

When I’m well-rested I’m a better student, thus, sleeping in the extra hour or so and taking a break isn’t necessarily unproductive.

As my teachers, Mr. Whitman and Dr. Kelleher said in their book, “Neuroteach,” a common myth about the brain is that when we sleep, the brain shuts down.

The reality is that “the brain is still active when we sleep, and certain crucial brain tasks, including ones associated with memory storage, only happen during this time. Sleep is vital for learning.”4 In fact it’s probably the best way to use my time.

Thus, my failure in the eyes of teachers to sign up for more activities during Time by Design and opt to sleep in is, in my eyes, my success. While to some it may look like students are merely looking to do less work, sleep helps students do more quality work, and improve their mental health.

Finally, in the race for sleep, I’ve gotten to a point where I can stop and catch my breath.

Sarah Schwartz is a member of St. Andrew’s Class of 2020 and was named a “Bethesda Magazine” Extraordinary Teen for, in part, her activism around immigration.

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Dialing Down Stress Without Dumbing Down My Class1 DR. IAN KELLEHER

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t St. Andrew’s, we are living through year two of our new daily schedule (see “Think Differently & Deeply Volume 3”), designed to deepen learning and support student well-being. It is based on the fundamental principle that deep academic challenge and well-being are intertwined — that great schools design for both, rather than force students and parents to make a false choice. The flow of each day and the school week as a whole has been a revelation. But this got me thinking: changing a schedule is a large scale effort. What was I doing on a smaller scale in my physics class to combine rigor and well-being, strategies that could be done by any teacher without asking permission? Here are just a few: Disrupting the rhythm When I started teaching I fell into a familiar rhythm, like the beat of a dance track: quiz, quiz, quiz, test, quiz, quiz, quiz, test… Everything counted. But a light went off while in a conversation with a colleague who said, “Sean is so good on tests; it is a shame his quiz grades are so low, they are

really dragging his grade down.” It was a revelation — surely his test grade was by far the most important measure of what Sean ultimately knew, and if he failed the quizzes but ultimately learned from them, why should the quizzes count against him?

Formative Assessments And then I learned about formative assessments. One of the most dramatic changes since I have started using research to inform my teaching has been knowledge and impact of formative assessments. They are a low- or no-stakes tool to find out what students currently know and can do, and what they are still struggling with. And then, importantly, I can alter my teaching based on what I find out, and get students to alter their practicing and studying based on what they find out. I made the commitment to never put a concept, skill or block of key knowledge on a test that students had not previously encountered on a formative assessment. This commitment made me change the way I design my day-to-day teaching to make it happen. I also talk to my students about what formative assess-

I made the commitment to never put a concept, skill or block of key knowledge on a test that students had not previously encountered on a formative assessment. This commitment made me change the way I design my day-to-day teaching.

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ment is, why we are doing it, and how we are shifting things about a bit in my course based on what we find out. On occasion I move a test when it is clear my students are not ready. I used to think that if I felt I had done an awesome job teaching, my students must be ready for that test. I now realize that just because I may have walked out of my classroom feeling that, wow, my teaching was awesome today, it doesn’t mean the learning I wanted to happen had actually happened. Formative assessment is the way to find out.2 Including regular formative assessment and a regular dialogue about it with my class has lessened the stress level around major assessments as students know where they are and have an opportunity to act while there is still time. Without quizzes I have fewer grades in my grade book, so in essence each test counts for more, but the stress level is down because students feel better prepared for the test. There appears to be no negative impact on grades, and it seems to actually help some students.

tends to be much less than we appreciate, and they benefit from an intentional academic nudge to use their prior knowledge and skills on current tasks.3 So now I teach study strategies alongside content, particularly active retrieval and spaced practice.4 Active retrieval is the idea that self-testing is much more effective for long-term memory storage and retrieval than passively reading.

Spacing is the idea of allowing students some time to get a bit rusty before making them recall information or skills that they are just starting to forget. I design the content and schedule of my homework with active retrieval and spaced practice in mind.

The goal of most of my homework is to get students ready for assessments through a planned sequence of just-forgetting, forcing yourself to recall, then checking in with your notes or with me when you cannot. This is another part of helping reduce students’ stress level for assessments by making them feel better prepared, and by increasing their confidence that they have a great toolbox of strategies to draw on.

others could not; this was just part of the process of figuring out if science was for you. I now appreciate that working memory and higher order thinking are separate things. Related, yes, but particularly in the novice stage of learning the core knowledge and skills in a new subject, working memory capacity can be a real barrier.5 You are asked to hold so many things in your working memory at once that you do not have the capacity to do the task. Or you can do the task now, but do not have the capacity to commit it to long-term memory so you can do it later. So now I build knowledge stepby-purposeful-step, lessening the demands on students’ active working memory because key skills and knowledge for the learning now had already been stored in long-term memory earlier. It feels easier to students because of this. I also add in simple scaffolds to reduce the cognitive load at times, such as providing worked examples for homework in the early stages of learning a new skill, or allowing students to use a sheet of equations when we start a new unit. These scaffolds will get peeled away over time as students’ confidence and competence grow, but they lessen stress when students are in the ‘novice’ stage of a new topic.

There is, of course, much more, and it evolves constantly. Once the idea is fixed in your mind that well-being and academic challenge go hand in hand, it becomes a part of your daily lesson planning. Some degree of stress helps learning, but lots does not — so as a teacher I am constantly a stress balancer. We might think of this as a two-pronged approach to well-being that includes strategies for instruction and assessment, and social-emotional strategies, some of which are shown in the table below. By designing for the well-being of my students I am also building my capacity to get them to think harder and dig deeper.

Yes, as a school we can do that through large-scale projects like a daily schedule.

But as a teacher, I can do it every day too.

Teach strategies alongside content Acknowledge limited working memory Dr. Ian Kelleher (ikelleher@saes.org; @ijkelleher) I used to believe that my job was to teach teaches Science at St. Andrew’s where he is content. By the time students reached me I used to think that being able to hold the Dreyfuss Family Chair for Research and cothey had a good toolbox of skills, now it was 20 things in your brain at once was part of author of “Neuroteach: Brain Science and the up to me to deliver chemistry and physics. I learning science. Some people could do it, Future of Education.” now know from research that most students, left to A two-pronged approach to well-being (includes, but is not limited to...) their own devices, use ineffective or inefficient study Instruction & Assessment Social-Emotional strategies, like rereading Teach memory strategies alongside content Belonging mindset & identity formation the textbook with lots of Be deliberate about metacognition Growth mindset highlighters. I also know Teach and assess in multiple modalities Purpose and relevance that students’ ability to Use formative assessment Metacognition about stress carry over skills that work Use research on what good feedback looks like The language a teacher uses in one class to another, or Curriculum design (interleaving & cognitive load) The importance of relationships from one year to another,

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Planting Seeds of Kindness: It All Begins in Preschool DENISE KOTEK

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ne day this summer, I decided to dodge my rather dull “to-do” list, and head to the local pool with my daughter. As I watched her practice flip turns, my mind flitted to ideas about how to approach writing this article.

Then, an unexpected gift arrived.

A barefoot toddler padded over in my direction, stood in front of the chair next to me and reached down to pick up a brown hair tie from the ground. He looked up, handed it to me with a broad smile, and said, “Here!”

My heart nearly melted. This child gave me an object he thought I needed, with nothing to gain and no prompting from his father — who stood in the pool waiting to resume their game. The child’s simple act of kindness came from a place deep inside, and I happened to be the lucky recipient.

A 2012 study suggests that kindness is intrinsically rewarding to young children.

Toddlers appeared happier when they gave away a treat of their own to a puppet than when they received a treat for themselves.1 Practicing kindness not only makes us feel good, it helps children strengthen peer relationships, increases prosocial behaviors (i.e., behaviors that benefit others or society as a whole), happiness, self-esteem, gratitude, and well-being.2 Research shows that children have a capacity for kindness, but also a capacity for cruelty that can rear its ugly head in a tendency to exclude those unlike them in race, language, gender, social groups, and behaviors.3,4 These findings reveal an exciting window of opportunity to teach our youngest learners how to tip the balance of

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their scales in favor of kindness.

Our preschool teaching philosophy at St. Andrew’s is anchored in our belief that teaching social-emotional skills – sharing, comforting, self-regulation, empathy, listening, and cooperation – provides the foundation for learning and success at school and beyond.

A 2015 study showed five-year-old students with higher prosocial skills were more likely to have more successful outcomes as adults in key areas such as education, employment, substance abuse, and mental health.5 In addition, a large meta-analysis of 213 social-emotional learning programs indicated that students participating in them showed improvements in many areas, including social-emotional skills and academic achievement.6 How can we influence, strengthen, and extend our students’ capacity for kindness? Laying our professional insights as teachers alongside insights from research suggests a direction to explore. It all starts with developing what’s on the inside with these four approaches: Help build emotional awareness Preschool students express a broad range of emotions every day– some joyful, some not. When students experience a conflict or feel strong emotion, teachers provide verbal support and visual prompts to help children stop, take deep breaths, problemsolve, and move forward. Children use fun breathing strategies like bunny breathing to increase oxygen flow and improve their ability to think more clearly. With practice,

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children learn how to identify and talk about their feelings. Once our youngest students can name feelings in themselves, they are more likely to identify and relate to the feelings of others. Teaching kindness is not only possible, but achievable, when we increase emotional awareness.

Practice what you preach If we want seeds of kindness to grow strong roots, teachers must model kindness for students in what we say, how we say it, and what we do. We offer comfort, love, and support to each child to meet their unique needs. Sometimes, a simple hug can change the trajectory of a child’s day! As children feel safe, secure, and valued, their minds open up to engage in higher-order thinking. In keeping with our Responsive Classroom curriculum, we use positive teacher language and encourage a St. Andrew’s “yet” mindset. Negative “I can’t do it!” thinking is replaced with “maybe not yet…let’s keep trying!” Modeling kindness doesn’t stop with our students! Celebrate your co-teacher’s birthday with the children, open a door for someone, greet colleagues with a smile, or give a compliment! We

know children are more likely to practice kindness when they see it, hear it, and feel it all around them, all the time.

Highlight the positive Noticing and naming prosocial behavior goes a long way in helping children understand what kindness means. “Joe feels better now that you brought him the toy he wanted. That was kind of you.” The more we identify and encourage acts of kindness, children will be more likely to repeat them. A year ago, one of our students was stuck in a grumpy mood. “No!” was a word she knew all too well, until one of us discovered her shoes. “Wow! I notice you have different shoes today. They are pink and sparkly!” She smiled, and her mood switched – just, like, THAT! We realized she was seeking out a connection, a way to feel she was valued and known. Brain research tells us that emotion and cognition are intertwined.7 If we teach with intention, we can create meaningful experiences that generate positive emotions, paving the way for better learning.

Coach for character St. Andrew’s is a place of learning that values the education of th spirit as well as the mind. We teach children the Golden Rule: treat others as you want to be treated. Teachers coach ethical behavior by role-playing scenarios with one another at circle, meeting time, or during play. We ask questions, listen to student feedback, and challenge students to think harder and deeper about feelings and choices.

What could you do to make this person feel better? What other choice could you make? How did this book character make you feel?

St. Andrew’s teachers understand the importance of planting seeds of kindness in early childhood. We not only help children develop their moral character, but also establish an intertwined system of roots so kindness can grow and blossom beyond our school walls.

Denise Kotek (dkotek@saes.org) teaches Preschool at St. Andrew’s.

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Going Big on Retrieval Practice WILL CIRRITO ‘21, CECE FAINBERG ‘21 AND MAYA NOBOA ‘21

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t was a boring Monday night in late May, and the three of us wanted to hang out after school. Our parents only agreed on one condition: that we would be productive and study for our upcoming exams. We explained that although our final exams were drawing near, we felt that we had studied for each one as best as we could, using the exam review resources and guidelines provided to us by our teachers. But what more could we do? In order to appease our parents, we had to figure out a study strategy that would be useful and effective; and to appease us, one that was also engaging, and enjoyable. Quizlet, flashcards, self-testing, and referring back to class notes were all fine strategies, but we wanted to create one that would help us fully grasp all of the information needed for our final exams, as well as one that fit where we were mentally having already done a lot of studying.

First, we had to pick a subject. We all had history class together, so we felt that it would be the wisest decision to choose that course. Next, we had to collaborate to create an incredible, impeccable method for studying and learning the material – but whatever would we choose?

Maya mentioned that she had a large scroll of paper in her basement. Cece got excited because she happened to have some nice markers. Will posed the question of what we could create with this perfect storm of blank canvas and colored markers.

Eureka! The “colossal piece of paper” was born and we set off to create our study tool. We started by writing down historical words we needed to remember. We then recalled and wrote down the first 16 presidents of the United States. Next, we

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worked to recall from memory, and then by looking at our notes, the three historical chains of causation and the 22 Terms of the Historian. After that, we decided to make a table showcasing wars, from the French-Indian War to the Civil War, and important information about them. We proceeded to list the acts and compromises

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in chronological order from the “Great Compromise” to the Compromise of 1850.

This technique for studying helped us tremendously on the final exam. As Dr. Kelleher , the CTTL’s Head of Research has suggested, we learned more when we made ourselves think hard. It also validated the idea that studying for a test or exam is, as our teacher, Mr. Whitman, often said, a “learning opportunity (LOPP).”

It helped Will remember the presidents, a topic he struggled with all year. Cece benefited from writing down lists of terms we needed to know. Maya, who struggled with remembering dates of the acts and compromises, was able to recall them during the exam.

strategies — spacing effect, retrieval practice, self-testing — should be part of every student’s study strategy tool kit, to be used when needed.

Our colossal retrieval practice project helped us learn a great deal about our learning, as well as the material covered in our history class. Memory and recall strategies were introduced to us at various points in the year by our teachers in order to help us prepare for tests and other LOPPs. The act of having frequent recall tests, that counted for few or no points, were a common feature in many classes. And our teachers routinely used different teaching methods in class to help us remember the information. All of

It was also validating to see this way of studying reinforced by Dr. Pooja Agawal and Patrice Bain in their book, “Powerful Teaching: Unleashing the Science of Learning.”1 Maya experienced this firsthand during her experience in 2019 as an intern for the CTTL’s Science of Teaching and Leadership Academy. The book’s

this helped us gain the skills to use more active study strategies beyond the typical flashcards. Finding an active study strategy that works for you for this material was a common theme of our classes. Thus, when we faced the most comprehensive and stressful exam of the year, we had strategy options to help us remember the

information for the short term and for the future, and a mindset to figure out an effective strategy that was going to work for us.

Each of us — Maya, Cece, and Will — have different strengths in the way that we learn. Through this study experience, we learned that pooling our collective strengths can help us to collectively prepare for an exam while also having fun working hard with our friends. We did not do equally well on this 10th grade history final exam, but months after the exam we are still each able to recall much of what we spent retrieving that night.

Will Cirrito, Cece Fainberg and Maya Noboa are members of the Class of 2021 at St. Andrew’s.

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Using Creative Writing to Improve Memory LIZ REGAN KIINGI AND JULIA DEAN

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s English teachers, we often use analytical writing assignments to assess reading comprehension and understanding. However, one underutilized method for engaging with text is creative writing. English teachers have been using close reading and passage analysis for years to highlight important moments in stories and to help students dig into word choice to produce a concise, formal written analysis. But what happens when a student tries to put herself or himself into a character’s metaphorical shoes?

