Topics - Click on any one to go directly to that topic   • Active Learning • Behavior Management • Brain Compatible Learning • Brain Development • Communication • Differentiated Learning • Gifted Education • Intelligences • Learning Styles • Reading • Study Skills • Stress Management • Thinking Skills • Time Management • Training the Trainer   Descriptions All workshops are custom designed with the goals and objectives of the individual organization in mind.    Active Learning   ·    Active Learning:  Learn Actively             This workshop is designed to provide structures to engage students actively in the learning process.  Understanding how the brain learns is key to achieving learning success. Teaching specific “how to learn” skills, techniques and tools empowers students be in control of their own learning process.  Teach students how to be attuned to themselves and their learning styles, learn strategies to develop students' thinking skills, and experience the impact of the mind-body connection in the learning process.  Use this information to structure lessons, to accelerate learning, and to assess student learning.  Learn six techniques to develop successful learners.   ·   Creating A Community Of Learners Using cooperative learning in the classroom is essential for developing students' thinking skills and social interaction.  Understanding the importance of creating a learning community as well as learning how to create that community is vital for classroom success.  Learn how to integrate whole class interaction with small group interaction to further enhance learning.  Learn ten cooperative learning techniques to use in planning lessons.   ·      Peer Tutoring "Each one teaches one" is the basis of peer tutoring.  Learn how to engage all of your students as peer tutors by focusing their attention on the important information to be learned, structuring the tutoring sessions, and increasing students' involvement in learning.  Experience at least three peer tutoring structures to use in your classroom.     ·     Use It or Lose It:  Active Learning At Its Best Discover how the brain learns.  Experience the effects of active learning, multitasking and balancing on the learning process.  Teach students how to identify what they do in their head to visualize, listen, concentrate and remember. Learn seven strategies to help your students discover how to be more efficient and effective learners. Set your students up for success!               Behavior Management   ·      Perfectionism: The Need To Be Right This session focuses on the need to be right, to redo assignments until they are 100 per cent right and the consequences of fearing failure.  Learn techniques and strategies to teach your students that their best is good enough.    ·      Sensitivity This session focuses on being too sensitive to other people's opinions, developing the power within to be independent of other people's opinions and to understand the role movement plays in the development process.  Learn techniques and strategies to reduce sensitivity.   ·     Teaching The Tornados, Space Cadets, and Students Refusing To Learn When students have a hard time learning or don't want to learn, how do you teach them?  Learn techniques and strategies to capture your students' imaginations, meet their need for safety and belonging and to understand themselves.  Empower students to know and understand how to learn in their own way.   Discover how to teach your students to be attuned to themselves and their learning styles; learn strategies to develop their thinking skills and experience the impact of the mind-body connection in the learning process.     Brain Compatible Learning   ·     The Brain Rewired: Teaching At Its Best              How do students learn differently today than they did in days of yesteryear?  As the culture has changed, so has the developing brain.  Learn what changes have taken place and how the brain is being rewired.  Understand the importance of stress management, sleep, nutrition, physical activity and active learning in the learning process.  Discover three best practices to use in the classroom to teach today’s student.   Create developmentally appropriate lessons to teach students how to think.   Learn how the brain organizes learning, develops memory and processes information. Use that knowledge to enhance your students’ learning.   Brain Development   ·      Learning to Move - Moving to Learn:  Muscles, Movement and Learning Learning is not all academic.  The development of the body's physical system is crucial for learning to take place.  Learn why and how movement is a key factor in the learning process. Understand the importance of crossover movement, symmetric tonic neck reflex maturity and physical movement in developing communication, organization and comprehension skills.  Learn how to teach your students to be able to transition from the 3 dimensional sensory world to the 2 dimensional pencil-paper world.  Learn three key exercises to do with your students to help them to be ready to learn and to take tests.     ·      The Root Skills of Learning:  Developing Young Minds How does the brain organize to learn?   Identify the infant/toddler movements that develop the brain’s ability to think and learn.  Experience songs and movements to integrate the senses.  Discover the influence of television, stories and spoken language on young children’s concentration, attention and ability to focus. Develop the root skills of learning, namely coordination, perception, auditory processing and visual processing.  Learn how to create a nurturing environment to give children their best beginning in their school careers.    ·      The Root Skills of Learning What are the root skills of learning?  How do you develop them?  Discover how movement is a key factor in organizing the brain to be able to do well in school.  Learn how balance affects reading, writing and thinking skills.  Discover how to increase your child’s attention span.  Identify the key reflexes that begin the brain’s organization for academic work and how they impact the learning process.  Learn and practice three exercises to improve your child’s memory, concentration and thinking skills for reading, writing and math. ·      Setting Teens Up For Success What do we know about the teen brain and optimum learning?  Learn about recent discoveries in brain compatible learning to set teens up for success.  Learn why movement is key to learning effectively, how sleep affects learning and which music is optimal for learning.  Discover how to develop communication, organization and comprehension skills through learning styles.  .  Identify three learning style patterns that influence how students learn, comprehend and communicate.  