Sessions

Michael Gurian’s presentations are a highlight of the Summer Training Institute. He is a dynamic and energetic presenter, challenging his audiences to consider new and innovative ways of awakening both girls and boys to the wonders of learning and life.

Michael is a social philosopher, family therapist, and educator. The Gurian Institute, which he co-founded, conducts research, launches pilot programs and trains professionals internationally. Michael has been called "the people's philosopher" for his ability to bring together people's ordinary lives and scientific ideas.

He has pioneered efforts to bring neuro-biology and brain research into homes, schools and public policy. A number of his ground-breaking books in child development have sparked national debate, including NURTURE THE NATURE, THE MINDS OF BOYS (co-authored with Kathy Stevens), THE WONDER OF GIRLS, THE WONDER OF BOYS, BOYS AND GIRLS LEARN DIFFERENTLY!, and THE PURPOSE OF BOYS (April 2009).

In this inspirational, practical, and humorous presentation, Michael focuses on helping children of all ages succeed in school and life. Because boys and girls experience their home and school life differently, he explores how the minds of boys and girls develop distinctly— and how parents, educators and others working with children and families can care for and support the needs of both daughters and sons.

This session traces how a child’s learning mind grows, how girls’ and boys’ learn and grow differently, how acculturation influences boys and girls and how crucial school success has become to life success. Michael brings to life the developmental science of girls’ and boys’ minds and subsequent Institute sessions focus on the practical methods by which to raise and educate those minds.

Please note: space will be limited to the first 75 who register for this session.

Each of us enters the educational working environment not only as a human being, but as a woman or a man. Each workday is a meeting of gender-different styles, modes of operating, and leadership skills.

The organization that utilizes the differences between men and women is the organization that discovers significant advantages. The organization that helps both genders understand each other has committed to maximum success, not only for the students they serve, but for the men and women that provide the services.

In this presentation, Michael provides a balanced, gender-positive approach that will help men and women in the educational workplace support each other and bring the best they have to offer to their leadership in classrooms, on administrative teams, while working with parents and in the board room!

Monday, July 13, alternative afternoon sessions from 1:00pm - 2:30pm (SELECT ONE)

The Adolescent Brain - A Work in Progress
with Kathy Stevens, executive director of the Gurian Institute

Kathy Stevens is co-author of THE MINDS OF BOYS (with Michael Gurian), Strategies For Teaching Boys and Girls: Elementary Level and Strategies For Teaching Boys and Girls: Secondary Level (2008) (both with Michael & Kelley King), and Successful Single-Sex Classrooms: A Practical Guide to Teaching Boys & Girls Separately (with Michael and Peggy Daniels).

Kathy is an international presenter and coordinates training for GI, including the annual Summer Institute.

Watching students pour into the halls when the passing bell rings in any high school, it’s easy to forget we’re seeing children.

But we are seeing children—children whose bodies may look all grown up, but whose brains are still moving toward a maturity they won’t reach for a number of years, egging them on to take chances, seek novelty, ignore warnings, respond to impulses they don’t fully understand.

In recent years, cutting edge research has helped us to better understand the learning styles of male and female adolescents, addressing questions like: What happens to boys and girls when their bodies begin the transformation from child to young adult? What does it all mean for teachers?

We know that the adolescent brain is truly a work in progress! How should that knowledge impact how we raise and educate our middle and high school students? This session will explore the teen brain and propose answers to these important questions.

It's a Boy! It's a Girl! Now What??
with Adie Goldberg, certified trainer of the Gurian Institute

Adie Goldberg, MSW, M.Ed. has a private clinical practice at Woman- Health, an OB-GYN practice in Spokane, Washington. Twenty years of working with pregnant and new families has provided Adie with a wealth of clinical experience and anecdotal tales.

She is co-author of two Gurian Institute books: It’s a Baby Boy! and It’s a Baby Girl! (Jossey-Bass Jan. 2009)

In utero babies are already becoming boys and girls. This session will provide scientific information that validates what your grandmother already knew, “boys and girls really are different.”

Participants will look at fetal and early childhood development and expand their gender skills toolbox in supporting infants and toddlers with the developmental tasks of early childhood. Topics addressed include: how to support a boy/girl’s developing senses, language development, bonding and attachment, play and socialization.

Participants will discuss and practice activities which can enhance how parents and childhood educators approach boys and girls during this critical developmental phase of life.

Monday, July 13, alternative afternoon sessions from 2:45pm - 4:15pm (SELECT ONE)

Making a Good Brain Great!
Teaching Kids Brain Science
with Kathy Stevens, executive director of the Gurian Institute

Does our brain come with an owner’s manual? No! Wouldn’t it be helpful if it did and we knew how to keep our most important organ working well for a lifetime?

This session will provide strategies for teachers at all age levels to help children learn how their brain works and what they need to do to keep it healthy. Giving children the knowledge they need to think about their own brain health can change their lives forever. And it can bring some real fun into the classroom!

Frances R. Spielhagen, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Education at Mount Saint Mary College, Newburgh, New York, where she teaches both pre-service and in-service teachers. She also conducts professional development for school districts across the United States.

She has been researching single-sex education since 2002 and is the author of the book, Debating Single-Sex Education: Separate and Equal (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007).

Teachers, administrators, and parents seek to address the social and academic needs of students, especially young adolescents, by electing to separate the students according to their gender. Rarely have the students themselves been asked what they think about their single-sex classes, even though they are the key stakeholders in this growing educational reform.