Engaging in this type of creative writing task changes the exercise from an external literary analysis to an internal view of a character’s feelings and emotions. One goal of the creative writing exercise – and reading in general – is to create empathy and develop students’ theory of mind, which involves understanding why someone acts in a particular way or predicting how someone will act.1 Empathy and theory of mind are both central to social cognition, and researchers have determined that character-driven stories consistently lead to the synthesis of oxytocin, a hormone which motivates cooperation with others by strengthening one’s sense of empathy.2 In addition to enhanced social cogni-

tion, an important outcome of this creative writing task is the improvement of memory. Using stories to learn activates the brain’s positive emotional state and transfers the information more readily into memory.3 For students with strong memory or those who love the story, remembering events and scenes may not be that difficult. But what about students who do not necessarily connect with the storyline or characters? What could help them remember key scenes? To answer this question, we asked our students to engage in the exercise of writing from the perspective of another character.

An fMRI study found that when participants continued to write creatively from a literary text that was given to them, the areas of their brain at work were those involving language processing, working memory, and the long term memory system.4 We saw this impact firsthand; while engaged in this creative writing task, students juggled a myriad of cognitive tasks, including remembering plot details, character traits, common language used by the character, and the context of the scene students were asked to recreate.

When students in English 8 were asked to choose a character from the jail scene in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” the scene in which Atticus is guarding Tom Robinson

An fMRI study found that when participants continued to write creatively from a literary text that was given to them, the areas of their brain at work were those involving language processing, working memory, and the long term memory system.

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from racist farmers who want him dead, students chose a range of perspectives.

They had to play with words and sentence structures; they were even allowed to break traditional grammar rules for the sake of artistic license. One English 8 student wrote the following from Atticus Finch’s perspective: “My mouth is frozen open, my fists clenched tightly, and my heart still beating way too fast. Scout’s voice wrenches at something inside of me and I look away from Jem, who stands in front of me with his own fists clenched at his sides. He has my eyes… A prideful voice whispers inside of me as I turn to look at my daughter, he has my hair too... As my gaze lands on Scout, my heart slows its anxious thrum.”

particular scene from Atticus’s perspective could have even more lasting effects as studies have found that when students discover meaning in characters’ good deeds, they are often motivated to act more virtuously as well.5 We asked our 11th grade students to do the same creative writing exercise for our unit on “The Great Gatsby.” Incorporating more choice for our older students, we asked them to pick from a select number of scenes in addition to choosing the character whose perspective they wanted adopt. Some students not only used language common to the character, but also incorporated literary devices such as foreshadowing and irony. For example, one student wrote from the perspective of Myrtle Wilson shortly before she dies:

When a student creates and writes like the above character, she/he is an author too. Thinking about which words to choose and which feelings to evoke creates a deeper connection to the moment and, therefore, creates a stronger memory of the plot and characters. Recreating this

“She looks so out of place. I should be sitting next to him, not her. But that car is so… It’s unforgettable. That car is something else. If I was in that car, I would leave quite an impression on anyone who should look. It definitely will leave an impression on me.“

The benefits of this assignment multiply when you ask students to read their work aloud so that they can appreciate each other’s creativity and remember the scenes and emotions of the characters more clearly. When reading, hearing, and writing stories, our brains are wired to focus on the characters’ thoughts and feelings6 — if stories are memorable, it is because of the people within them. If students can connect to characters, they can more easily learn from them, choosing which qualities they want to avoid and which they want to emulate. Creative writing that incorporates choice, empathy, and memory empowers students to become authors, both of the story they are rewriting and of their own life stories.

Liz Regan Kiingi (lkiingi@saes.org) teaches English at St. Andrew’s. Julia Dean (jdean504@ gmail.com; @julia_dean504) is the former CTTL Academy Program Coordinator and Innovation Associate and an English teacher at St. Andrew’s who is now pursuing graduate studies.

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Belonging and Middle School: Not Such an Odd Couple DR. RODNEY GLASGOW

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n her book, “The Gift of Imperfection,” Brené Brown says “Belonging is the innate human desire to be part of something larger than us. Because this yearning is so primal, we often try to acquire it by fitting in and by seeking approval, which are not only hollow substitutes for belonging, but often barriers to it. Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”1 As powerful as this definition of belonging is, it may, at first glance, seem almost impossible to implement in a middle school! Middle school has the worst reputation when it comes to belonging. Whenever I ask at a parent event who would like to go back to middle school, very few hands are raised. When I tell people I lead a middle school, they almost always offer their admiration and blessings for having to deal with what is one of the most difficult periods in child development. Middle school, typically, is where we often feel like the odd person out, where we often struggle to find ourselves and then to locate ourselves in the sea of selves emerging around

us. One of the main developmental tasks of middle school is to find your people, the group to which your authentic self best belongs. And the journey to that can be paved with many stones.

As difficult as a belonging mindset can be to attain, especially at the middle school level, it is critical to academic achievement.

Being seen, respected, and appreciated are key aspects of belonging. When students feel like they belong in their school and indeed even in a particular classroom, they work harder, engage more, develop more grit and ability to bounce back from challenges, and because of that, they achieve more.2 Our brains are motivated to determine if we are in a space of belonging, and this investigation for clues of our own emotional safety in an environment can be a drain on cognitive resources, particularly when it has to be done everyday, every time we switch classes. Uncertainty about belonging can produce anxiety that can manifest as lack of engagement, negative and aggressive behaviors, checked out and depressive behaviors, and ultimately, a mismatch between one’s potential and one’s achievement.3 We all search for a

As difficult as a belonging mindset can be to attain, especially at the middle school level, it is critical to academic achievement. When students feel like they belong in their school and indeed even in a particular classroom, they work harder, engage more, develop more grit and ability to bounce back from challenges, and because of that, they achieve more.

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sense of belonging, and our girls, students of color, and LGBTQ+ students often tend to be even more heightened around their need to feel a sense of belonging in our classrooms, cafeterias, and hallways.

So how does a middle school create a sense of belonging at a time when it feels the most elusive? At St. Andrew’s, we begin our day with a sense of belonging by utilizing the Morning Meeting Greeting from Responsive Classroom, giving each student an opportunity to have someone say, “Good morning, Joey,” and give a smile of welcome into the space. We do this informally when we see each other as well as in our divisional morning assemblies.

And not only do we do it, but we teach the students why it is important and the value of having someone acknowledge your presence. We continue it at lunch, where each week we rotate the assigned seating chart so that everyone will have broken bread with everyone else by the end of the school year. And not only do we do it, but we explain to students that this reduces the amount of time and energy spent scanning the lunch room for a place where you belong, and it increases your chances of being kind to one another because the more you know and interact with each other, the less likely you are to

make a flippant comment that could ruin someone else’s day. And on a free seating day in our lunchroom, if you ask one of our middle schoolers what is the answer to the question, “Can I sit here?” they will say, in unison, “The answer is yes.”

We carry it into our sports program, where we support and reward teamwork over athletic prowess, honoring everyone’s contributions. And, of course, we infuse it into our classrooms, where we practice constructive one-on-one feedback partnered with specific strategies for increased learning – signaling our individual knowledge of our students. We create a sense of belonging when we celebrate the student who went from a C- to a B- as much as we celebrate the student who maintained a solid A, because we recognize the hard work that both of them put in.

Students know they belong in a classroom when: • They understand the classroom rules and norms • Know how to do well academically and socially in the classroom setting • Feel a sense of agency, control, predictability, and fairness over what happens to them in the classroom • Know that, within reason, their needs – physically, intellectually, emotionally – will

be seen and addressed in the classroom • Feel permission to take risks, make mistakes, and still be allowed to be a full part of the classroom • Feel like there is some connection between who they are and what the class is about, as well as between their selves outside of the classroom and their selves inside of the classroom We know students belong when, like our middle schoolers at St. Andrew’s, they can’t help but smile when they get to school in the morning, even as they complain about how early it is! In so many studies of achievement gaps and measures of academic success, the sense of belonging is a common positive factor.

Once people get over their shock at how much I truly enjoy running a middle school, they inevitably ask, “What do you love about working in a middle school?”

The answer is always the same: the opportunity to make middle schoolers love the place they’re in.

Dr. Rodney Glasgow (rglasgow@saes.org; @glasgow_rodney) is the Head of Middle School and Chief Diversity Officer at St. Andrew’s.

Rodney also leads the NAIS Student Diversity Leadership Conference and is the founder of the National Diversity Practitioners Institute.

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An International Experience with the CTTL’s Summer Academy KRISTIN SIMMERS

“Being an MBE-aligned teacher means being able to sit with the discomfort of change.” - Christine Lewis, St. Andrew’s Epsicopal School “Keep it simple, stupid” - Dr. Pedro de Bruyckere, Arteveldehogeschool, Ghent

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hen I began the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning’s (CTTL) Science of Teaching and School Leadership Academy, my motivation was 40% learning new content and 60% seeing what other schools were doing with it. I have been studying neuroscience in education, formally and informally, for nearly 20 years, teaching in four different countries and currently working at one of the most innovative schools that I know… literally halfway around the world from St. Andrew’s! I wanted to see, hear, discuss and question other experts’ Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) journeys, looking for ways to connect and support one another.

It is uncommon to find an educational conference where private, public, international and local schools intertwine as seamlessly as they did at the Academy and, as Glenn Whittman, Director of the CTTL said in his closing remarks, we are not that disparate - and it is the students that unite us.

Throughout the five days, we were able to engage with a range of experts and educators speaking to how MBE Science applies to optimal teaching and learning now. Today. With the educators right here in front

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of us. For the benefit of all learners. In the words of Henry David Thoreau, “When any real progress is made, we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before.”

The first step toward achieving a common understanding of what MBE is seems to be addressing what MBE is not. So let’s start with some myth-busting. MBE is not a specific, discrete list of strategies to be immediately applied to each and every possible learning environment without purposeful modification and intentional unpacking. MBE is also not a panacea, nor a magic wand, nor an immediate quick fix for all your educational needs. It is inaccurate to assume that MBE is so deeply rooted in neuroscience that it lacks the practical “But what do I do now?” tips and tricks that motivated yet frustrated teachers are often looking for. “I see your brain scan, but can you please tell me how this will get Johnny to stop running around the classroom and interrupting all the other kids’ learning, please?!”

Also, as covered in the very first chapter of “Neuroteach,”1 there is a prevalent misconception that MBE exists primarily to help the struggling or exceptional learners, rather than being a framework to enhance

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teaching and learning for all students.

So let’s set things straight. MBE, as summarized by Dr. Tracey Tokuhama-Espinosa at the International Delphi Panel on Mind, Brain, and Education Science,2 is an applied science that relies heavily on data analysis to develop future-focused projections about new areas of potential application, while also aiming to research and produce “usable knowledge” or ways to improve education through science. Informally summarized

by Professor David B. Daniel3 over lunch at the CTTL: “If it works, and it’s backed by research, it’s MBE.” So what does that mean for a school who wants to “be more MBE?” What does that look like?

One key emphasis throughout the Academy was that MBE at a school can be an umbrella under which existing initiatives are housed, rather than being a stand-alone or additional initiative. In practical terms, I believe the foundational principles and tenets of MBE, as listed at the Delphi Panel or as enumerated throughout the CTTL learning materials, provide a lens through which any institution’s existing initiatives, practices, and policies can be viewed and reviewed. Through this framework, we can systematically ensure that we are doing our best to provide all students with the best possible learning opportunities, according to current, high-quality research.

Likewise, I think an ideal place to start is by enlisting the staff’s help in identifying the myriad of ways in which they are already using MBE strategies effectively, albeit without a direct “MBE” intention or label. Much of good-teaching practice is

And what happens when a practice does not appear to be supported by MBE research? One possibility is that there just isn’t research on that yet. If we as teachers can get evidence that a practice is effective in real classrooms but there is no MBE research to back that up, that is interesting.

This is why MBE was created to be a two-way field, where the professional insights of teachers could inform the direction of researchers. somewhere backed by quality research and thus, supported by MBE. Some of the initial work we did at the CTTL’s Academy was to examine our own teaching experience and see what practices aligned with MBE research. What if a whole school did this?

And what happens when a practice does not appear to be supported by MBE research? One possibility is that there just isn’t research on that yet. If we as teachers can get evidence that a practice is effective in real classrooms but there is no MBE research to back that up, that is interesting.

This is why MBE was created to be a twoway field, where the professional insights of teachers could inform the direction of researchers.

But there is another possibility. What happens when research suggests that a teaching method that experienced educators have been relying on for years is no longer the best way for today’s students to access learning?

Christine Lewis of St. Andrew’s, a lead presenter at the CTTL’s Academy, provided a powerful summary: “Being an MBE-aligned teacher means being able to sit with the discomfort of change.” Julie Wilson, the Founder of the Institute for the Future of Learning, also a presenter at the Academy, suggested creating an origin story as a way to honor and validate previous iterations while helping a team to transition to a new way of doing things.

Change in an institution can be hard, so how do we help change happen? She also provided several frameworks for leaders to guide effective, systemic change throughout an organization as change is aided by both top-down and bottom-up scaffolds.

Dr. Daisy Pellant, Director of the Peter Clark Center for Mind, Brain, and Education at the Breck School referenced one of my favorite Maya Angelou quotes: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

Wherever your school or district may be in its journey with MBE, it is clear that teaching is equal parts science and art, and we can never lose sight of the fact that these amazing, dynamic and ever-changing brains we discuss are inextricably linked to these amazing, dynamic and ever-changing humans who shape them. Lead with the heart, be a critical consumer of research and embrace the inevitable shifts and changes in your practice. As one CTTL participant summarized when she found many of her current teaching practices affirmed by MBE: “I mean, it might be neuroscience, but it’s not rocket science!”

Go ahead. You’ve got this.

Kristin Simmers (ksimmers@nist.ac.th; @ KristinASimmers) is an Elementary Teacher and EAL team leader at NIST International School located in Bangkok, Thailand. Kristin was a participant in the CTTL’s Science of Teaching and School Leadership Academy during the summer of 2019.

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Boosting Investment and Motivation: Creating a Space for Choice in Your Curriculum SARA GRAHAM

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ow often do you hear someone say “I took (insert language here) throughout high school and middle school, but I can’t use it?”

As a language educator, a little part of my soul is crushed every time I hear that. And yet, I can relate. My own language-learning journey was an arduous process.

Due to cultural norms in my family, I “learned” Hebrew for 10 years and French for three, but can’t functionally use either.

In 9th grade, I chose Mandarin Chinese - a logical choice for someone who was having trouble with language, right? Fast forward twenty years later, and I’m a Mandarin Chinese teacher. So what happened?

When I chose to learn Mandarin, it was internally motivated. The reason for my investment went beyond external factors.

As a high school language teacher with my background in language learning, I am painfully aware of students feeling like they have no choice. After all, that was exactly how I felt in my French and Hebrew classes. Even though Mandarin was hard, I stuck with it. Research shows that providing carefully constrained choice in learning can increase student investment and motivation.1,2 But what are the limitations? How much can this actually boost motivation?

During the 2018-2019 school year, I set out on a journey to explore these questions about choice and investment in several

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levels of my Mandarin classes. The SelfDetermination Theory described by Deci and Ryan suggests that motivation is on a continuum, from amotivation on one end, to various forms of extrinsic motivation in the middle, to intrinsic motivation on the other end.3 As a teacher, I wanted to figure out how to use choice to get my students to the far right of that continuum, which describes self-determined intrinsic motivation — motivation for enjoyment inherent in the task itself. I wondered if I could use proper scaffolding and socially-mediated processes to guide students towards intrinsic motivation.4 Vygotsky clearly identifies the importance of social interaction in learning through the “Zone of Proximal Development” (ZPD), and unless a learner has support from other artifacts or opportunities, known as affordances, they will not be able to learn.5,6 In other words, students will not be motivated in a class unless they feel the learning is “meaningful and worthwhile”.7 But what does this look like in a curriculum for required classes?

