History of Mediated Learning at Destiny School

Home of Mediated Learning - Overview – of MLE DESTINY SCHOOL RED DEER, AB . . .HOME OF MEDIATED LEARNING Where students discover “HOW THEY LEARN” and are enabled to reach their academic potential. MLE OFFERS: *BRIGHT START - for children ages 3 to 7 - tools that focus on the development of children’s thinking processes and strategies, which are core prerequisites for formal learning. *TEACHERS mediate learning, bridge curriculum and provide learning opportunities using Feuerstein’s 14 instruments. *Students are INDIVIDUALLY assessed and mediated to discover their learning style, by trained staff and volunteers using the MLE tools. Our Goal: To help students become strategic thinkers and discover their learning potential Overview of MLE What was our Action Plan? Who are the People Involved? What are our Programs? What We Have in Place Now? What is Our Future? Overview of Mediated Learning at Destiny School Destiny’s interest in Mediated Learning Experience started in August 2002. We were told by a fellow educator about an amazing program he was using that put children over the top in learning success regardless of their learning style. What was our Action Plan? We contacted Ingrid Jeffrey, who was at that time a Clinical Associate Professor at the U of BC, Director of Variety Learning Centre and the Head of Speech – Language Pathology for the Vancouver School Board. Ingrid studied with Professor Feuerstein in Israel. She is trained in all the applied Mediated Learning Systems (Feuerstein Instrumental Enrichment, Level I, II and III, Bright Start, trainer status for “Learning Propensity Assessment Device”, Dynamic Assessment of young Children). Her experience with Mediated Learning extends over a period of 15 years. The second trainer, Kathleen Jeffrey, has completed her training level in Belgium for “Bright Start” and her “Feuerstein Instrumental Enrichment” trainer status in Israel. We registered one of our staff for “Learning Propensity Assessment Device’ and two staff for “Bright Start” and completed our training at Variety Learning Centre in Vancouver in August 2002. After 40 hours of active involvement, we were very impressed with Dynamic Assessment and Bright Start as tools to learn about our learning styles and to sharpen our alertness and aptitude for learning. During the school year of 2002/2003 we proceeded to use 10 of the 12 Assessing tools with the children at Destiny. We noted that the children had a high level of interest in discovering how they learn. The summer of August 2003, Destiny School hosted and administrated our first MLE Training Conference in Red Deer, Alberta with Ingrid and Kathleen Jeffrey. We offered Level I FIE and had 36 educators from BC, Saskatchewan, and Alberta attend. The school year 2003/2004 took on a new excitement with weekly FIE classes and the use of our first 4 instruments. The summer of August 2004, Destiny School hosted and administrated our second MLE Training Conference in Alberta with Ingrid and Kathleen Jeffrey. We offered Level I and II FIE and had 40 educators join us for this training. During the 2004/2005 school year we added 5 more FIE instruments to our MLE classes. The summer of August 2005, Destiny School hosted and administrated our third MLE Training Conference in Alberta with Ingrid and Kathleen Jeffrey. We offered Level I and III FIE and had 50 educators join us for this training. We have now completed our training and are able to use all 14 FIE instruments for student instruction. Our plan for August 2006 is to offer training for Bright Start and Level II FIE. Our plan for July 2006 is to send two of our staff to the training for “The Blended Sound Sight Program of Learning”. Who are the People Involved? 1. Prof. Reuven Feuerstein,  Educational Psychologist, founder of the International Center for the Enhancement of Learning Potential in Israel  http://www.icelp.org 2. H. Carl Haywood  Bright Start: Cognitive Curriculum for Young Children  Belgium 3. David Tzuriel  Clinical and Educational Psychologist  Assessing Tools for Young Children  Bar-Ilan University Israel 4. Ingrid Jeffrey B.A.,M.Sc.,SL(c)  Executive Director of M.L.E. Training & Research Society  www.mediatedlearningacademy.com 5. Kathleen Jeffrey B.A.A., B.A., PDP  Principal of Mediated Learning Academy  Mediated Learning Academy 550 Thompson Ave. Coquitlam, BC V3J 3Z8 What are our Programs? 1. LPAD - Learning Propensity Assessment Device  (12 Dynamic Assessing Tools)  Developed by Prof. Reuven Feuerstein 2. FIE Feuerstein Instrumental Enrichment  Working through these instruments enables each student to develop the necessary cognition for learning how to learn.  14 Instruments in text and workbook form o Organization of Dots, Orientation in Space I, Comparisons, Analytic Perception, Categorization, Numerical Progressions, Family Relations, Temporal Relations, Illustrations, Instructions, Orientation in Space II, Transitive Relations, Syllogisms, Representational Stencil Design 3. Bright Start  A cognitive curriculum for children from three to seven years old.  The primary goal of Bright Start is one of broadening children’s understanding and thinking processes, thereby increasing their educability.  Developed by H. Carl Haywood 4. Dynamic Assessment Tools for small children  CMB – Cognitive Modifiability Battery  CSTM – Children’s Seriational Thinking Modifiability Test  CITM –Children’s Inferential Thinking Modifiability Test  Developed by David Tzuriel 5. Teachers who are mediational in their teaching style. 