BrainSMART Is Featured in Poland’s SYGNAL Magazine: An Interview with Donna Wilson and Marcus Conyers

Dr. Donna Wilson and Marcus Conyers were pleased to be interviewed for Poland’s Sygnal Magazine by reporter Agnieszka Korcz. The interview means even more since Conyers and Wilson, co-founders of BrainSMART, recently visited Poland and met such lovely people there.
Here is a transcript from that interview:

1. Donna, you and Marcus created a new process of learning for everyone: for children, students, teachers, and all educators. Your BrainSMART program does a great job with important concepts in education. Tell me, please, what was your inspiration for this program?

Donna Wilson: BrainSMART began in 1998 with a mission to support educators to teach and lead so students globally become more effective learners, thinkers, and communicators. Our inspiration comes from the many teachers who tell us how much they have learned through our approach. There is overwhelming evidence that the single most important school-based factor influencing student achievement is the effectiveness of the classroom teacher. Within any school district with a common curriculum, the teachers who are more effective instructors produce higher levels of student learning. We are committed to supporting educators by sharing the research, theory, and strategies teachers need to continue enhancing the effectiveness of their instruction so that they can experience the thrill of seeing their students achieve at higher levels. We love hearing their success stories!

Learning in the 21st Century

Having spent the last few days digging into Robert Sternberg's work in the fields of learning and intelligence, I thought it an important topic for blogging. His research and theories are timely for those interested in making schooling more relevant in the 21st century. In particular, the idea that we can become smarter and able to function at higher levels across the lifespan is key today when we are in need of a diverse cadre of problem solvers across the globe.

In some of his latest work, Sternberg writes about the importance of creative and practical thinking, as well as  analytic thinking such as comparing, summarizing, and logical thinking. This work is an example of current knowledge and research that underpins our studies in education, mind and brain. Through these education, mind and brain programs (www.brainsmart.org) effective teachers across the world are now helping their students prepare for adulthood by learning ways of thinking they will be able to use to not only adapt to society as it now exists, but to help shape it into a better world! Let's all do our part to support effective teaching today!

From Cambridge University to Dubai

As usual we have found, read and integrated information from the Cambridge University Press and other bookstores in Cambridge, England. It's exciting to learn from publications found in the oldest operating bookstore in England to add insights about why BrainSMART works so well before heading to Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Most importantly, we are excited about continuing our writing projects as we travel and sharing the great work our graduates and students are doing with others across the world!

BrainSMART Blogging: In Full Support of Teachers

We are proud to introduce our blog! Here is an example of the kinds of strategies that we share on this blog.

I just saw BrainSMART graduate student Diane Dahl's blog at her blog, For the Love of Teaching. Her blog post 'Reading Levels Jump 5 Months in just 2.5 Months' tells how she is using her BrainSMART studies to benefit students. Diane also shared with us that she had a record number of students qualify for gifted programming after teaching her students cognitive and metacognitive strategies.

Though our blog focuses on practical knowledge and strategies for teaching and learning, we also share research from the fields of education, mind, and brain.