In my Mandarin II (high novice/low intermediate, typically sophomores) and Mandarin III (mid intermediate, typically juniors) classes, we cover roughly eight units throughout the year. Every other lesson, I allowed students to engage in what I called a “deep dive” — so that “deep dive” units were interspersed with “treatment

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as usual” units where I instructed students how I normally taught. In a “deep dive,” students went deeper into a tangentially or directly related sub-topic of the unit. I helped them find an authentic resource as a starting point, and they had to use learner tools to find unknown vocabulary and grammar patterns. While I was there to help, I had to get very comfortable with not knowing all the answers, but being able to help find the answers. Students then were given an open ended common question to show what they had learned.

vocabulary aides, and then have a conversation with me about the recipe and cooking in general. In her self-reflection, she noted that she was able to feel engaged instead of just reviewing past words and she was relaxed and at ease because she could practice and learn more about baking.

I conducted an action research study to measure the impact of units where I used a “deep dive” approach, comparing these to my “treatment as usual” normal practice units. I adapted a published, validated survey to measure motivation,

you do generates more questions to be addressed by future work.

Evidence suggests that my “deep dive” approach did increase motivation, and led to an increase in performance.

But it is quite a different type of teaching. Generally, this lack of control makes many teachers anxious. People say “but if student one does not know the same information as student two, how can you run the class?” The reality is that even in our first language, we do not know all of the same content or have all of the same

One example came during our unit on food. A student chose to tackle a recipe for cookies in Chinese. I helped her in several ways, which is where the scaffolding and ZPD were present: I showed her how to search the web for a recipe in Chinese, I reminded her how to identify words she did not know and how to use a language corpus to see those words used in other real world, authentic language examples, and I showed her how to identify and learn about common grammar patterns in the recipe. She had to create a unit of study based on that recipe, which required metacognition: what would someone need to know to learn this, what are the key words, and key concepts? As a test of her knowledge, she had to explain how to make these cookies in written form without any

and also collected qualitative data from students. Students generally reported feeling engaged and empowered, as well as gaining ownership, after taking part in these projects. I also noticed an increase in performance on units in which we did not have “deep dives.” It felt as though allowing choice in a controlled way allowed students to perform better even in units they were not as interested in. Analyzing the engagement data I collected showed a statistically significant increase in motivation in the “deep dive” units, with a pretty good effect size of 0.4. One potential flaw I noticed was that for this type of project, higher level and older students performed better. This could be due to age and maturity or level of language competency. As is often the case with research, the project

information as our interlocutors. We can perhaps imagine a core of knowledge that all students should know, but beyond that there are rings of more specialist, detailed knowledge; some students will know some of these rings, others will know others, and that’s okay. I can talk to people in Chinese about my own interests such as gardening, but I’ve never driven a car in China and do not find great joy in cars, so I have a difficult time engaging in conversations about cars in both languages. Why should learning a second language be any different? Maybe it’s time to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Sara Graham (sgraham@saes.org) teaches Mandarin Chinese at St. Andrew’s.

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Is That a Threat?: Language to Buffer Identity Threat in the Classroom EVA SHULTIS

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tudents took over the first day of August faculty meetings at St. Andrew’s. Spearheaded by two rising seniors, a panel of eight students came to school (a week before they had to!) to share things teachers and coaches have said to them during their academic careers that made them feel safe and welcome or invalidated and threatened.

My immediate takeaway was that students should be part of our professional development more often. My longer-term takeaway is a slow-burning awe at the power of language and an ever-increasing attention to how I use it. I teach science – not English – and I’m pointing that out because language is a double-edged sword we all wield.

Students can’t learn or use what they’ve learned when they feel under threat - we know this intuitively, and fMRI studies confirm it. Chronic stress can damage the hippocampus, which has the all-important job of consolidating new information into long-term memory. On a more momentto-moment basis, the amygdala, which is in charge of our fear response, acts like a cognitive train-track switch: when all is well it engages our prefrontal cortex, the home of working memory and engine of higher order cognitive functions. But when the amygdala perceives a threat, the switch flips to engage our more primitive hindbrain and send us into fight-or-flight survival mode.1 Thanks to this switching

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mechanism, the kinds of thinking we most want our students to do (connection-making, planning, analysis, self-regulation, etc.) are only possible in the absence of threat.

What is a “threat” in a classroom context? For those of us fortunate enough to set physical safety concerns aside, I think of threat as the opposite of belonging: a signal from the environment that we interpret as “you don’t belong here.” Evolutionarily, belonging to a group was a life or death matter – and though times have changed, signs that we don’t belong still send our amygdala into fight-or-flight mode.

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Students’ identity development

Academic belonging

Social belonging

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To cultivate a belonging mindset at school, we need to be aware that it has multiple components. According to middle school students, a sense of social belonging and academic belonging are distinct from each other – and students may feel one, both, or neither.2 It’s easy to imagine how signals from a teacher can be a source of academic threat, and signals from classmates can be a source of social threat. But as the diagram on the previous page attempts to illustrate, the arrows fly in all directions: I’m sure we’ve all witnessed students feeling academically threatened by each other. Teachers can also be a source of social threat when we fail to validate our students’ identities.

Identity development – and identity threat – are in the center of my diagram because they touch both the social and academic realms. Our students continuously grapple with their identities across all of the “big eight” social identifiers (including our students with normative/systemically privileged identities – there is a lot to come to terms with when you have a white racial identity, for example). This is a shared mandate of equity work and Mind, Brain, and Education Science: we need to build space for our students’ identities in our classroom and be attuned to potential sources of identity threat so we can minimize them.

The language we use around identity, expectations, assessment, feedback, etc. is an easily accessible tool to buffer both social and academic threat. Beyond using inclusive language, in general, (family rather than parents, folks rather than ladies and gentlemen, outside of school rather than home), there are unconscious beliefs students often hold that we may want to address head-on.

My takeaways from three studies that have influenced how I speak and write to my students are shared in the box to the right.

As multiple articles in this volume of “Think Differently and Deeply” touch on, emotion and cognition are inextricably interlinked, and a sense of belonging is a critical ingredient for learning. I’m also suggesting that minimizing identity threat is essential to cultivate social and academic belonging in our schools. And rather than crossing our fingers and hoping students will feel our beliefs about intelligence and aptitude emanating from us – and hence understand why we push them with critical feedback, and why they should persevere through challenges without taking things personally – we can harness the power of language to state all of these things - explicitly, early, and often.

Eva Shultis (eshultis@saes.org; @evashultis) teaches Science at St. Andrew’s and is Associate Director of Program Development and Research for the CTTL.

Communicate high standards when giving critical feedback Social psychologist David Yeager and his colleagues recruited 44 white and Black seventh-grade students who were earning Bs and Cs in Social Studies. They asked the students to write a personal essay and then gave them to their teachers to grade and write comments on. Before the teachers returned the essays, researchers randomly assigned the students to receive one of these two notes from the teacher clipped to the paper: Control group “I’m giving you these comments so that you’ll have feedback on your paper.”

Wise criticism group “I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them.”

When offered the opportunity to revise and resubmit their essays, 72% of Black students and 87% of white students in the wise criticism group did so, compared to 17% and 62% of the Black and white control groups. Notably, wise criticism made the greatest difference for students who chronically self-reported lower levels of trust in the people, policies, and procedures of their school environment, and “seemed to slow the tendency for early mistrust to beget deeper mistrust for minority students.”3 State your belief that all students have the potential to perform at the highest level in your discipline In a series of studies across multiple university contexts, Aneeta Rattan and her colleagues found that women and historically underrepresented racial minorities in STEM courses reported a greater interest in and sense of belonging to that field if they perceived that their professors held the following beliefs: • A growth mindset about intelligence (that intelligence is malleable and can increase with effort) • A belief in universal aptitude for the discipline (that all people have the potential to succeed in STEM, in this case) In two of Rattan’s studies, students were presented with a fictional transcript of a professor welcoming them to the first day of a course, expressing a belief in either universal or non-universal aptitude for the subject: Universal aptitude group “I know that everyone has high intellectual potential in science, technology, engineering, and math. What this means is that the potential is there in all of you. I want each and every one of you to realize your potential.”

Non-universal aptitude group “I know that not everyone has high intellectual potential in science, technology, engineering, and math. What this means is that the potential is there in some of you. I want those of you who have this potential to realize it.”

When the professor expressed non-universal aptitude beliefs, Black students reported lower interest in enrolling in the course than white students, and women anticipated a lesser sense of belonging to the field than men. Both of these gaps were eliminated in the universal aptitude condition.4 Depersonalize struggle from identity Gregory Walton and Geoffrey Cohen designed a series of interventions to bolster first-year college students’ sense of belonging in their new schools. In one experiment, they presented a group of Black freshmen with the results of an upperclassmen survey, in which the responses of older students indicated two important points: • That students of all racial identities had experienced academic hardship and doubt about whether they belonged in their first year • That these struggles lessened with time After being presented with evidence that the doubts and struggles they experienced were normal and not particular to them or their racial identity, this group of Black students reported a greater sense of belonging and belief in their potential to succeed (and went on to earn higher GPAs) than Black students in the control group.5

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Developing Students’ Voices: An Intricate Part of a Student’s Lifelong Learning, Self-Confidence, and Advancement DR. KENNETH WATERS

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s a former college professor, there were several questions I would hear from my students, be they undergraduate, graduate or postgraduate students: “How many pages should this paper be?” or “What’s the word count for this paper?” Despite my internal disdain for these questions, I would calmly respond with the same answer: “Your paper should be long enough to provide evidence that you understand the topic you are producing.” Seeing that students were uneasy with this response as they realized they would have to use their critical thinking and active reading skills and bring their own perspective to achieve success on my assigned papers provided me with a sense of enjoyment and justification that I am in the right profession.

The root of my excitement relates to the notion that a number of today’s learners are conditioned to follow a rubric, which is both beneficial and problematic. The majority of my students prefer a rubric, primarily because this mechanism creates a more objective method of scoring and because they are clear on how they will be evaluated.1 My issue with relying on a rubric is that I believe students can be less inclined to think critically or holistically about the purpose of the assignment – thereby losing the opportunity

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to explore their learning at the sake of only obtaining a passing grade. When this is common practice, I posit that students’ voices, literacy, and perspectives can be muted as they simply navigate towards a grade, consequently impacting their development, self-confidence, and advancement in life.

Classes need to have student voice designed into them. Providing students with a space to voice their ideas “create[s] programs and policies that are more effective at meeting the school’s own goals for supporting young people in their healthy development.”2 And while some of the places where student voice might be either incorporated or shut out are obvious, some, such as how we create rubrics, are perhaps not.

Below are some strategies I employ in my 11th grade English classes at St. Andrew’s to develop, support, and advance students’ voices on a consistent basis: • Having students respond to statements, quotes, or current issues both orally and in writing • Engaging students in discussion about the learned material and its applicability to their everyday life and society at-large, as opposed to simply perusing through the curriculum • Avoiding closed-ended questions and posing open-ended questions, while also

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asking students to explain their responses in detail. I also ask their peers to provide their perspectives on the given response.

• Encouraging students to omit the word “it” from their writing and to explain what “it” is in relation to what they are trying to highlight; and • Not allowing students to regurgitate the material we are learning, but rathere advocating for them to respond to prompts in their own words With anything new, there’s always apprehension and a lack of confidence in one’s ability to perform at the expected level, which was all present as I began using these strategies with my St. Andrew’s students.

Because we are a school that favors a growth mindset, coupled with me being unapologetic about having high expectations for my learners, I spent the first few weeks of the school year assuring my students that they were going to be okay and to trust the academic journey I was charging them with.

Easier said than done, right?

“I just don’t understand,” argued a few students. “I’m just not used to this way of learning,” mentioned another 11th grader, whose comment was echoed by a myriad of their contemporaries. All valid responses, but in staying true to the academic journey we were traveling, I constantly reminded each student who openly or non-verbally communicated their anxiety about how they will be evaluated in my class that the benefit in practicing these strategies would help them progress academically, socially, and professionally. These words of confirmation subsided some of their fears, which is an ac-

complishment considering the level of angst a number of my students had upon adapting to my pedagogy.

Although not said to my students, the approach I instituted in my classroom aligned with 9 out of the 15 power strategies for teachers outlined in the CTTL’s Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) Research Informed Strategies Placemat. Specifically, these include and are explained as follows: 1) Moving beyond lecture, by engaging students and encouraging active learning during the times I am introducing material to the class.

This is done by posing clarifying questions, having students thinkpair-share, displaying images and videos to gauge students’ perspective, and facilitating open discussions where all participate.

2) Connecting class to students’ lives, where I focus on teaching students applicable skills and knowledge that can be used in their everyday life and beyond.

3) Including choice and play, by allowing students guided autonomy on acceptable projects they can complete for a grade.

4) Understanding the link between emotion and cognition, by encouraging students with positive words of affirmation to give them the self-confidence and motivation to play active roles in their learning.

5) Minimizing classroom threats, where I purposefully create a safe and respectful learning environment, where students feel comfortable expressing their ideas without fear of being judged.

6) Helping to grow executive functioning, by constantly using scaffolded activities to help students reflect on the learned material, along with their peers’ responses to help students, and use these insights to improve their work. I am also constantly working to reduce these scaffolds so that my students may become better independent learners.

7) Combining joy and rigor, where I am adamant about establishing positive studentteacher relationships, meeting my students at their current academic level, but rigorously challenging them to go beyond their comfort zone, and making the learning experience as pleasant as possible. It is a magic zone for learning where students are outside their comfort zone — but comfortable being there.

8) Building students’ metacognition skills, which MBE Research considers as a high impact strategy;3 I not only ask my students to reflect on and respond to what we are learning, but to also explicitly describe their analysis of the topic we are discussing, using the same skills and thinking routines that we have used before. My objective is to have students think about their own learning, and connect their prior experiences in my class with what I am currently asking them to do.

9) Exploring beyond growth mindset, by tailoring my instruction to meet students’ academic needs, while focusing on the quality of their effort, as opposed to their ability. Ideally, I am intentional about building one’s self-confidence. Therefore, when assessing students, I give oral and written feedback to guide them through the academic challenges they are facing to ultimately help them self-identify their strengths and weaknesses, and give them opportunities to act on this feedback.

In a perfect world, each student will enter a teacher’s classroom with the prerequisite skill sets to succeed academically – but that rarely happens. Building students’ self-confidence and creating space to allow them to voice their opinions, whether good, bad, or indifferent, are strategies that can be instituted to prepare students for success in and out of the classroom.

I attest that if we as educators are employing the aforementioned strategies, we are preparing our students for the demands of the 21st century workforce and world that is interdependent and constantly evolving. Therefore, I challenge each educator who encounters a student who questions the length of an assigned paper, or one who swears they have nothing to talk about and doesn’t know what to write to remind them with guided instruction that they have the autonomy to voice whatever is on their mind because their perspective is valued, and needed, not only for their progression in life, but also because of the learning opportunity that is afforded to their peers.

With gratitude, I am pleased to note that my St. Andrew’s students are adapting to my demands. Rather than ask how long their paper should be, one student asked, “Dr. Waters, because you are not big on word count and page length, I want to ensure we’ll be okay ... as long as we support our points with valid supporting evidence?”

I’m sure you can guess the response I gave.

Dr. Kenneth Waters (kwaters@saes.org; @ KDWaters) teaches English at St. Andrew’s where he is also the Upper School Diversity Coordinator and coaches basketball.

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Design Thinkers in the Kindergarten Classroom VAS POURNARAS

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esign thinking “is important in education because we want our students to develop higher-order thinking skills and be able to analyze, synthesize, innovate, and thus readily deal with real-world problems.”1 In 2019-2020, our kindergarten students embarked on an in-depth study of home and homelessness. But we got to this by an interesting path.