6. Cognition is the focus of learning and we develop a cognitive map for each child. MEDIATED LEARNING Feuerstein’s Instrumental Enrichment (14) Year 1ORGANIZATION OF DOTS Provides practice in projecting virtual relationships through tasks that require an individual to identify and outline given figures within a cloud of dots. This instrument provides the prerequisites for learning by activating a variety of cognitive functions, including perception, organization, conservation and visual transport. ORIENTATION IN SPACE 1 Deals with the concepts of a relative system of reference for localizing objects in space and in relation to one another. Students learn why there are differing points of view in the perception of an object or experience and how to relate to an opinion that is different from their own. COMPARISIONS Provides concepts, labels, operations, and relationships with which to describe similarities and differences. The instrument increases and individual’s ability to differentiate between parameters of comparison and helps develop the cognitive functions involved in comparative behavior. Students learn to organize and integrate separate and distinct bits of information into coordinated and meaningful systems of thought. ANALYTIC PERCEPTION Teaches strategies for differentiation (dividing a whole into its parts) and integration (joining parts into a whole). This encourages attitudinal and motivational changes in an individual’s approach to reality by developing cognitive strategies for differentiation and integration. Students begin to differentiate between inner and outer sources of reference. They are then able to form and discriminately use internal referents for processing information. YEAR 2 CATEGORIZATION Helps students with the difficulties they have in organizing items into categories. Students develop the flexibility and divergent thinking necessary for categorizing and recategorizing the same objects into different sets as the principles and parameters of categorization change with new needs and objectives. NUMERICAL PROGRESSIONS Helps students search for and deduce relationships that describe the connections between separate objects or events. Students learn to draw accurate conclusions regarding the cause of transitions and progressions as the instrument increases their ability to compare, infer, and reason deductively. This mediates precision, discrimination, and the willingness to defer judgment until all of the elements have been worked out in determining a common rule for a progression. FAMILY RELATIONS Uses a system of relationships to link separate beings and categories. Kinship becomes a vehicle by which to teach symmetrical, asymmetrical, vertical, horizontal, and hierarchical relationships. This instrument also emphasizes the necessary and sufficient conditions for inclusion in and exclusion from categories. The tasks demand precise use of language in encoding and decoding information and require inferential thinking, analytic thinking, and deductive reasoning to justify conclusions based on logical evidence. TEMPORAL RELATIONS Develops students’ ability to use temporal concepts to describe and order their experiences. It helps mediate an adequate temporal orientation and an appropriate and precise use of temporal concepts and relationships. INSTRUCTIONS Focuses on encoding and decoding verbal and written information. Instructions helps students learn how to carry out complex instructions by integrating the instructions’ separate elements, both explicit and implicit. Through the insights students gain into the reasons for their successes and failures and the instrument’s demand for clarity and precision in communication, students are transformed into generators of information, able to interpret and transmit complex instructions. YEAR 3 ILLUSTRATIONS ORIENTATION IN SPACE II TRANSITIVE RELATIONS Is the property of being transferable from one pair of terms to another. The type of relations by which we reason from two premises, united by a mean or “middle term” to a conclusion. SYLLOGISMS Deals with formal propositional logic. The instrument attempts to make the student critical in analyzing propositions and premises for their truth. Through tasks the students gain awareness of all the possible alternatives, and through inference, discriminate between valid and invalid conclusions and between possible and inevitable alternatives. It aims at producing in the learner a need for considering the implications of given propositions and justifying conclusions with logical evidence. REPRESENTATIONAL STENCIL DESIGN Capitalizes on functions acquired in all of the earlier instruments and permits their application in situations that require complex levels of representational internalized behavior. Consists of tasks in which the student must construct mentally a design that is identical to that in a colored standard. What We Have in Place Now? 1. Bright Start  Program used in play school and ECS to Grade 2  One trained teacher  Two adult volunteers, who have taken the Level I and III FIE training, work one-on-one with the ECS children to complete all of the MLE exercises (CMB & CITM)  One adult volunteer, who is trained in Level I FIE, works one-on-one with play school children (CMB) 2. Dynamic Assessment Training (LPAD)  Two trained teachers  12 assessment tools  One day a week with children from ECS to Grade 8 3. FIE Classes  All teachers have three years of training  Weekly classes using FIE texts and workbooks 4. One-on-One MLE Tools  Three trained adults (Levels I and III)  Work with individual students grades 1-8  CMB, CSTM & CITM 5. AISI Through AISCA  Third year of three year pilot project with MLE  Evaluating progress using yearly CTBS tests 6. Students Files  MLE: Summarizes their Dynamic Assessment and individual MLE exercises  FIE: Records and summarizes their Instrumental lessons  Our future plan is to set up a data base to better track student progress 7. Parent Connection  Four times a year  Parents participate in MLE tools  A very positive happening that has opened communication between students and parents on how they learn 8. MLE Interviews  Two interviews with each family per year  Review the MLE file for their child/children  A strategy meeting on how parents can understand and work with their child/children’s learning style What is Our Future? We believe the tools are an answer in helping each child discover his/her learning style and thereby become a confident, independent learner. Our goal is to make students strategic thinkers who will discover and grow their learning potential. We would embrace the opportunity to continue offering Mediated Learning through High School. Because we value Mediated Learning, we will continue to facilitate MLE training of teachers and parents. By September, 2006, we want to have ECS to Grade 4 teachers trained in “The Blended Sound Sight Program of Learning”. We plan to use this as our LA program from ECS to Grade 4. We have one staff trained in the program now. By September 2007, we want to have every LA teacher trained in “Blended Structure & Style in Composition”.