For Teachers

Join our learning community of teachers across the country. We are developing a wide range of opportunities for teachers to get involved in Mind in the Making. We encourage you to sign up for our email updates so we can keep you informed about upcoming conversations with the field’s leading scientists, new information and research, and other special events.

A few examples:

• Bring Mind in the Making to your classroom: Teachers who include the Mind in the Making book in their course syllabi can sign up for a free Mind in the Making webinar. Ellen Galinsky will pay a virtual "visit" to your classroom to speak with and answer questions from your students. Contact shuang@familiesandwork.org for more information.
   
• Ellen Galinsky will be hosting a series of virtual "office hours" for book clubs and other groups that are reading Mind in the Making.
   
• The Mind in the Making Learning Modules for Early Childhood Teachers are a facilitated learning process consisting of 12 modules that are designed to bridge the gap between research and teaching practice. The Learning Modules are intended to add first-hand experience, using the best research on “minds in the making”—that is, on how young children learn best—to other early childhood education, training and professional development experiences.
   
• COMING SOON: We are now working on revisions to the Modules for Early Childhood Teachers and a series of new learning modules that focus on how important the Seven Essential Skills are in helping children succeed now and in the future. These modules will be released in late 2010.
   
• COMING SOON: In the spring/summer of 2010, we will release a new DVD compilation of 25 of the most important experiments in child development. The Science of Early Learning: From the Classic to the Cutting Edge takes viewers on a series of virtual “field trips” to laboratories across the country. We take an in-depth, behind-the-scenes approach, asking the scientists what their most compelling questions were, how they investigated these questions, and what conclusions they have arrived at. Instead of showing “talking heads,” we show the experiments and the “researchers in action” as they make important discoveries about how children learn.
   

Additional Information about the Learning Modules for Early Childhood Teachers

• giving teachers an experience with their own learning that parallels the research on children;
• viewing videos of leading researchers conducting experiments to show how children learn best;
• helping teachers think about and synthesize the lessons from these experiences;
• trying out what they have learned with children; and
• getting feedback and continuing to apply what they have learned.

According to a University of Pittsburgh study evaluating the Mind in the Making Learning Modules for Early Childhood Teachers in Pennsylvania, teachers who completed the MITM learning modules “contributed to positive, meaningful changes in classroom practices that promote children’s social, emotional and intellectual development.” Furthermore, teachers with different educational levels, and years of experience of teaching and from programs of different levels of quality were equally likely to improve.

The Mind in the Making Learning Modules for Early Childhood Teachers are now being used in the following states: Arizona, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Rhode Island. To find out how to bring Mind in the Making to your community, contact shuang@familiesandwork.org.