Teach students to change from the 3 dimensional world they live in to the 2 dimensional world of pencil paper tasks with one simple exercise.  Help your teens be the best that they can be. ·      Walking To Learn                 Learning is not all academic.  The development of the body's physical system is crucial for learning to take place.  Learn why and how movement and walking are key factors in the learning process.  Learn how to develop coordination, balance, focus and attention skills through movement.  Experience a sensory motor walking program designed to organize the mind to think, read and problem solve.   Communication   ·      Did I Say That?  Understanding Communication Differences The message sent needs to match the message received before communication is successful.   Learn how to send messages in the listener’s mode of learning.  Discover how to identify learning styles and their impact on understanding.  Set your listeners up to be successful in the communication process.   ·      Finding The Work You Love   Successful communication occurs when the message sent is the message received.  What do personality traits and learning modalities have to do with the message?  Using Carolyn Kalil’s book, Follow Your True Colors To The Work You Love as a foundation, learn how personality traits affect communication styles as well as the successful job placement.  In addition to personality traits, discover three modalities that need to match the sent message with the received message.  Learn how to identify the modalities and to use them effectively in job placement and training.        ·      Parent – Teacher Communication At Its Best                              Effective parent – teacher communication is crucial in determining what’s best for each child.  Successful communication occurs when the message sent is the message received.  Identify the difference between issues and positions. Learn which can be changed and how to change them.  Understand the mind’s languages.  Identify patterns that influence effective communication.  Learn four techniques to enhance your communication skills.  Discover the role stress plays in the communication process and how to short circuit stress to communicate more effectively.   Differentiated Learning   ·      DIFFERENTIATED LEARNING          Every student can learn.  Differentiated instruction allows each student to learn what he/she needs to learn in the way that learning works best for each individual.  It takes into account differences in learning styles, instructional strategies, and assessment opportunities.  Empowering students to understand how they learn is crucial to their success as students. The use of differentiation puts the student in charge of his/her learning and gives each student the responsibility for his/her own learning. Learn the process of differentiation by identifying Gayle Gregory’s, six elements of differentiation, namely classroom climate, knowing the learner, assessing the learner, adjustable assignments, instructional strategies and curriculum approaches.  Learn how to establish a differentiated classroom by assessing the current implementation of each element, learning what needs to be known to further develop each element, accessing and creating the materials to support differentiation and implementing the differentiated model in the classroom.   Gifted Education   ·     Challenging Gifted Students In the Regular Classroom How do gifted students learn?  Learn five premises that form the foundation of gifted students’ success in the regular classroom.  Discover how to identify their children’s learning needs and to nurture motivated, excited learners.  Use this information at home and at school.     Intelligences   ·      Emotional Intelligence The crucial range of abilities that effect how we do in life namely, self-awareness, impulse control, persistence, zeal, self-motivation, empathy and social deftness - make up a different way of being smart.   Learn how to nurture and strengthen these abilities that are defined as emotional intelligence.  Discover the "window" of opportunity for developing this intelligence as well as three key techniques to further its development.   ·      Engaging Learning through the Multiple Intelligences Teach to a wide range of learners by matching lessons with multiple intelligence activities to ensure student learning success.  Understand the importance of active involvement.  Learn how to plan lessons to meet the needs of your students.  Learn lesson plan structures that maximize use of class time in traditional and block schedules.   ·      How Are You Smart?     This workshop is designed to provide a practical application of the multiple intelligence theory to enhance learning.  The key is to discover how students learn and to empower them to be in control of their learning using study skills, tools and techniques to capitalize on their intelligence strengths.  Learn how to help students identify their intelligences.  Use this information to structure lessons, to develop study skills, and to assess student learning.  Learn six techniques to develop successful learners.   ·      Understanding Multiple Intelligences:  Eight Ways of Being Smart This workshop is designed to create an awareness of Howard Gardner's multiple intelligence theory and his eight identified intelligences, to develop an understanding of the roles the intelligences play in learning successes and failures, to explore teaching techniques to capitalize on learning strengths, and to create lesson plans to teach the same concepts using the different intelligences.   Learning Styles   ·      Setting ADD Student Up For Success Understand ADD and ADHD students.  Learn how to incorporate activities to accommodate learning style differences, short attention spans and difficulty focusing in your lesson plans.  Experience movement activities to enhance focusing skills.  Structure your classrooms to create an optimum learning environment for all students.  Learn how to work in partnership with your students' parents to establish consistent learning expectations.    ·      Setting All Students Up For Success What do we know about the brain and optimum learning?  Learn about recent discoveries in brain compatible learning to set your students up for success in lifelong learning.  Identify three learning style patterns that influence whether they succeed or fail.  Empower your students to know and understand themselves and how to learn in their best way.  Learn how to teach with the brain in mind.   Discover three key techniques to develop your students’ thinking and problem solving skills.     ·      Setting Young Children Up For Success What does brain development and organization have to do with learning?  