June 12
8:30 a.m.
Check-in and Welcome
9 - 11 a.m.
Keynote by Dr. Daniel J. Siegel
Time-In: Reflection, Relationships and Resilience at the Heart of Internal Education
This presentation dives deeply into the role of education in developing the parts of students’ brains responsible for self-awareness, empathy and resilience. Reflective practices include a range of ways to cultivate mindful awareness that harness the neural structures involved in the regulation of attention and emotion, the differentiation of here-and-now sensory experience from more narrative self-understanding, and the capacity to create compassionate responses and moral reasoning.
11:15 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Breakout Session including Lunch
Session 1:
Teaching Study Skills: Lessons from Landmark College
Presented by Linda Hecker, Lead Education Specialist, Landmark College, Vermont
Study Skills are sometimes called the “hidden curriculum.” Teachers may assume students know how to organize materials, manage time and tasks efficiently, take and use notes effectively, and prepare for tests. However, many students lack these essential skills and approach these tasks haphazardly. This workshop introduces classroom-tested strategies teachers can implement within content courses and teach to students to foster self-regulation. Strategies include both paper-based and digital approaches.
Session 2:
Numeracy and Mathematics Achievement in School-Age Children
Presented by: Dr. Michele Mazzocco, Center for Early Education and Development, University of Minnesota
This workshop focuses on the role of numeracy skills in school mathematics and beyond, and the scientific evidence that individual differences in numeracy influence math learning and performance throughout life. Numeracy will be reviewed in the context of additional cognitive skills that support math learning, and how these skills interact with social and environmental influences. The workshop includes a brief review of the characteristics of school-age children who have mathematical learning difficulties, particularly those characteristics that are appropriate targets for assessment, instruction or intervention/prevention.
Session 3:
Executive Functions and Education
Presented by: George McCloskey, PhD, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine
This workshop explores the impact of executive functions on learning, behavior and classroom production. Learn about the development of executive functions during school-age years, as well as the involvement of executive function difficulties in clinical syndromes such as ADHD, autism and Asperger’s. The workshop also addresses classroom management techniques and general strategies that teachers and other professionals can use to help children with executive function difficulties improve their behavior and academic performance either through increasing their capacity for self-regulation or through external guidance.
Session 4:
The Neuroscience of Decision-Making: Improving Personal and Organizational Capacity
Presented by: Mike Walker, Principal, Punahou School
This workshop, combined with the workshop on Thursday, is designed to help both individuals and institutions become more systemic decision-makers. The research on the neurology of decision-making suggests that our human tendency, out of habit and necessity, is to rely on patterns of predominately unconscious heuristics when making decisions. The most effective way to overcome these heuristics is to become aware of them. The first day of the workshop will be an engaging immersion into the neurology of decision-making, exploring our heuristics, and learning how to manage, leverage and where needed, overcome tendencies and patterns.
6:45 – 8:30 p.m.
Special Public Event Featuring Dr. Daniel J. Siegel
The Whole-Brain Child
This presentation explores an exciting new approach to raising children through engaging discussions, case example, and experiential immersions. Parents, grandparents, teachers, child development professionals and others who help children grow will find this learning experience filled with scientifically based ideas and practical skills that can promote well-being in children’s lives. By offering a definition of an important aspect of the mind and a core mechanism of mental health, the whole-brain child approach offers care providers the cutting edge art and science of child development.
June 13
8:30 a.m.
Check-in
9 – 11 a.m.
Keynote by Dr. Daniel J. Siegel
Professional Presence: The Role of Mindfulness and Resiliency in Educators
This address explore exciting new findings that reveal how the teachable skill of being present, of being receptive to and aware of what is happening as it is happening, leads to improvements in mental well-being, relationship skills and even medical health. Understanding the mechanisms of presence that occur in our mental lives, our relationships and in our brains is the starting place for learning some basic skills that all educators can use to create more presence in their professional and their personal lives.
11:15 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Breakout Session including Lunch
Session 1:
Reading, Writing and the Brain
Presented by Linda Hecker, Lead Education Specialist, Landmark College, Vermont
Academic reading and writing are among the most challenging tasks for struggling students. As students progress through high school and beyond, reading and writing assignments increase in length and complexity, placing greater demands on effort, memory and critical thinking. This workshop reviews research in reading and composition theory, and models effective reading and writing instructional practices that promote academic success for secondary and post-secondary students with learning disabilities and attention disorders. Strategy instruction will take into account newly rigorous expectations set by Common Core State Standards.
Session 2:
Numeracy and Mathematics Achievement in School Age Children
Presented by: Dr. Michele Mazzocco, Center for Early Education and Development, University of Minnesota
This repeats the workshop from day one of the symposium. This workshop focuses on the role of numeracy skills in school mathematics and beyond, and the scientific evidence that individual differences in numeracy influence math learning and performance throughout life. Numeracy will be reviewed in the context of additional cognitive skills that support math learning, and how these skills interact with social and environmental influences. The workshop includes a brief review of the characteristics of school-age children who have mathematical learning difficulties, particularly those characteristics that are appropriate targets for assessment, instruction or intervention/prevention.
Session 3:
Executive Functions and Education
Presented by: George McCloskey, PhD, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine
This repeats the workshop from day one of the symposium. This workshop explores the impact of executive functions on learning, behavior and classroom production. Learn about the development of executive functions during school-age years, as well as the involvement of executive function difficulties in clinical syndromes such as ADHD, autism and Asperger’s. The workshop also addresses classroom management techniques and general strategies that teachers and other professionals can use to help children with executive function difficulties improve their behavior and academic performance either through increasing their capacity for self-regulation or through external guidance.
Session 4:
The Neuroscience of Decision-Making Improving Personal and Organizational Capacity
Presented by: Mike Walker, Principal Punahou School
This is the second session of a two-day workshop designed to help both individuals and institutions become more systemic decision-makers. This session offers the opportunity to develop a case study of a decision you will be or have made at your school using a "program matrix" - a tool designed to systemically approach and guide the kinds of decisions regularly made in schools. The "program matrix" is a framework that lends itself to more deliberate, collaborative, and communicative decision- making.
These breakout sessions are presented in partnership with Learning & the Brain® and Landmark College.