After reading “Fly Away Home” by Eve Bunting, we decided to focus our social studies curriculum on studying birds. Our research about birds led us down many paths including scientifically drawing birds through the process of peer critique and multiple drafts, creating 3-dimensional models of birds, learning about birds through science class, and writing creative stories about birds.

Arguably one of the most rewarding ways we learned about birds was when our class used design thinking as a way to create homes for birds. In small groups,

students went through the design thinking process of empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and implement. Design thinking connects to several important academic and social emotional skills that children learn and hone in on in kindergarten, including empathy, curiosity and collaboration.2 I also believe that for our youngest learners, design thinking gives them a hands-on experience using the information they have been learning about it in class.

As we were learning about birds, final construction of our new elementary school building and playground was taking place.

We learned that as part of this, there would be a few trees that would have to be cut down on campus. This brought on many conversations about what we could do to help the birds that lived in those trees who would then become homeless.

Our students have a natural sense of empathy, which can be a powerful motivating force. This empathy was the jumping off point for our design thinking

Using design thinking with some of our youngest students proves to be successful and valuable, and, in addition to building a great and authentic curiosity about a topic, helps them develop some very important social-emotional skills.

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exploration to create houses for birds. In the design thinking process, empathy is a starting point and centerpiece, and is vital throughout the process.3 • What birds may have lived in those trees?

• What do those birds like for a home?

• What would attract the birds back to the area?

These were some of the initial questions our students asked. These initial discussions also helped provide an authentic need to design birdhouses. It is important to have authentic and intriguing needs, opportunities that really resonate with the students when they undergo a design thinking project as this helps build motivation and leads them to dig deep to find creative solutions. Because there is an emotional connection to the task in front of them, students are more willing to be and stay engaged in the face of challenge.

Before we went further, though, we had to decide which birds we would design for.

After researching various local birds, our class chose to design for cardinals, blue jays, purple martins, and white-breasted nuthatches. At this point we formed four groups and each group would design for a different bird.

The first step of our design thinking process was empathize, which included learning about the bird for which they would be designing. Our research included a field trip to the Audubon Naturalist Society, a visit from bird expert Ms. K (a student’s grandmother), and both online and book research in the classroom based on questions developed by the students.

Building robust background knowledge is an important early step in any projectbased learning, so it is important to build this in before students begin working more independently on their own projects.

Next was the define step, in which children defined the needs of their birds based on their research. Students had been exploring lots of different ideas by this point, so providing them with a structured define step really helped them focus their thoughts. The definitions our students came up with were: Cardinal: We should make a shelf 8 by 8 inches with three walls and decorate it black with moss and twigs.

Purple Martin: We need to make a bird home that is a white apartment. Each apartment is 7.5 by 7 inches. Each apartment hole is two inches in diameter. We need six apartments. Each apartment needs a porch. The birdhouse should be up high.

White-Breasted Nuthatch: We should make a rectangle birdhouse 12.5 inches high by 6 inches wide by 8.5 inches deep.

The hole should be 1.25 inches. It can be yellow, brown, or green and decorated with wood chips or leaves.

Blue Jay: Blue Jays need a platform 8 inches by 8 inches with a pointy roof and 3 walls. It should be decorated with moss and wood. They do not need a hole.

In the third step of our process, ideate, children brainstormed many different ideas and ways to solve the problem based on their definitions and research. It was important during this step that every idea held equal value and no idea was bad or pushed away. Because the students had just created focused definitions in the previous step, they were better able to ideate because they had some concrete constraints to work with. These concrete constraints often served as jumping off points for their creativity.

After ideate came the prototype step, during which children worked collaboratively to construct prototypes of birdhouses from recycled materials. For our project there were two different rounds of prototypes created. The initial prototype was made out of cardstock, paper, and recycled plastic materials. This allowed for quick prototyping — students could

visualize their ideas, which helped them develop their thinking.

After analyzing these prototypes and figuring out adjustments that needed to be made, students made a second prototype out of cardboard. This prototype was then used as a true model of the actual birdhouses that were built. This final step in our process was what we called implement. Here the students’ prototypes were transferred into wood. After all of the wood was cut for the birdhouses, students used a variety of tools to assemble the birdhouses.

Throughout the design thinking process kindergarten students had full ownership of their work. The students felt that their designs, even though they look like typical birdhouses, were completely their own. During the process and beyond, students collaborated, showed empathy, and continued to ask questions about birds and talk about the needs of birds even after the project was completed. I believe that using design thinking with some of our youngest students proves to be successful and valuable, and, in addition to building a great and authentic curiosity about a topic, helps them develop some very important social-emotional skills.

Vas Pournaras (vpournaras@saes.org; @ pournava) teaches Kindergarten at St. Andrew’s.

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On Pilgrimage in the Classroom AMY SAPENOFF

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eaching is like a pilgrimage – each term has its own destination and travel companions in students and colleagues. In the summer of 2018, my colleague Chantal Cassan-Moudoud and I were presented with the opportunity to complete an actual pilgrimage through St. Andrew’s Summer Grants Program.

Our journey was to Santiago de Compostela, located in the northeast corner of Spain.

The Camino de Santiago, or the Way of St. James, began in the Middle Ages. Tradition tells us that the Apostle James was sent to evangelize the Iberian Peninsula and was later buried in Compostela after being martyred in the Holy Land. Eventually, a cathedral was built over his tomb, becoming a holy site for pilgrims.

Today, the Camino is still travelled by thousands of pilgrims each year. While most people no longer walk with religious intentions, the miles convey a deep sense of community and shared life among all those walking. It is common to strike up conversations with those that you meet, to share a coffee after the early morning hours departures, or to chat throughout the evenings in the pilgrims’ hostels.

Our two-month expedition consisted of waking up at 5 a.m. and walking somewhere between 15-25 miles. From our starting point in Cahors, France, Chantal and I would walk a total of 700 miles. As the path continued to lead us east, it became a time of tremendous introspection and prayer for me, the kind of thinking

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that can only be sustained in silence and with the simplicity of one who carries all their possessions on their back. Many of the judgments I arrived at over the course of that summer not only answered my personal questions, but also revealed a new path to follow in my teaching.

The experience of the Camino was one of grit, first in the most obvious sense, as something that begged for tenacity and determination to complete. However, it also became an experience of grit as conceived of in the research of Angela Duckworth, a psychologist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author

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of the book “Grit: the Power of Passion and Perseverance.” On her website, she defines grit as “the tendency to sustain interest and effort toward very long-term goals.”1 In the second part of her book, Duckworth describes ways in which to cultivate “grit from the inside out” including two key elements: interest and purpose.

Interest, as Duckworth draws out, is an essential part of grit. It is hard to persevere when one is apathetic about the task at hand. However, she also explains that interest is not simply created in an individual, “through introspection. Instead, interests are triggered by interactions with the outside world. The process of interest discovery can by messy, serendipitous, and inefficient. This is because you can’t really predict with certainty what will capture your attention and what won’t.”2 Interest in something is not invented but revealed, often as one explores.

My desire to keep on walking (rather than taking a bus or taxi) was not only about reaching Santiago, my known and stated goal. My desire was also linked to an openness to reality that was being generated in me. The miles that were most significant were not the miles that I walked the fastest or most effectively used my walking poles. The miles became precious when I was attentive and open to receive whatever came my way, when I allowed myself to be surprised and captivated by a beautiful view or the joy of an unexpected walking companion. The miles that carried the

most meaning were precisely those that could not be reduced to my own effort.

This is a conviction that I have tried to share with my students. Teaching always implies negotiating with disinterested students who are confident that they could never be struck by studying the French Revolution or westward expansion. It requires a shift in mindset to move through the school year with the conviction that each class period offers the possibility to discover something new. The joy of discovery provides a catalyst for renewed vigor in inquiry, thinking, and reflection and introduces curiosity and wonder as essential pedagogical starting points.

The second key element in cultivating grit is purpose. Duckworth explains that “human beings have evolved to seek meaning and purpose,”3 describing how “gritty people see their ultimate aims as deeply connected to the world beyond themselves.”4 One is motivated to work hard when they see a job or responsibility elevated to a calling in life. This importance of purpose and relevance as a driving force is a common theme in theories of motivation, such as self determination theory5 and expectancy value theory.6 My Camino was not merely a hike across Europe. Rather, my walking coincided with knowing that my intentions and questions were being taken up by the great history of many hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who had walked this same path throughout the centuries, ultimately to be

entrusted to St. James in Santiago de Compostela to bring to the Lord. This sense of belonging to a community greater than myself was a valuable companion on my journey. Grit does not mean that you have all the competencies from the beginning but that you are willing to fail and grow in pursuance of a goal. To be converted. Grit is interwoven with a growth mindset and a sense of belonging and purpose.

It is for this reason that I do not shy away from introducing ultimate ends into my teaching practice. My students often complete journal activities that ask them to ponder the nature of justice and freedom by considering how these ideals have been either exalted or manipulated in different eras. Much of history can be viewed through the lens of a dialectic or a will to power, but is this what the heart longs for?

Students are willing to work hard — hard enough that it begs for tenacity and determination, for grit, to complete — to seek the answer to a question that helps them to make sense of their own life and desire.

Arriving in Santiago and completing the Camino illuminated a paradox of grit.

Grit is more than buckling down and trying harder. It also implies responding to what is given and allowing oneself to be changed as you move towards a greater horizon. And now, that’s a journey I am taking with my students every year.

Amy Sapenoff (asapenoff@saes.org) teaches Upper School History at St. Andrew’s.

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Mind, Brain, and Whole-Child Coaching DR. SHEILA OHLSSON WALKER

Editor’s Note: In the fall of 2019, the CTTL, in collaboration with individual faculty from Tufts University’s Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development and Johns Hopkins University’s School of Education, co-hosted the first Mind, Brain, and Whole-Child Coaching convening.

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f there was one “magic pill” we could take to optimize life-long brain function, mental and physical health, and quality of life, the major “active ingredient” would be regular exercise.

Biopsychosocial research shows that physically active youth, on average, have stronger academic outcomes, better mental and physical health, lower incidences of obesity and high-risk behavior, and are more likely to go to college.1,2,3 Beneficial effects are further strengthened by the availability of natural green space.4 Despite this broad and time-tested body of research, attrition from youth sport accelerates strongly in the teenage years, primarily due to a lack of engagement. According to the National Alliance for Youth Sports, about “70% of young athletes quit organized sports by the age of 13.” Moreover, participation rates are lower for girls than boys, and attrition rates are higher,5,6 perhaps partially stemming from the fact that women comprise less than one-quarter of all coaches in youth sport.7 Clearly equity and access are significant contributors to both participation and attrition for our disadvantaged youth,8 a topic we aim to address more fully in the future. For the present moment, considering both the economic and quality of life cost in unfulfilled human potential, our primary focus is on engagement. Which begs the question: how can we foster youth engagement in sport early in life in a way that’s fun,9 during neurobiological “sensitive periods” that

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make behavior the most likely to stick for life?10,11 It all begins with informed, intentional, and thoughtful development of coachathlete relationships. Research shows that having one safe, trusted, supportive relationship with an adult can make the difference between a child sinking, surviving, or thriving, particularly for children who have experienced discrimination, trauma, or early-life adversity.12,13 Strong relationships are a core feature of well-run youth programs of all types, and substantial evidence demonstrates a positive impact on social-emotional skills, intentional self-regulation, resilience, sense of purpose, greater contribution to community, and development of other important life assets.14,15 Human beings operate in relational dynamic systems, with quantum- and biologic-level energy infusing our brains and bodies in a way that, through social relationships, can either degrade or promote cognition, mood, and health.16,17 Nonetheless, despite the important role of coaches in whole child development, between 10 and 30% receive any formal training, with little to no education on how children grow, develop and learn.18,19 Science tells us that nurture shapes nature through the process of epigenetics, a biopsychosocial phenomenon that continues to highlight the context-dependent, malleable nature of human biology.20 Given the power of environmental context to influence how our DNA is read and

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expressed, and the pivotal significance of key adults in youth development, it follows that strengthening coach-athlete relationships, the central link to youth engagement, is the essential starting point.

Enhancing skills, mindsets, and tools will bolster the opportunity to more effectively confer myriad benefits we know sport can offer – benefits that pay dividends throughout life.

For pragmatic inspiration, we turn to the science of learning and development to make a case for leveraging the success of Mind, Brain, and Education Science into the field of athletics. Educators, from early childhood to higher education, public, private, charter, and international schools, have increasingly harnessed

To examine this question, let’s start with an overview of where sport participation takes place. Athletics is offered during the school day, though in ever-decreasing amounts throughout our country – a trend which must be reversed given physical activity’s integral role in healthy life course development. This begs a redefinition of the role of the Athletic Director in school settings, with an intentional focus on cross-department collaboration to bolster the social emotional, academic, health and other student outcomes that are endemic to sport participation.

Youth athletes often spend more time with their coach-educators than with their classroom teachers. This interaction occurs in sport-specific contexts, full of emotional

athlete, will spend no less than 20 hours a week (1200 minutes) participating in various school sports, “studying” for the future.

This six-fold increase in time is rich with opportunity to impact the athletic experience, hence the broader lives of developing student-athletes.

After the school day ends, athletics is the overwhelming out of school time (OST) activity, engaging a broad and diverse group of youth.21 Moreover, fields, courts, and gymnasiums are places where phones must remain on the sidelines, making sport a major ally in the ongoing battle to reduce excessive screen time. Indeed, under most ecological conditions, athletics is linked to indicators of positive youth development.22 Sports reach a majority

bio-social research findings to inform teaching and learning in both formal and informal educational settings. What if this same research were to be applied to the professional development of more than 6.5 million youth, high school, college, elite, Olympic, and professional level coaches in the United States, who are responsible for shaping our tens of millions of developing athletes?

highs and lows, and rich with “teachable moments” to absorb and integrate core life skills such as resilience, perseverance, teamwork and leadership. As an example, a high school history student at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School, home of the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning, spends 200 minutes a week studying the past. The same student, as a varsity or junior varsity interscholastic

of youth both during and after school, in sans-technology settings, positioning them for growth through human interaction, physical activity and positive brain chemistry.

Excellent coaches, like teachers, educate, inspire, and shape their athletes by virtue of a strong, safe, and trusted relational bond that crosses emotional, physical, and intellectual domains. At their

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best, “coach-educators” leverage a mixture of art and science to help their studentathletes thrive. However, they often cannot articulate their methods, which emerge organically from an integration of past experience both on and off the field or court.

We hypothesize that by tapping into this established knowledge base and fortifying it with basic principles of the learning sciences, a great opportunity exists to elevate the practice of coaching.

All athletes deserve a coach-educator who understands how the mind learns, a process that can only be described as nonlinear based on what we know from the learning sciences.23 Rather than a one-directional neurocognitive ladder which serves as a base to scaffold new information, the reality of learning is more accurately portrayed by a highly variable and jagged “constructive developmental web” in which mastery of complex skills takes place in a manner uniquely suited to the individual.24 A broad body of biopsychosocial research is

environments such as training sessions or mid-competition.25 How do individual athletes receive information in these contexts? What is said by the coach, versus what is heard by the athlete? Would it be helpful for coaches to understand that there are major differences in an individual’s “biological sensitivity to context”, a concept embodied in the analogy of “dandelion” (hardy and highly resilient) and “orchid” children (who thrive in idyllic conditions, though can wilt when stress becomes overwhelming)?26,27 Built-in human variability holds important implications for coach-athlete communication patterns and relationships. The bottom line – while some level of stress is appropriate in sport contexts, as it fuels attention and performance, there are important individual differences in how it is processed and internalized.

