How WE DEVELOP BETTER THINKERS, SPEAKERS AND CITIZENS

how learning happens

NONACADEMIC SKILLS ARE KEY TO SUCCESS BUT WHAT SHOULD WE CALL THEM?

Quoted from a May 2015 post on NPREd, entitled,"Nonacademic Skills Are Key To Success. But What Should We Call Them?"

"Non-cognitive Skills."  "Skills for Success."  "21st Century Skills."  "Character."  "Grit."  "Growth Mindset."  "Noncognitive Traits & Habits."  "Social & Emotional Skills."  "Soft Skills." 

Those words are “a short glossary of terms that are being used for that cultivation of the heart.”

"As Noah Webster, the great American lexicographer and educator, put it back in 1788, 'The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities; and for this reason, the heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head.'"

From a May 2015 post on NPREd by Anya Kamenetz

CASEL

collaborative for academic, social, and emotional learning

CASEL is the nation’s leading organization advancing the development of academic, social and emotional competence for all students. Their mission is "to help make evidence-based social and emotional learning (SEL) an integral part of education from preschool through high school.”

Through research, practice and policy, CASEL collaborates to ensure all students become knowledgeable, responsible, caring and contributing members of society.

CASEL has identified five interrelated sets of cognitive, affective, and behavioral competencies. Learn more about the definitions of the five competency clusters for students.

Mindshift

how we will learn

KQED, one of our favorite resources, which "serves the people of Northern California with a community-supported alternative to commercial media," launched Mind/Shift in 2010, which in turn "explores the future of learning in all its dimensions."

"Improv is especially beneficial for atypical kids, no matter their stripe. It helps children with learning and physical disabilities develop a sense of play, and enables the socially awkward intellectual to socialize more easily." 

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Alan Alda

Here is someone else we admire for their tireless work in Education: Alan Alda and the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, whose mission is to “enhance understanding of science by helping train the next generation of scientists and health professionals to communicate more effectively with the public, public officials, the media, and others outside their own discipline.”

Communicating science. Of course.

Alan Alda is an American actor, director, screenwriter, author and champion of education.

Mind in the Making

Promoting Executive Function Life Skills

Developed by Families and Work Institute, Mind in the Making is the result of an unprecedented effort to share the science of children’s learning with the general public, families and professionals who work with children and families.

Here are the 7 Essential Life Skills every child needs to realize their ambitions:

1. Focus and Self Control

2. Perspective Taking

3. Communicating

4. Making Connections

5. Critical Thinking

6. Taking on Challenges

7. Self-Directed Engaged Learning

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