Learn why the early years are crucial for developing children’s learning skills to be ready for school.  Discover the work of early childhood.  Experience exercises, activities and behavior techniques to use to enhance developing young minds.  Learn how to teach little ones to concentrate, focus and to develop their attention skills.   ·      Understanding Learning Styles The No Child Left Behind act mandates that all students will learn.  How do students learn?  Discover the three learning style patterns that influence academic success.  Learn how to identify students learning styles along with techniques to empower them to be efficient and effective learners.  Learn three teaching techniques to match teaching styles to learning styles.  Use this information to structure lessons, to accelerate learning, and to teach students to be in control of their own learning.    Reading   ·      Reading Actively:  Actively Reading   This workshop is designed to provide structures to engage students actively in the reading process.  Understanding how the brain learns is key to achieving reading   success. Teaching specific reading skills, techniques and tools empowers students be in control of their own learning process.  Teaching students how to be attuned to themselves and their learning styles, learning strategies to develop thinking skills, and experiencing the impact of the mind-body connection in the reading process are keys to enabling students to be good readers.  Learn six techniques to develop successful readers.     Stress Management   ·     The Stress Connection:  Understanding How Stress Affects Learning Your students' futures depend on their ability to grasp new concepts, to make new choices and to learn, unlearn and relearn throughout life.  The age of instant communication dictates that students know and understand themselves well.  Eighty percent of learning difficulties are attributed to stress.  Students need to understand what stress is, how it impacts their learning and how to develop techniques and tools to be lifelong learners.  Understanding the importance of the mind-body connection in managing stress is vital for active learning. ·     Stress Management in the 21st century Is your cup half empty or half full?  This session focuses on stress management.   It is easy to short change ourselves.  Multitasking is the operative word in the culture.  Do more in less time with the same results is society’s mantra.  Is it possible?  Learn seven techniques and strategies to develop and maintain a positive perspective, to live in the present, and to develop and maintain a balance between school and home.   Study Skills   ·      Attend, Focus and Remember:  Study Skills That Work Memory, attention and focusing skills are key to long-term learning.  Learn what controls attention and how to develop students’ attention and focusing skills.  Understand the importance of teaching students how to use and develop their visual memory skills.  Identify three kinds of memory and how to use them effectively in lessons.   ·     The Magic Nine Teaching Techniques That Work This session is designed to provide an understanding of nine effective teaching techniques that actively engage students in learning.  Learn how to developing students’ visual thinking skills to enhance comprehension.  Understand the role homework and practice play in the learning process. Discover three keys to activate long term memory and to focus on academic success ·      Note Making and Other Study Skills Learn how to learn.  Discover the difference between note taking and note making.  Learn how to actively incorporate study skills, strategies and techniques in daily assignments to teach secondary students to be efficient learners.  Experience how to develop visual thinking skills to aid recall, memory and learning.   Discover how learning how to juggle provides a metaphor for learning as well as an integration activity to help students be effective learners. Thinking Skills ·      Developing Critical Thinking Skills                  This workshop is designed to provide an understanding of teaching thinking skills and how to actively engage students in the learning process.  Understanding how the brain learns is key to achieving thinking success. Teaching specific study skills, thinking techniques and tools empowers students to be in control of their own learning process.  Teach students how to be attuned to themselves and their learning styles, learn strategies to develop students' study and critical thinking skills, and experience the impact of the mind-body connection in the learning process.  Use this information to structure lessons, to accelerate learning, to teach study skills and to teach critical thinking skills.  Learn six techniques to develop critical thinkers.   ·      Problem Solving This workshop is designed to enhance problem solving abilities.  Techniques, understandings and strategies will be explored to create efficient and effective means of problem solving.  Students will document their current techniques and learn to expand their options based on a given situation.    Time Management   ·     Help!  I Don't Have Time! Since there is always more to do, if working harder, smarter and faster won't solve the problem, what will?  Learn how to determine what is truly important in your life.  Discover the importance of identifying your personal vision and mission.  Set your goals in keeping with your mission and vision.  Learn how to achieve and maintain balance in your life.  Identify a time management system that works for you based on what is important in your life.   Understand the role stress plays in the balance process.   Apply the same principles in lesson planning and teaching.  Model for your students how to achieve and maintain balance their lives.     Training the Trainer   ·     Training the Trainer:  Setting People Up For Success                    Everyone can learn.  Presenting information in a way that reaches all participants is crucial to training success.  Understanding how adults learn forms the foundation for effective program development.  Discover three learning style patterns that determine learning success or failure.  Learn about current brain research and its implications for training strategies.  Discover four tools that enhance each participant’s success in training. Purpose:  The purpose of this workshop is to teach trainers how they learn and how they need to present their content so that others may learn.  Participants need the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn the information to meet their needs.  Current brain compatible learning strategies, learning styles, memory skills, optimum learning times, and movement need to be a part of the training and development process.