Importantly, chronic or punitively imposed stress, such as a coach yelling in frustration at an athlete, works in direct opposition to the ultimate goal: engagement.

Imagine if coaches had a more holistic understanding of their athletes, inside and out – like a basic instruction manual. If they held basic knowledge about how the three major neural networks, the Executive Control Network, the Default Mode Network and the Salience Network, collaborate in the brain, how might this influence how practices or pre-game gatherings are structured? already informing classroom-based strategies to refine instruction based on these principles. Leveraging and advancing this body of work to reconceptualize practice design and communication techniques could provide coaches with tools to enhance sport-related attention and memory, foster positive mindsets, and play a critical role in optimizing the biological “raw materials” of their athletes both on and off the field.

Like students in the classroom, every student-athlete brings their own unique mind to each practice, game, meet, match, or competition. This uniqueness confers variability in how athletes receive, filter, and apply physical, technical, tactical, and psychological information related to their sport. Although biosocial science clearly shows that multi-model learning is far and away the most effective way to teach new information, the predominant method of coaching continues to be by oral communication, often in highly stressful

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Imagine if coaches had a more holistic understanding of the young person on their field, inside and out – akin to a basic human operating manual. If they held introductory level knowledge about how the three major neural networks, the Executive Control Network (attention to the outside world), the Default Mode Network (internally directed attention) and the Salience Network (the on-off switch between the two), and how they collaborate in the brain.28 Might this influence how practices or preand post-game gatherings are structured and conducted? Imagine, too, if coaches had insight into how the amygdala (the brain’s “emotional smoke detector”) and hippocampus (a key brain center for learning and memory) might operate in highpressure sport contexts.29 Might coaches be more effective in their roles if they were aware of a phenomenon Dr. Mariale Hardiman from the Johns Hopkins University School of Education calls “downshifting”, a

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term for how a teacher can derail learning and growth simply by the manner and tone in which information is delivered? Because of the way in which the brain is wired and develops over time, information from the outside world first passes through emotional filters. This results in a subjective, personalized interpretation of the message – both for better, and for worse.30 The science of “downshifting” extends further into the arenas of physical and emotional safety between coaches and athletes. As we have seen in incidences of abuse, these brief moments in time for an adult can live on for a lifetime in a young athlete, negatively reorienting otherwise healthy life trajectories. While stress in the proper dose is a necessary and important part of healthy development, chronic stress is another story. Importantly – what’s real in the mind is real in the body – and the biochemical “marinate” of hormonal stress molecules, in high and persistent dosages without buffering from positive sources, can have a similar effect to neurotoxins.31,32 Ramifications of trauma can include reshaping of the structure and function of key brain areas and networks important for learning and life. Chronic stress can also wreak havoc, through primary inflammatory pathways, on the gut microbiome, immunity, and health.33,34 Moreover, because we humans are social animals, and both joy and stress are contagious at a biochemical level, the relational dynamic systems within which youth operate – families, schools, and communities – can also pay a heavy price.35,36,37 Fortunately, the science of “upshifting” is equally as powerful. Research shows that physical activity can be as effective as medication in supporting mental wellness.38,39 Engagement in team (e.g. basketball, soccer or football) or individual sports (e.g. tennis, bicycling or gymnastics) are good examples of such buffers, and are

particularly powerful in decreasing anxiety and depression for youth who have suffered from adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).40 When sport-related experiences also offer positive, sustained relationships with an engaged, competent, and caring adult (e.g. coach-educator), the upside is immense.

In this context, and when youth can absorb important life skills as well as have opportunities to enact these skills in valued family, school, or community settings, this cohort of factors has been called “The Big Three” in the relational strengths-based approach embodied by the field of Positive Youth Development (PYD).41 It is important to note that emotional and physical safety as well as trust must be present for this recipe to work, highlighting the vital importance of sound accreditation and certification standards for our youth athletic coaches.

The PYD Big Three, when present, undergird the many lifelong assets that can develop through positive experience with sport. They foster the development of what Rich Lerner at Tufts’ Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development calls “The 5 C’s”: Competence, Confidence, Character, Connection, and Caring. An intentional focus on building these attributes in youth can serve to foster a 6th C – Community, which promotes both mental and physical health over the lifespan by elevating human connection and sense of purpose outside oneself, hence buffering isolation. Turning to physical health, coaches who understand the repercussions of early over-specialization in sport, and the long-term vulnerability conferred by early life head injury can take concrete steps to develop sport contexts that provide their athletes with safe spaces and places to play and train.42,43,44 At a societal level, coaches have an important role to play in reducing obesity, which is the #1 risk factor for chronic disease in the US, for which physical activity is the #1 solution. From a public health frame, 90% of our nation’s $3.5 trillion annual healthcare expenditure (17.9% of 2018 GDP) goes towards individuals with chronic and mental health issues.45,46 As related to our youth-sport focused work, the critical element to bear in mind is that chronic disease and mental health issues are largely modifiable and even preventable with early detection and intervention.47,48 While we are never too old to make lifestyle changes that promote health, the developmental periods of childhood and youth are exponentially more powerful.

Collectively, the biological sciences tell an optimistic story of how human

potential can flourish when the context is safe, healthy, stimulating, and well-suited to the individual. Because our DNA is neither fixed nor deterministic, and instead adapts and develops based on context, human malleability – particularly that of youth – is our ally in shaping meaningful attributes in a way that can have a broad and multi-generational impact on lives and communities. By way of example, children of physically active parents are likelier to be active themselves, enhancing the odds of healthy virtuous cycles.49 Long-term behavior change requires culture change, and as the saying goes, you can’t change what you can’t measure.

While new measures and metrics are being developed for the learning sciences, the same thesis applies to the field of whole child coaching. This underscores the need for asset-based metrics that are sensitive to change over time, and offer both relevant and practical information at the level of the individual.

We have already seen what elevating a classroom teacher or school leader’s understanding of the Science of Learning can do to enhance both individual and group mindset, collective efficacy, knowledge, research-to-classroom translation and implementation skills. We’ve also seen that educators in both classroom and sport contexts hold tremendous power to shape young lives when the recipe includes the right ingredients. These include physical activity, adequate sleep, nutrition, mindfulness/meditation practices, mental health support as needed, and the key ingredient – safe, trusted, supportive relationships.

Taken as a whole, this is the blueribbon-winning recipe for upshifting, and the way in which coaches can help diverse youth not only beat the odds, but change the odds. In closing, by purposefully and strategically integrating the fields of youth sport, education, and public health, a tremendous opportunity exists. Elevating the profession of coaching by developing a research-informed and data-driven approach to bolstering athlete engagement, one which reduces attrition, promotes health, advances equity, cultivates athletic excellence and global citizenship – all grounded in the science of how each unique brain develops, learns, adapts, and thrives – is our call to action Dr. Sheila Ohlsson Walker is a Senior Scientist at the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development, Tufts University & Assistant Visiting Professor, Johns Hopkins School of Education, and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Pediatrrics at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences/Children’s National Hospital.

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Context Matters ANNE-MICHELLE ENGELSTAD ’12

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simple statement, “context matters,” and yet, sitting in one of my first classes as a Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) student at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, it was a wake-up call.

Dr. Todd Rose, director of the MBE program, was discussing the importance of accounting for context when researching systems as complex as child development and learning.1 Research that takes place in the lab, even when utilizing a combination of methods, he argued, may not yield data that translate to the classroom at all when you consider the unique and abundant neurological demands that the classroom context presents. It was the first clue in answering one of the key questions I had come to Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) to explore.

My journey to HGSE had been rather linear. I knew from a young age that I wanted to teach, and thanks to a literature class at St. Andrew’s that assigned Mark Hadon’s “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,”2 I became very interested in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). A senior paper investigating the etiology of ASD and a stint in an autism support classroom for my senior project affirmed my desire to study development in children with ASD. I set my sights on Vanderbilt University’s acclaimed special education program, which gave me the chance, beginning in my freshman year, to spend ample time in classrooms around Nashville. Through a second major in child cognitive studies, I learned about early developmental constructs and the varying trajectories children follow. Instructors supplemented this with neuroscience research pointing to the underlying systems involved, and patterns of activation and connectivity that could be seen across development, due to emerging

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neuroimaging tools. The power of these tools to act as a window into the minds of children with complex learning needs excited me, and I dove in. I spent the next two years in labs that utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate learning differences in children with conditions such as specific language impairment, anxiety, and neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1).

Researchers often set out to add something novel to existing literature rather than build on established neuroscience principles to develop usable strategies. I had to shift the way I framed my own research questions.

I learned a great deal about research procedure and methods in these labs.

The results coming out of this research intrigued me as a special educator and gave me a deeper understanding of the profiles of students. I felt the more I understood about students’ brains, the better I could tailor my teaching to their learning patterns.

However, the connection was not clear to teachers I was working with. When I told a mentor teacher that I wanted to add a neuroscience minor, she asked me “why?” For that teacher, neuroscience and education was too far of a leap. Another teacher felt that a neuroscience implication for teaching was faddish. “Wait five years,” she told

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me, “the pendulum will swing again and you’ll be hearing about the next thing.” My next step, then, was to investigate this gap between research and practice. How do we get this research to teachers in a way they feel is both usable and beneficial? Secondly, how do we ensure that the research we use to inform teaching is sound and established, employed with fidelity?

So, sitting in that first class with Todd, I had a revelation as to why those teachers didn’t jump at findings from fMRI research.

Not only were those data not usable to teachers in their existing form, but brain activation patterns that occur when a child completes a learning task in the isolation of a magnetic tunnel tells us very little about the neurological response that child would have if presented with the same learning task in a classroom setting. Factors relating to motivation, sensory integration, attention systems — the list continues — would not only change the child’s performance on the task, but also alter the very neurological response we aim to measure. Context matters.

I spent my remaining time at HGSE trying to find a sweet spot on the bridge between research and practice. It was an uncomfortable place to be where the journey was no longer linear. In the fall, I synthe-

sized research findings from mouse models3 and neuroanatomical imaging studies in an effort to identify research-informed strategies to improve observational learning4 in students with Down Syndrome. While I came up short of unveiling any practices novel to existing educational literature, my work did corroborate existing research. In the spring, I worked with teachers in a local fully-inclusive elementary school to roll out secondary and tertiary tiers of a positive behavior support system, an established research-based practice with demonstrated efficacy,5 yet felt distanced from the active research I had been involved with before.

Researchers often set out to add something novel to existing literature rather than build on established neuroscience principles to develop usable strategies. I had to shift the way I framed my own research questions. Instead of starting with an area of interest and wondering what mysteries in-vivo technology could unveil to us, I began with specific questions that I had in the field, then consulted the literature to find what findings, if any, seemed translatable for practice. Could the research be replicated in the classroom context? What would that look like? Would those findings be readily usable for teachers?

Since HGSE, I have found a sweet-spot that does sit between academic research and classroom practice. I have been working on a study6 funded by the Institute of Education Sciences investigating the efficacy of Dr. Rebecca Landa’s Early Achievements model7 in public preschool classrooms. The Early Achievements model is grounded in neuroscience theorem8 and has undergone iterations to prepare for translation into the public preschool context. As a coach on the project, I’m able to help teachers implement research-informed strategies that increase communication and social behaviors in students with ASD, signifying shifts in underlying systems to more closely mirror typical development. I am helping make research-informed strategies work in the contexts of real classrooms.

As I learned in my first weeks at HGSE, “context matters.”

Anne-Michelle Engelstad ‘12 attended Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College following her graduation from St. Andrew’s before pursuing graduate work in Mind, Brain, and Education at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. AnneMichelle currently works as a research coordinator at the Kennedy Krieger Institute’s Center for Autism and Related Disorders.

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A Parent’s Mind, Brain, and Education Science Journey PRISCILLA ANG

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y first brush with Mind, Brain, and Education Science was two weeks before my Cambridge A-Levels examination in the early 1990s. I had unwrapped my Biology textbook for the first time and was having a mind-shock moment realizing the amount of material I had to memorize on brain anatomy.

I blame this predicament on my release from an all-girls middle school to a co-ed high school; my sensory memory was overloaded with walking males of the species which promptly hijacked my ability to executive function.

Fast forward to some decades later: my amygdala is screaming bloody murder.

I am facing Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) all over again. My children attend St. Andrew’s, a school that infuses research-informed MBE strategies into its learning environment, curriculum design, pedagogy, assessment, student success, and well-being.

What is MBE? By definition, Mind, Brain, and Education is an intersection of neuroscience, behavioural psychology, and education theory. Just writing that is so massively daunting. What exactly do all those components mean? How can a parent like me use these evidence-based practices and know just enough to help me do my job as a parent better?

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The Bridge Between Educators and Parents I found my answer in a book called “The Self-Driven Child” by Dr William Stixrud and Ned Johnson.1 While the school uses MBE in an educational setting, the authors of “The Self-Driven Child” explain the same MBE concepts in the context of motivation, fighting about homework, and being a non-anxious parent. This gives me the belief that there is a common block of research data that can be used as an interchangeable vocabulary between parents and educators. This is extremely powerful as a large part of our child’s growing years involve education.

To be optimal partners with educators in raising our children, shared knowledge is desirable.

The Bridge Between All Your Kids I am all for a universal cure and efficiency. So I looked at my brood and concluded that the only common denominator amongst them is the fact that they have a brain. Amidst their differing personalities, gender, age and developmental stages, I figured that if I can work out what goes on in their heads, I have a better chance at success.

For example, take the concept of executive functioning skills, i.e. the ability to devise an appropriate plan, execute it, selfmonitor while doing so, make adjustments as necessary, and determine a satisfactory endpoint. MBE informs us that the part

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of the brain that controls this skill is only fully developed around 25-years-old. It also tells us that the more you use a part of the brain, the better you get at it.

As a parent, we know that helping to grow executive function for all our kids is essential. It is not an excuse that they aren’t biologically unable to plan and complete a task, and thus we will sweep in to do it for them. Instead, I identify where they are in their current ability and help them where they need it. So for my youngest who is 8, he gets a chance to practice by coming up with a daily to-do list. For the older children, I leave them to plan and organize on their own, but be checking and suggesting better ways to get their tasks done. And when I see a 2-monthaged piece of moldy bread at the bottom of their bag, I cut them some slack and blame it on their under-developed brain.

My Two Biggest MBE Applications as a Parent 1. Parent as a Consultant: Child development experts, such as Madeline Levine2 and Laurence Steinberg,3 provide evidence that “Authoritative Parenting” produces the best outcomes.4 It entails being supportive, but not controlling. The key is to give the kids all the resources they need to make an informed decision, and then allow

them to learn from their own experiences.

Based on this parenting concept, Stixrud and Johnson, authors of “The Self-Driven Child,” urge parents to act as consultants, instead of enforcers. Consultants provide support yet recognize that it is the client’s responsibility. Whose problem is it? In this case, it is the child’s.

So I learned that it is healthy to take a hands-off attitude and let my children struggle, but make sure to let them know that I am there for them when needed.

This point is also outlined in the book “Neuroteach”5 which talks about finding the “Zone of Proximal Discomfort” for each individual learner.

2. The Power of Yet: Stanford University professor, Carol Dweck, explains that having a growth mindset as opposed to a fixed mindset will influence a student’s academic achievement, and his/her ability to think and work at the highest level in a resilient manner.6 Glenn Whitman and Dr. Ian Kelleher, the authors of “Neuroteach,” went a step further to explain that to cultivate a growth mindset for our children, it is not replacing the words, “Good job!” with “Good effort!” When one is running on a hamster wheel with no strategy and help to get off it, effort doesn’t help.

They write that “having a growth mindset also requires the development of clearly-

defined strategies for improvement and the enlistment of support, advice, and guidance from others.” In short, you cannot have a growth mindset without a challenge.

If they have no insight or plans on how to improve, trying their best won’t be enough. I need to help them brainstorm, apply, test, and tweak strategies in their learning process. And in the midst of this all, I remind them that they sometimes just can’t do it yet. Dweck’s research is often over-simplified to “have a you can do it! attitude.” People miss the most important piece of her work, that quality of effort and using good strategies are vital.

I did well enough on my A-levels biology examinations to get into college with my spot-the-questions strategy. But as MBE will tell you, I learned and retained nothing from those two weeks of cramming.

But hey – at least high school was fun and if I had to do it all over again, I now have the research-informed strategies to make it stick longer.

Priscilla Ang has three children currently attending St. Andrew’s and has experienced the impact the CTTL has on the school’s committment to research-informed teaching and learning from Kindergarten through Grade 10.

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Training Optimization Using Neuromotor Thresholds RYAN MARKLEWITZ

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ou’re browsing your Instagram feed when suddenly there it is. A drill so innovative that you just have to try with your team. A series of complex exercises strung together that will give your athletes an edge. The best in the world do it, so it must be good.

You likely have an athlete or two thinking the same thing.

We are in an age of information oversaturation in the world of athletics. Social media like Instagram have become an endless fount of knowledge. Everyone from professional athletes to fitness gurus seems to share glimpses into their training.

What’s dangerous about this unabashed sharing of knowledge is that it

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usually comes without context. You have no idea what series of skills that athlete needed to master before that drill became effective. You have no idea how many years of training it took that fitness expert to need that level of complexity.

So how do you determine which skills are appropriate for your athletes? Without knowledge of your athletes’ cognitive development coupled with their training ages, this is quite a difficult task. Much of this involves coaches’ intuition. However, in the competitive atmosphere of athletics, we want to be grounded in tangible measures of our athletes’ progress.

That’s where neuromotor thresholds come in.

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What is a Neuromotor Threshold?

A neuromotor threshold is a benchmark skill based not only in physical age, but also in cognitive and training age of the athlete. Training age is the sum of an individual’s prior experience performing a specific set of tasks. Cognitive age is the sum of an individual’s ability to execute varying mental tasks of differing complexity.1-5 Just as a toddler must pass certain neuromotor thresholds before they can learn to walk, so too must an athlete progress through a series of similar thresholds before they can correctly and safely execute specific skills.6-8 This means that certain skills require more cognitive and neuromuscular ability than others. Therefore, athletes must acquire a hierarchy of skills before others become appropriate and effective.1,9 Establishing Thresholds When it comes to determining neuromotor thresholds, it helps to view them hierarchically (see the chart to the right).

Level I Thresholds encompass postural skills. As an analogy, imagine the difference between throwing a limp pool noodle versus a metal rod. A rigid platform is necessary for power, speed, precision, and accuracy. Sound posture, balance, and stability are required for almost every athletic movement. These skills require the athlete to solely focus on maintaining their position in space.

Once athletes consistently demonstrate skills at the Level I Threshold, they can progress towards Level II where they move themselves or objects in a straight line. The postural foundation established in Level I is necessary to run, jump, throw, catch, swim, pull, and push in a linear plane.

From here, athletes then move into the Level III Threshold. Athletes at this stage can translate the linear skills they established in Level II into multiple planes, changing direction or moving limbs in more complex ways to achieve more nuanced movement patterns. Notice that we establish competence in a linear plane (Level II Threshold) before we progress athletes to training in multiple planes (Level III).

NEUROMOTOR THRESHOLDS FOR SPECIFIC MOVEMENT PATTERNS

LEVEL 3 Multiplanar Skills

LEVEL 2 Linear Skills

LEVEL 1 Postural Skills

Movement Pattern A

in selecting appropriate drills for each threshold level but also in judging when an athlete has met a particular threshold and are ready to advance.

When selecting drills, ask the following questions to ensure they are appropriate: • Does this drill specifically address the skill I want to teach?

• Does this drill make sense given an athlete’s current neuromotor ability?

• Does this drill require skills the athlete has not acquired in order to execute properly?

Keep in mind that athletes don’t all pass through neuromotor thresholds at the same speed. We may find that some athletes need more time wrestling with a Level II skill before moving on to Level III, but others may be ready to progress rather quickly.1,2,5,7,8 This requires us to get creative and differentiate our instruction to support each athlete’s unique progression.

Progressing Through Thresholds

Longevity of the Athlete

There are multiple sub-thresholds within each of these larger categories that you must establish to meaningfully progress an athlete from Level I to Level III. This is where drills fit in, as they allow athletes to learn new skills and progress through thresholds. The training and skill of the coach is a critical factor, not only

While having a more robust training plan is certainly a benefit of establishing thresholds, there are other long-term impacts for your athletes. One of the most significant is reducing the risk of severe injury.

While minor injuries naturally occur, the responsibility for season-altering injuries lies solely on the coach. Accelerating an ath-

Movement Pattern B

Movement Pattern C

lete’s training too quickly will overload an athlete’s neuromuscular system ultimately impairing their ability to move functionally and increase the risk for injury.10-12 Therefore, it is essential to establish specific thresholds that indicate athletes are physically and mentally ready for more complex skills. Athletes will have the space required to not only correctly execute skills critical to their athletic performance, but also to determine the purpose they serve in the overall context of the sport.

Last Word The next time you scroll past that cutting-edge drill on Instagram, resist the urge to immediately include it in your own coaching tollkit. Remember your athletes.

Use neuromotor thresholds to determine whether that drill is developmentally appropriate in terms of both cognitive and training ages. Modify to meet the individual needs of each athlete. While the front-end work can be more extensive, the long-term benefits are paramount to the overall safety and performance of your athletes. That is significantly more noteworthy than a popular fitness post.

Ryan Marklewitz (rmarklewitz@saes.org) teaches Science and coaches cross country, track and field and swimming at St. Andrew’s.

He is also Head Coach at Element Performance in Potomac, Md.

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Student Manifestos DALE KYNOCH

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s always, I look forward to fresh faces each September — particularly as the transition to third grade is always a special one at St. Andrew’s. In the past, the second graders transitioned from one campus that housed the youngest students at St. Andrew’s, and moved to the “big campus” in the fall.

Now that we have expanded to become a one-campus school, third grade marks a transition from the first floor of our lovely new Lower School building, shared by our Preschool through second grade students, to the second floor which is the domain of the third through fifth graders. Looking at these apprehensive, curious, and innocent faces, I always wonder what their hopes and dreams for the new school year are, and

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what personality traits they will bring to the classroom that will make it a unique group of children.

St. Andrew’s is a school that focuses on Mind, Brain, and Education Science, so it is expected that faculty use current research to inform their teaching practice. It has a side benefit of making St. Andrew’s a really fun place to work. In third grade, we focus on growth mindset and student accountability as starting places as the students learn to define who they are as students, and what their personal responsibility is in their own learning.

Meanwhile, when the students enter the classroom, their parents do, too. I know, from years of experience, that the students have parents that practice parenting in

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equally unique ways, and this is a wonderful thing. I also know that each parent has their own hopes and dreams for their child’s learning. Ahh, the joyous dilemma of third grade — that transition from one floor to another is also a transition in independence and metacognition, and it is work for both the students and the parents. How to get these students to take control over the part of their learning that they are developmentally ready for, and to start to define their life as a student in a way that is meaningful to them? How to help parents support their child in this time where increasing selfknowledge and independence as a learner is developmentally appropriate?

On alternate Wednesday mornings we delve a bit deeper into growth mindset, based on work by Carol Dweck,1 and including materials created by Christina Winter.2 In this program, students learn all about their brains and why they are unique as children and as learners. Using videos and read-alouds, we do multiple lessons on mindset that challenge the students to think deeper about their own learning.

Students think about the distinction between growth and fixed mindset by learning about different parts of the brain and what they do, that their brains change over time, how to grow their brains, and why students need to be vulnerable in order to have a growth mindset. Students learn how “hard things” help them grow and develop perseverance; how frequent check-ins with teachers are useful and effective for reflecting on their work; and that knowing that concepts

like “grit” and “stamina” and “passion” are necessary to help them define who they are and what they stand for; and how the best way to grow a brain is through mistakes, and the power of “yet.” The students love this work and I hear them using the positive terms when talking about their work and the work of others... while in the classroom.

Outside of class, this positive self-talk often disappears. In the hallway I hear students say to each other, “Ugggg, it’s math time. I am really bad at math.” Or, “I wish I could do like does. I stink at it.”

This agrees with Dweck’s work, which says that growth mindset tends to be context dependent — I might have a growth mindset in this subject or at this time, but a fixed mindset in others. But Dweck also suggests that we can shift our mindset. So I wondered, what could I do to help the students consistently apply the growth mindset lessons to their everyday experience, not just on demand in the classroom? That’s where student manifestos came to mind.

After lessons on growth mindset, students create a visual representation of their thinking around growth mindset. After showing multiple examples, the students set to work on their iPads reflecting on their growth as a student. They use a soothing background, usually a picture, and then create “I am…” statements to place on their chosen background. They also search for meaningful quotes from some of their everyday heroes. Some write poems, often acrostic, to further define themselves. It takes weeks of reflection, going back and

adding to or tweaking their manifesto, before they create a final product for display.

As they do this work, students start to outline their unique strengths and accomplishments. They get in the habit of finding insights about themselves as learners as they go about their regular school day, and use this to update their manifesto. The results are as varied as they themselves are.

Once done, we post the manifestos in the hallway, in the classroom, and on the front of their binders. They share their work with their parents and each other.

They are proud, and should be, of their reflections. This project that started off about growth mindset has expanded into one that is also about metacognition, knowing about myself as a learner — and research suggests that metacognition is a very powerful research-informed strategy.

What’s next? Digging deeper, of course!

This year we will use some work of James Clear to further explore the meaning of habits and how to make the good ones stick.3 Can we add this to our investigation of, “who am I as a learner? What strategies work for me?” Who knows what the students will create.

As one of my colleagues once stated, “Teachers are lucky, we are the only profession that gets to reflect and recreate each summer and welcome a new class each fall.”

Always a new class of fresh faces and new opportunities.

Dale Kynoch (dkynoch@saes.org) teaches Third Grade at St. Andrew’s.

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Towards the Possible: The Creative Mindset CHARLES C. JAMES

There is something uniquely and essentially human in the endeavor to make things novel, new, and better. So why does creativity tend to diminish the older a student gets, and what is my role in teaching the language, practice, and potential of the creative mindset?

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reativity is the science and art of the possible. St. Andrew’s preschool through 12th grade design thinking program embraces the practices that allow students to think past experience and learn to discover beyond the known.

For years, researchers believed that the genius of creativity was reserved for a few special individuals like Marie Curie, Isaac Newton, Leonardo da Vinci, Charles Drew, or Vera Rubin. In fact, the opposite is true.

Creativity is natural, and everyone can increase their creative ability.1 It is non-creative behaviors that are often learned and reinforced in so many educational settings.

In the 1970s, Dr. George Land of the New York Academy of Sciences conducted a research study to test the creativity level of more than 1600 students across grade levels.2 He administered a test given by NASA to help select innovative thinkers and tested the students across their elementary, middle, and high school years. The results were revealing. Youngsters developed from creative creatures (98% tested in the creative range at the lower elementary levels) to cautious learners (12% tested in the creative range at the high school level).

“What we have concluded,” wrote Land, “is that non-creative behavior is learned.” But this does not have to be the case — every student retains the potential to be a creative individual, and making this so is part of my mission as a teacher and Director of the D!Lab program at St. Andrew’s.

Teaching creativity is not as much about

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the instruction of a single process as it is introducing a variety of approaches to learning that prevents the lithification of concepts, ideas, and facts into monolithic obstacles to fresh insights. Historically, some of the darkest days of humanity were those narrowed by years of rigid thought and little invention. At St Andrew’s, our goal is to teach expansive views of problem-solving practice that introduce a consciously creative reflex, a keen ability to question, and an openness to new ideas.

Where does creativity reside? From research, we are beginning to map the brain systems involved in creativity, and know that areas such as the prefrontal cortex and systems such as the default-mode network and executive control network are important.3,4 But beyond just the brain, we know that creativity is a culmination of our DNA, of our environment, our experiences, our culture, and our personality. The ability to develop novel approaches and ideas, the essence of creativity, is complicated, and rewiring our brain to be more creative is not simple. The constellation of skills and abilities that is creativity is easy to sense, but hard to describe and challenging to teach.

What we do know about creativity is enlightening. As with other cognitive abilities, our DNA and our environment both contribute to our creativity. Yes, some people do have a genetic predisposition to creativity, but there is enough brain plasticity that we can all be creative individuals. Environment means a lot more than just the physical

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space, it encompasses all our experiences, all the social, emotional, and physical interactions we have had. Exactly what environmental factors aid and shut down creativity is an area of ongoing research, but it seems that novel insight requires equally novel environments that support non-conventional thinking.5 For many students, school environments, in our broad definition of the word, may have a huge effect on their ability to be creative. In the absence of an environment designed to support creativity you diminish the power of creativity in the students’ toolbox of skills.

At school, developing intentional practice of the creative mindset is essential. There are many ways to do this, so let’s consider one well-researched path to build an aspect of the creative mind. Asking students to offer multiple new ideas to any open-ended prompt is a creative practice generally referred to as brainstorming or mind storming. Linus Pauling, a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry and peace, once said that “to have a good idea, you must first have lots of ideas.” Idea generation and brainstorming are among the most fundamental skills of creativity.6 Presentation of open-ended prompts across disciplines is easily incorporated into classroom instruction. Idea generation is even observable in scans of the human brain — our brains work differently when they are tasked with being creative. In a study by Fink et al.,7 participants were asked to generate alternative uses of objects while fMRI scans were being made. Differences were observed

in the activation of particular brain regions depending on whether participants were confronted with ideas of others (learned material) or generating novel ideas of their own (creativity). Yes, we need to teach core knowledge and skills, but we also need to teach for creativity too — and by doing so we create opportunities for students to use their recently acquired knowledge and skills in new contexts, which helps store it durably and usably in long term memory.

It is no wonder, then, that when creativity is part of the students’ toolbox of skills, immensely important ideas emerge. For example, each year, my Design, Engineering and Innovation class at St. Andrew’s learns and practices many forms of creativity in order to solve important societal issues like water supply, waste, energy, health, transportation, food security, and technology. The students decide on an important theme and then use their creativity, knowledge, and skill to design or redesign solutions to the problems. Here are just a few of the solutions the students designed: Food Security • Test strips for pregnant women that indicate the presence of biomarkers for listeri – a food-borne pathogen that can cause premature labor.

• Urban rooftop composting and gardening systems.

• Ocean kelp farms for livestock feed.

• Community greenhouses for winter

crops of greens and fresh vegetables.

• Refrigerator UV radiation to keep vegetables and fruits fresher for longer.

Waste Management • A redesigned lawn mower engine that reduces carbon dioxide emissions.

• A biodegradable straw made of corn leaves.

• Robotic micro-plastic shoreline filters for preventing the spread of microplastics.

• Advanced recycling systems for consumer electronics.

• Biodegradable pet waste bags and composting systems.

• Redesigned biodegradable six pack soda rings.

Land’s groundbreaking study2 suggests that while creativity originates in individuals, it is our school culture that embraces or denies creativity’s transformational power.

We know from the imaginative world of childhood that children are born inventive, but if school and life do not honor or require that we use our creative reflex, like a muscle, these skills become dulled and diminished.

And as they do, the narrative of new and novel ideas gets stripped from our vocabulary, from how we see ourselves as a person, and from the potential solutions to problems our world desperately needs to be solved.

Chuck James (cjames@saes.org; @SAESD!Lab) teaches Science at St. Andrew’s and is the Director of the D!Lab.

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“To Know and Inspire Each Child” ROBERT KOSASKY

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n recent years, the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning has increasingly “operated at scale,” reaching thousands of educators in dozens of countries on six continents (give us a call, Antarctica). The talent of our CTTL leadership, the generosity of its supporters, and the power of Mind, Brain, and Education (MBE) Science have fueled this growth and impact.

And yet the CTTL’s success and energy remain rooted in its home soil: the mission, culture, and people of St. Andrew’s.

Because of the CTTL, St. Andrew’s has become a laboratory of excellence that demonstrates the unique truth and efficacy of school-based research – the real-life creation, implementation, assessment, and iteration of better teaching and learning.

We build trust with educators in all kinds of locations and schools because we know firsthand what truly works.

St. Andrew’s mission statement makes one core promise: “To know and inspire each child in an inclusive community dedicated to exceptional teaching, learning, and service.” Over the past decade MBE has become part of the fabric of St. Andrew’s because we want to live into our mission more fully. To really know students, teachers need to understand how their brains think and feel and learn. To fully inspire students, teachers need to offer them the durable confidence and power that only self-understanding can provide.

As you have already read in my colleagues’ articles, at St. Andrew’s our research-informed practices are grounded in relationships and service to others, especially our students. Our school’s promise

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of growth, well-being, and achievement depends on our culture of belonging and our inclusive belief in each child’s and teacher’s intrinsic worth and potential.

In this joyful and challenging environment, students and adults alike can thrive together.

As you read these articles by St. Andrew’s faculty, students, alumni, and research partners, I hope that you are not daunted. Instead, I hope you are inspired to join us.

Robert Kosasky (rkosasky@saes.org) is Head of School at St. Andrew’s.

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Endnotes Introduction: Promising Research 1 Daniel, D. (2019, November). The State of the Onion: Peeling Back 20 Years of the Science of Learning and Instruction. Learning How to Learn. Talk presented at Learning and the Brain Conference, Boston, MA. 2 Dekker, S., Lee, N. C., Howard-Jones, P., & Jolles, J. (2012). Neuromyths in Education: Prevalence and Predictors of Misconceptions among Teachers. Frontiers in Psychology, 3.

3 Macdonald, K., Germine, L., Anderson, A., Christodoulou, J., & McGrath, L. M. (2017).

Dispelling the Myth: Training in Education or Neuroscience Decreases but Does Not Eliminate Beliefs in Neuromyths. Frontiers in Psychology, 8.

I. Emotion and Congnition: Creating a Positive Classroom Culture 1 Carissa Romero. What We Know About Belonging from Scientific Research. Mindset Scholars Network. 2015, 1.

2 Lisa Quay. The Science of “Wise Interventions”: Applying a Social Psychological Perspective to Address Problems and Help People Flourish. Mindset Scholars Network. 2018, 1.

3 The Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning. Classroom Culture: Field Guide.

Neuroteach Global. 2019.

4 Carissa Romero. What We Know About Belonging from Scientific Research. Mindset Scholars Network. 2015, 4.

5 Lisa Quay. The Science of “Wise Interventions”: Applying a Social Psychological Perspective to Address Problems and Help People Flourish. Mindset Scholars Network. 2018, 3.

6 The Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning. Classroom Culture: Field Guide.

Neuroteach Global. 2019.

7 Immordino-Yang, M. H., & Damasio, A. (2007). We Feel, Therefore We Learn: The Relevance of Affective and Social Neuroscience to Education. Mind, Brain, and Education, 1(1), 3–10.

II. The Science of Forgetting and the Art of Remembering (Part II) 1 Because I’m Happy. Harvard Graduate School of Education. Retrieved January, 2020, from https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/ uk/15/03/because-i%E2%80%99m-happy III. The Tiny House Project: Creating Agents of Change 1 Schonert-Reichl, K., Smith, V., ZaidmanZait, A., & Hertzman, C. (2011). Promoting Children’s Prosocial Behaviors in School: Impact of the “Roots of Empathy” Program on the Social and Emotional Competence of School-Aged Children. School Mental Health, 4(1), 1-21.

2 Kashdan, T., Barrett, L., & McKnight, P. (2015). Unpacking Emotion Differentiation: Transforming Unpleasant Experience by Perceiving Distinctions in Negativity. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(1), 1016.

IV. How an Unplanned Action Research Project and a Small Dose of Vulnerability Led to Better Student-Teacher Relationships and Joy in the Classroom 1 Whitman, G., & Kelleher, I. (2016).

Neuroteach: Brain science and the future of education. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

2 The Science of Teaching and School Leadership Academy. (2018). https://www. thecttl.org/. The Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School.

3 Smith, D., Frey, N., Pumpian, I. & Fisher, D. (2017). Building equity: Policies and practices to empower all learners. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. 4 Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The Pen is Mightier Than the Keyboard.

Psychological Science, 25(6), 1159-1168.

5 Staff, N., & Doubek, J. (2016, April 17).

Attention, Students: Put Your Laptops Away. Retrieved from https://www.npr. org/2016/04/17/474525392/attention-studentsput-your-laptops-away.

6 Chen, P., Chavez, O., Ong, D., & Gunderson, B. (2017). Strategic Resource Use for Learning: A Self-Administered Intervention That Guides Self-Reflection on Effective Resource Use Enhances Academic Performance.

Psychological Science, 28(6), 774-785.

V. Chasing Sleep 1 Time is the Prize: Our Research Informed Schedule in Think Differently and Deeply volume 3 (2018).

2 Teens and sleep: Why you need it and how to get enough. (2008). Paediatrics & Child Health, 13(1), 69–70.

3 U.S Department of Health and Human Services National Institute of Health, Your Guide To Healthy Sleep, publication no. 11-5271, [Page 13], November 2005, accessed August 24, 2019, Retrieved from https://www.nhlbi.nih. gov/files/docs/public/sleep/healthy_sleep.pdf 4 Whitman, G., & Kelleher, I. (2016).

Neuroteach: Brain Science and the Future of Education. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

VI. Dialing Down Stress Without Dumbing Down My Class 1 The title was created by Stanford University’s Denise Pope for a workshop that Denise and Ian co-presented at SXSW EDU2019.

2 Wiliam, D. (2018). Embedded formative assessment. Solution Tree Press.

3 Quigley, A., Muijs, D. & Stringer, E. (2018).

Metacognition and Self-Regulated Learning, Guidance Report. Education Endowment Foundation.

VII. Planting Seeds of Kindness: It All Begins in Preschool 1 Aknin, L. B., Hamlin, J. K., & Dunn, E. W. (2012). Giving Leads to Happiness in Young Children. PLoS ONE, 7(6).

2 Borba, M. (2017). UnSelfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World. Touchstone.

3 Licona, T. (2018). How to Raise Kind Kids: And Get Respect, Gratitude, and a Happier Family in the Bargain. Penguin Books.

4 Wittmer, D. S., Petersen, S. H., & Puckett, M. B. (2017). The Young Child: Development from Prebirth Through Age Eight. Pearson.

5 Jones, D. E., Greenberg, M., & Crowley, M. (2015). Early Social-Emotional Functioning and Public Health: The Relationship Between Kindergarten Social Competence and Future Wellness. American Journal of Public Health, 105(11), 2283–2290.

6 Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., Dymnicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D., & Schellinger, K. B. (2011).

The Impact of Enhancing Students’ Social and Emotional Learning: A Meta-Analysis of School-Based Universal Interventions: Social and Emotional Learning. Child Development, 82(1), 405–432.

7 Okon-Singer, H., Hendler, T., Pessoa, L., & Shackman, A. J. (2015). The neurobiology of emotion-cognition interactions: Fundamental questions and strategies for future research.

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 9.

VIII. Going Big on Retrieval Practice 1 Agarwal, P. K., & Bain, P. M. (2019).

Powerful teaching: Unleash the science of learning. Jossey-Bass IX. Using Creative Writing to Improve Memory 1 Theory of Mind: Understanding Others in a Social World. Psychology Today.

Retrieved January 9, 2020, from https://www. psychologytoday.com/blog/socioemotionalsuccess/201707/theory-mind-understandingothers-in-social-world 2 How Stories Change the Brain. Greater Good. Retrieved January 9, 2020, from https:// greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_ stories_change_brain 3 The Neuroscience of Narrative and Memory. Edutopia. Retrieved January 9, 2020, from https://www.edutopia.org/article/ neuroscience-narrative-and-memory 4 Shah, C., Erhard, K., Ortheil, H.-J., Kaza, E., Kessler, C., & Lotze, M. (2013). Neural correlates of creative writing: An fMRI study.

Human Brain Mapping, 34(5), 1088–1101. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.21493

4 Pashler, H., Bain, P. M., Bottge, B. A., Graesser, A. C., Koedinger, K. R., McDaniel, M. A., & Metcalfe, J. (2007). Organizing instruction and study to improve student learning, IES Practice Guide. National Center for Education Research.

5 Gotlieb, R., Jahner, E. E., ImmordinoYang, M. H., & Kaufman, S. B. (2015). How Social-Emotional Imagination Facilitates Deep Learning and Creativity in the Classroom.

Retrieved from https://scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/ uploads/2016/07/CUUS2378-17_Proof_ RG_061016.pdf

5 van Merrienboer, J. J. G., Kirschner, P. A., & Kester, L. (2003). Taking the Load Off a Learner’s Mind: Instructional Design for Complex Learning. Educational Psychologist, 38(1), 5–13.

6 Yuan, Y., Major-Girardin, J., & Brown, S. (2018). Storytelling Is Intrinsically Mentalistic: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study of Narrative Production across Modalities. Journal of Cognitive

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Endnotes (continued) Neuroscience, 30(9), 1298–1314. https://doi. org/10.1162/jocn_a_01294 X. Belonging and Middle School: Not Such an Odd Couple 1 Brown, B. (2010). The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are. Hazelden Publishing.

2 Belonging. Mindset Scholars Network.

Retrieved January 2020, from https:// mindsetscholarsnetwork.org/learningmindsets/belonging/ 3 Mindset Kit—What is belonging?, Belonging for Educators. Mindset Kit. Retrieved January 2020, from https://www. mindsetkit.org/belonging/about-belonging/ what-is-belonging 4 Yeager, D. S., & Walton, G. M. (2011).

Social-Psychological Interventions in Education: They’re Not Magic. Review of Educational Research, 81(2), 267–301.

XI. An International Experience with the CTTL’s Summer Academy 1 Whitman, G., & Kelleher, I. (2016).

Neuroteach: Brain Science and the Future of Education. Rowman & Littlefield.

2 Tokuhama-Espinosa, T. (2017).

International Delphi panel on Mind Brain, and Education science. Quito, Ecuador. Retrieved from https://drive.google.com/file/ d/0B8RaPiQPEZ9ZbF9RRWE2V055UGc/view 3 One of the founders of the field of Mind, Brain and Education (MBE).

XII. Boosting Investment and Motivation: Creating a Space for Choice in Your Curriculum 1 Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “What” and “Why” of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior.

Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268.

2 Whitman, G., & Kelleher, I. (2016).

Neuroteach: Brain Science and the Future of Education. Rowman & Littlefield.

3 Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R, M. (1985). Intrinsic Motivation and Self-determination in Human Behavior. Plenum.

4 Little, D., Ridley J. & Ushioda E. (Ed.).

(2003). Learner autonomy in the foreign language classroom: Teacher, learner, curriculum and assessment. Authentik Language Learning Resources.

5 Vygotskij, L. S. (1986). Thought and Language. MIT Press.

6 van Lier, L. (2000). “From Input to Affordance: Social-interactive Learning from an Ecological Perspective.” In Sociocultural Theory and Second Language Learning, by Lantolf, J. P., 245-69. Oxford University Press.

7 Brophy, J. (2004). Motivating Students to Learn. Lawrence Erlbaum.

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XIII. Is That a Threat?: Language to Buffer Identity in the Classroom 1 Arnsten, A. F. T. (2009). Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 410–422.

2 Green, M., Emery, A., Sanders, M., & Anderman, L. H. (2016). Another Path to Belonging: A Case Study of Middle School Students’ Perspectives. The Educational and Developmental Psychologist, 33(1), 85–96.

3 Yeager, D. S., Purdie-Vaughns, V., Garcia, J., Apfel, N., Brzustoski, P., Master, A., Hessert, W. T., Williams, M. E., & Cohen, G. L. (2014). Breaking the cycle of mistrust: Wise interventions to provide critical feedback across the racial divide. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(2), 804–824.

4 Rattan, A., Savani, K., Komarraju, M., Morrison, M. M., Boggs, C., & Ambady, N. (2018). Meta-lay theories of scientific potential drive underrepresented students’ sense of belonging to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 115(1), 54–75.

5 Walton, G. M., & Cohen, G. L. (2007). A question of belonging: Race, social fit, and achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(1), 82–96.

XIV. Developing Studdents’ Voices: An Intricate Part of a Student’s Lifelong Learning, Self-Confidence, and Advancement 1 Using Rubrics for Assessment. (2011).

Retrieved from https://sites.educ.ualberta. ca/staff/olenka.bilash/Best%20of%20Bilash/ rubrics.html 2 Shafer, L. (2016). Giving students a voice: Five ways to welcome student input and bolster your school’s success. Retrieved from https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/16/08/ giving-students-voice 3 Perry, J., Lundie, D., & Golder, G. (2019).

Metacognition in schools: What does the literature suggest about the effectiveness of teaching metacognition in schools?

Educational Review, 71(4), 483–500.

XV. Design Thinkers in the Kindergarten Classroom 1 Razzouk, R., Shute, V. (2012). What Is Design Thinking and Why Is It Important?

Review of Educational Research, 330-348.

2 Luka, I. (2014). Design Thinking in Pedagogy. Journal of Education Culture and Society, No. 2, 63-74.

3 Flanner, M. E. Design Thinking: Connecting Students to the Larger World—NEA Today.

Retrieved January 16, 2020, from http:// neatoday.org/2018/04/19/design-thinking-inthe-classroom/ XVI. On Pilgrimage in the Classroom 1 “Research.” Duckworth, A. Retrieved 2019 from https://angeladuckworth.com/research/.

2 Duckworth, A. (2016). Grit: the Power of Passion and Perseverance. Simon and Schuster Books, pg. 104 T H E

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3 Duckworth, 147 4 Duckworth, 148 5 Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “What” and “Why” of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior.

Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268.

6 Barron, K. E., & Hulleman, C. S. (2015).

Expectancy-Value-Cost Model of Motivation.

In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (pp. 503–509). Elsevier.

XVII. Mind, Brain, and Whole Child Coaching 1 Kids Sports Facts. The Aspen Institute, Project Play. Retrieved 2019, from https:// www.aspenprojectplay.org/kids-sports-facts

2 Chekroud, S. R., Gueorguieva, R., Zheutlin, A. B., Paulus, M., Krumholz, H. M., Krystal, J. H., & Chekroud, A. M. (2018). Association between physical exercise and mental health in 1·2 million individuals in the USA between 2011 and 2015: A cross-sectional study. The Lancet Psychiatry, 5(9), 739–746.

3 Erickson, K. I., Voss, M. W., Prakash, R. S., Basak, C., Szabo, A., Chaddock, L., Kim, J. S., Heo, S., Alves, H., White, S. M., Wojcicki, T. R., Mailey, E., Vieira, V. J., Martin, S. A., Pence, B. D., Woods, J. A., McAuley, E., & Kramer, A. F. (2011). Exercise training increases size of hippocampus and improves memory.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(7), 3017–3022.

4 Bowler, D. E., Buyung-Ali, L. M., Knight, T. M., & Pullin, A. S. (2010). A systematic review of evidence for the added benefits to health of exposure to natural environments. BMC Public Health, 10(1) 5 Kids Sports Facts: Participation Rates. The Aspen Institute, Project Play. Retrieved 2019, from https://www.aspenprojectplay.org/kidssports-participation-rates 6 Sabo, D. & Veliz, P. (2014). Mapping Attrition among U.S. Adolescents in Competitive, Organized School and Community Sports. Aspen, CO: The Aspen Project Play. Retrieved from https://www. dyc.edu/academics/research/crpash/docs/ mapping-attrition-us-sports.pdf 7 Kids Sports Facts: Participation Rates. The Aspen Institute, Project Play. Retrieved 2019, from https://www.aspenprojectplay.org/kidssports-participation-rates 8 Sport for All, Play for Life: The Problem.

The Aspen Institute, Project Play. Retrieved 2019, from http://youthreport.projectplay.us/ the-problem 9 Visek, A. J., Achrati, S. M., Mannix, H. M., McDonnell, K., Harris, B. S., & DiPietro, L. (2015). The Fun Integration Theory: Toward Sustaining Children and Adolescents Sport Participation. Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 12(3), 424–433.

10 Immordino-Yang, M. H., DarlingHammond, L. & Krone, C. R. (2019).The Brain Basis for Integrated Social, Emotional and Academic Development: How emotions and social relationships drive learning. Retrieved from https://assets.aspeninstitute.org/ content/uploads/2018/09/Aspen_research_ FINAL_web.pdf

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11 Immordino-Yang, M. H., Darling-Hammond, L., & Krone, C. R. (2019). Nurturing Nature: How Brain Development Is Inherently Social and Emotional, and What This Means for Education.

Educational Psychologist, 54(3), 185–204.

12 Osher, D., Cantor, P., Berg, J., Steyer, L., & Rose, T. (2020). Drivers of human development: How relationships and context shape learning and development. Applied Developmental Science, 24(1), 6–36.

13 Darling-Hammond, L., Flook, L., CookHarvey, C., Barron, B., & Osher, D. (2019).

Implications for educational practice of the science of learning and development. Applied Developmental Science, 1–44.

14 Ettekal, A. V., Callina, K. S., & Lerner, R. M. (2015). The promotion of character through youth development programs: A view of the issues.

Journal of Youth Development, 10(3), 6-13.

15 Zarrett, N., & Lerner, R. M. (2008, February). Ways to promote the positive development of children and youth.

ChildTrends Research-to-Results Brief.

Publication 2008-11.

16 Cantor, P., Osher, D., Berg, J., Steyer, L., & Rose, T. (2019). Malleability, plasticity, and individuality: How children learn and develop in context. Applied Developmental Science, 23(4), 307–337.

17 Zukav, G. (2009). Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics. HarperOne. 18 Experts Say 90% of Youth Sports Coaches Have Little to No Training, Thus Putting Their Athletes at Risk. PRWeb. Retrieved 2019, from https://www.prweb.com/releases/sports/ coaching/prweb907124.htm

19 Kids Sports Facts: Participation Rates. The Aspen Institute, Project Play. Retrieved 2019, from https://www.aspenprojectplay.org/kidssports-participation-rates 20 Cantor, P., Osher, D., Berg, J., Steyer, L., & Rose, T. (2019). Malleability, plasticity, and individuality: How children learn and develop in context. Applied Developmental Science, 23(4), 307–337.

21 ChildTrends (March, 2014). Retrieved from https://www.childtrends.org/ 22 Zarrett, N., & Lerner, R. M. (2008, February).

Ways to promote the positive development of children and youth. ChildTrends Research-toResults Brief. 2008-11.

23 Rose, T. (2016). The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World That Values Sameness.

HarperOne. 24 Cantor, P., Osher, D., Berg, J., Steyer, L., & Rose, T. (2019). Malleability, plasticity, and individuality: How children learn and develop in context. Applied Developmental Science, 23(4), 307–337.

25 Whitman, G., & Kelleher, I. (2016).

Neuroteach: Brain Science and the Future of Education. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

26 Boyce, W. T. (2019). The Orchid and the Dandelion. Allen Lane.

27 Ellis, B. J., Boyce, W. T., Belsky, J., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., & van Ijzendoorn, M. H. (2011). Differential susceptibility to the environment: An evolutionary–neurodevelopmental theory.

Development and Psychopathology, 23(1), 7–28.

28 Immordino-Yang, M. H., DarlingHammond, L., & Krone, C. R. (2019). Nurturing Nature: How Brain Development Is Inherently Social and Emotional, and What This Means for Education. Educational Psychologist, 54(3), 185–204.

29 M.D, B. van der K. (2015). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Penguin Books.

30 Brackett, M. (2019). Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive.

Celadon Books.

31 Science—Center on the Developing Child at Harvard. Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. Retrieved 2019, from https://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/ 32 Johnson, S. B., Riley, A. W., Granger, D. A., & Riis, J. (2013). The Science of Early Life Toxic Stress for Pediatric Practice and Advocacy. PEDIATRICS, 131(2), 319–327.

33 Harris, N. B. (2018). The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.; 34 Immordino-Yang, M. H., DarlingHammond, L., & Krone, C. R. (2019). Nurturing Nature: How Brain Development Is Inherently Social and Emotional, and What This Means for Education. Educational Psychologist, 54(3), 185–204.

35 Bronfenbrenner, U., & Morris, P. A. (2006). The Bioecological Model of Human Development. In R. M. Lerner & W. Damon (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Theoretical models of human development (p.

793–828). John Wiley & Sons Inc. 36 Bowers, E. P., Geldhof, G. J., Johnson, S. K., Hilliard, L. J., Hershberg, R. M., Lerner, J. V., & Lerner, R. M. (2015). Promoting Positive Youth Development [recurso electrónico]: Lessons from the 4-H Study.

37 Overton, W. F. (2015). Processes, relations, and relational-developmental-systems. In W. F. Overton, P. C. M. Molenaar, & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology and developmental science: Theory and method (p. 9–62). John Wiley & Sons Inc. 38 Netz, Y. (2017). Is the Comparison between Exercise and Pharmacologic Treatment of Depression in the Clinical Practice Guideline of the American College of Physicians EvidenceBased? Frontiers in Pharmacology, 8.

39 Exercise for Mental Health: 8 Keys to Get and Stay Moving | NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness. Retrieved 2019, from https:// www.nami.org/blogs/nami-blog/may-2016/ exercise-for-mental-health-8-keys-to-get-andstay 40 Easterlin, M. C., Chung, P. J., Leng, M., & Dudovitz, R. (2019). Association of Team Sports Participation With Long-term Mental Health Outcomes Among Individuals Exposed to Adverse Childhood Experiences. JAMA Pediatrics, 173(7), 681.

41 Lerner, R. M., Lerner, J. V., P. Bowers, E., & John Geldhof, G. (2015). Positive Youth Development and Relational-DevelopmentalSystems. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of Child Psychology and Developmental Science (pp. 1–45). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

42 Epstein, D. (2019). Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. Riverhead Books.

43 Popkin, C. A., Bayomy, A. F., & Ahmad, C. S. (2019). Early Sport Specialization: Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, 27(22), e995–e1000.

44 Feudtner, C., & Miles, S. H. (2018).

Traumatic Brain Injury News Reports and Participation in High School Tackle Football.

JAMA Pediatrics, 172(5), 492.

45 NHE Fact Sheet | CMS. Retrieved 2019, from https://www.cms.gov/ Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/ Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/ NationalHealthExpendData/NHE-Fact-Sheet 46 How You Can Prevent Chronic Diseases | CDC. (2019, July 31). https://www.cdc.gov/ chronicdisease/about/prevent/index.htm 47 Why Children’s Health is the Foundation of Lifelong Health. Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. Retrieved 2019, from https://developingchild.harvard.edu/ science/deep-dives/lifelong-health/ 48 How You Can Prevent Chronic Diseases | CDC. (2019, July 31). https://www.cdc.gov/ chronicdisease/about/prevent/index.htm 49 Mitchell, J., Skouteris, H., McCabe, M., Ricciardelli, L. A., Milgrom, J., Baur, L. A., FullerTyszkiewicz, M., & Dwyer, G. (2012). Physical activity in young children: A systematic review of parental influences. Early Child Development and Care, 182(11), 1411–1437.

XVIII. Context Matters 1 Rose, L. T., Daley, S. G., & Rose, D. H. (2011). Let the Questions Be Your Guide: MBE as Interdisciplinary Science. Mind, Brain, and Education, 5(4), 153–162.

2 Haden, Mark. (2003). The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. Random House of Canada Limited. ISBN 978-1-4000-2535-4 3 Kleschevnikov, A. M., Belichenko, P. V., Salehi, A., & Wu, C. (2012). Discoveries in Down syndrome: Moving basic science to clinical care. Progress in Brain Research, 197, 199–221.

4 Cantania, A.C. (1979). Learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 5 Chitiyo, M., May, M. E., & Chitiyo, G. (2012).

An Assessment of the Evidence-Base for SchoolWide Positive Behavior Support. Education and Treatment of Children, 35(1), 1–24.

6 IES Funded Research Grants and Contracts—Details. Retrieved January 10, 2020, from https://ies.ed.gov/funding/ grantsearch/details.asp?ID =1876 7 Schreibman, L., Dawson, G., Stahmer, A. C., Landa, R., Rogers, S. J., McGee, G. G., Kasari, C., Ingersoll, B., Kaiser, A. P., Bruinsma, Y., McNerney, E., Wetherby, A., & Halladay, A. (2015). Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Interventions: Empirically Validated Treatments for Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 45(8), 2411–2428.

8 Mundy, P., Sullivan, L., & Mastergeorge, A. M. (2009). A parallel and distributed-processing model of joint attention, social cognition and autism. Autism Research, 2(1), 2–21.

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Endnotes (continued) XIX. A Parent’s Mind, Brain, and Education Science Journey 1 Stixrud, W. R., Johnson, N., & Fair, J. D. (2019). The self-driven child: The science and sense of giving your kids more control over their lives. Penguin Books.

2 Levine, M. (2008). The price of privilege: How parental pressure and material advantage are creating a generation of disconnected and unhappy kids. Harper.

3 Steinberg, L. D. (2015). Age of opportunity: Lessons from the new science of adolescence.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

4 Lamborn, S. D., Mounts, N. S., Steinberg, L., & Dornbusch, S. M. (1991). Patterns of Competence and Adjustment among Adolescents from Authoritative, Authoritarian, Indulgent, and Neglectful Families. Child Development, 62(5), 1049.

5 Whitman, G., & Kelleher, I. (2016).

Neuroteach: Brain Science and the Future of Education. Rowman & Littlefield.

6 Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House.

XX. Training Optimization Using Neuromotor Thresholds 1 Kushner, A. M., Kiefer, A. W., Lesnick, S., Faigenbaum, A. D., Kashikar-Zuck, S., & Myer, G. D. (2015). Training the Developing Brain Part II. Current Sports Medicine Reports, 14(3), 235-243.

2 Myer, G. D., Kushner, A. M., Faigenbaum, A. D., Kiefer, A., Kashikar-Zuck, S., & Clark, J. F. (2013). Training the Developing Brain, Part I. Current Sports Medicine Reports, 12(5), 304-310.

3 Dixon, S. D., & Stein, M. T. (2006).

Encounters with children: pediatric behavior and development. Philadelphia, PA: Mosby Elsevier.

4 Gemelli, R. (1996). Normal child and adolescent development. Washington: American Psychiatric Press.

5 Patel, D. R., Pratt, H. D., & Greydanus, D. E. (2002). Pediatric neurodevelopment and sports participation. Pediatric Clinics of North America, 49(3), 505-531 6 Fischer, K.W. (1980). A theory of cognitive development: The control and construction of hierarchies of skills. Psychol. Rev., 87, 477.

7 Dyment, P. (1990). Neurodevelopmental milestones: when is a child ready for sports participation. In: Sullivan, A.J., Grana, W.A., editors. The Pediatric Athlete. Park Ridge, IL: American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, 27-29.

8 Kreipe, R. (1992). Normal somatic adolescent growth and development.

Textbook of Adolescent Medicine, 57.

9 Merriënboer, J. J. G. V., Kirschner, P. A., & Kester, L. (2003). Taking the Load Off a Learners Mind: Instructional Design for Complex Learning. Educational Psychologist, 38(1), 5-13.

10 Swanik, C.B., Covassin, T., Stearne, D.J., & Schatz, P. (2007). The relationship between neurocognitive function and noncontact anterior cruciate ligament injuries. Am. J. Sports Med., 35, 943-948 11 Tropp, H., Ekstrand, J., & Gillquist, J. (1984). Stabilometry in functional instability of the ankle and its value in predicting injury.

Med. Sci. Sports Exerc., 16, 64-66.

12 Hewett, T.E., Ford, K.R., & Myer, G.D. (2006). Anterior Cruciate Ligament injuries in female athletes: Part 2, a meta-analysis of neuromuscular interventions aimed at injury prevention. Am. J. Sports Med., 34, 490-498.

XXI. Student Manifestos 1 Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House.

2 Growth Mindset Archives. Mrs. Winter’s Bliss. Retrieved January 2020, from https:// mrswintersbliss.com/product-category/ growth-mindset-7/ 3 Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones. Avery.

XXII. Towards the Possible: The Creative Mindset 1 American Psychological Association, Coalition for Psychology in Schools and Education. (2015). Top 20 principles from psychology for preK–12 teaching and learning.

Retrieved from http:// www.apa.org/ed/ schools/cpse/top-twenty-principles.pdf 2 Ainsworth-Land, G. T., & Jarman, B. (2000). Breakpoint and beyond: Mastering the future - today. HarperBusiness.

3 In Jazz Improv, Large Portion of Brain’s Prefrontal Region ‘Takes Five’ to Let Creativity Flow. (2015). NIDCD. Retrieved from https:// www.nidcd.nih.gov/news/2008/jazz-improvlarge-portion-brains-prefrontal-region-takesfive-let-creativity-flow 4 Beaty, R. E., Benedek, M., Wilkins, R. W., Jauk, E., Fink, A., Silvia, P. J., Hodges, D. A., Koschutnig, K., & Neubauer, A. C. (2014). Creativity and the default network: A functional connectivity analysis of the creative brain at rest. Neuropsychologia, 64, 92–98.

5 Hennessey, B. A., & Amabile, T. M. (1988).

The conditions of creativity. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), The nature of creativity: Contemporary psychological perspectives. Cambridge University Press.

6 Leggett Dugosh, K., & Paulus, P. B. (2005).

Cognitive and social comparison processes in brainstorming. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 41(3), 313–320.

7 Fink, A., Grabner, R. H., Gebauer, D., Reishofer, G., Koschutnig, K., & Ebner, F. (2010). Enhancing creativity by means of cognitive stimulation: Evidence from an fMRI study. NeuroImage, 52(4), 1687-1695.

CREDITS Director: Glenn Whitman Head of Research: Dr. Ian Kelleher Associate Diretor of Research: Eva Shultis Editors: Richard Coco, Dr. Ian Kelleher, Eva Shultis, Glenn Whitman Graphic Design: Hillary Reilly and Richard Coco Photography: Andrea Joseph Photography, Creosote Affects, Freed Photography, Jonah Koch, Kirsten Petersen, Nancy Schwartz, Shutterstock Published March 2020 The CTTL’s mission is to create and innovate in the field of Mind, Brain, and Education Science research to allow teachers to maximize their effectiveness and students to achieve their highest potential. @thecttl

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