When educational lives hang in the balance, it is appropriate to ask students what they think of the changes that are made on their behalf. This session will explore the viewpoints of young adolescents who, either by decision or design, found themselves in single-sex classes and schools. Participants in this session will learn how students have responded to their single-sex classes.

Two specific groups of students will be explored: one in which the teachers had no training in gender differences and another in which the teachers had received Gurian Institute training. Participants will explore “lessons learned” from each situation and take away practical advice on how to avoid problems and pitfalls in implementing single-sex
classes, directly from the mouths of the students themselves.

In the Company of Women
with Claudia Sherry, certified trainer of the Gurian Institute

Claudia Sherry has served as the Lower School Principal at Carolina Day School in Asheville, North Carolina, since 1992, supervising grades PK-5. Carolina Day School is a college preparatory, co-educational, independent day school for students in grades PK-12.

She has a BS degree from Cornell University and a master’s degree in educational administration from Western Carolina University. In recent years her own professional development has focused on what brain research tells us about educating our children.

Claudia's first steps included training with Eric Jensen (his six-day institute, “Teaching with the Brain in Mind,” and his three-day workshop, “The Fragile Brain”) and lots of reading and research on her own.

This led to a series of workshops and in-service trainings that she co-facilitated with a colleague for various schools and organizations in North Carolina. It was entitled ”The M&M’s of Brain-Compatible Learning,” and they discussed how the brain impacts learning with a focus on (e)motions, motivation, meaning, memory, movement, and music.

How can women help girls mature into balanced, confident, and fulfilled adults? It is important for girls to have multiple role models who have taken different paths in life, demonstrating the variety of opportunities that women have.

In this workshop we will look at how an understanding of the emotional needs of girls can guide us as we teach and mentor girls throughout their journey, from childhood to young adulthood.

Dr. John J. Ratey, M.D., is our featured guest speaker this year. A book signing will follow his presentation. Dr. Ratey is an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and has a private practice in Cambridge, MA.

For more than a decade he taught residents and Harvard medical students as the Assistant Director of Resident training at Massachusetts Mental Health Center. He continues to teach psychiatrists as a regular instructor in Harvard’s Continuing Medical Education program. As a clinical researcher he has published more than 60 papers in peer-review journals in the fields of psychiatry and psychopharmacology.

Dr. Ratey co-authored Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood through Adulthood (1994), the first in a series of books that demystify the disorder and Shadow Syndromes (1997) where he describes the phenomenon of milder forms of clinical disorders. He authored the bestselling book, A User's Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention and the Four Theaters of the Brain (2000) which translates how neuroscience affects emotions, behavior and overall psychology.

Dr. Ratey’s latest book, SPARK: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain (January 10, 2008) is a groundbreaking and fascinating investigation into the transformative effects of exercise on the brain. SPARK embarks upon a fascinating and entertaining journey through the mind-body connection, presenting amazing case studies, such as the revolutionary fitness program in Naperville, Illinois, which put this school district of 19,000 kids first in the world of science test scores. SPARK is the first book to explore comprehensively the connection between exercise and the brain. It will change forever the way you think.

Since 1998 Dr. Ratey has been selected each year as one of the best doctors in America by his peers. Most recently, Dr. Ratey was the recipient of the 2006 Excellence in Advocacy award from the non-profit group PE4Life, for his work to promote the adoption of regular, aerobic-based physical education.

You Want Me to Read What??
Literacy and the Male Brain
with Kathy Stevens, executive director of the Gurian Institute

Boys begin falling behind in literacy soon after they start school and their struggles affect not only their own academic success but the performance of the schools they attend. How can we change the environment so that boys and schools change the trajectory of literacy performance beginning in kindergarten and continuing through high school graduation?

Lighting the Spark in Our Girls
in Math and Science
with Claudia Sherry, certified trainer of the Gurian Institute

The common perception among educators is that girls are "doing fine" in math and science, and our focus should be on the very obvious needs of our boys.

While girls have made significant gains in math in the past 15-20 years, boys continue to outnumber girls 13:1 at the highest levels of math giftedness, a statistic that has held steady for nearly 30 years. The same is seen at the highest levels in science, with women still under-represented in professions in math, physics, chemistry, engineering and technology.

The good news? Even with the hard-wired brain differences that can make these subjects more challenging for girls, educators can learn how to use girls' strengths to enhance their performance in math and science and to light their spark. This session will focus on strategies that can make a difference for our girls and build their self-confidence in these two critical academic areas.

Understanding Aggression in Boys and Girls
with Mary Spence, PhD, certified trainer of the Gurian Institute

Mary F. Spence, Ph.D. has worked in the field of psychology 25 years, with over 12 years of experience as a school psychologist. Working in the schools, she is concerned about the disproportionality of boys in special education and the difficulties that a primarily female profession has reaching young boys. Finding creative ways to engage both boys and girls in learning is a heart felt passion for her continued growth, research and support for teaching staff, parents and students themselves.

Discipline statistics in K-12 education consistently show the vast majority of discipline referrals and actions being levied at boys. High profile events such as Columbine and Virginia Tech have increased overall anxiety and fear among school staff and parents about the need for strict controls on aggressive acts.

Increased understanding of how girls use relational aggression has also created more challenges to educators, as the acts themselves are often less visible. Dramatic increases in technology for social networking and the perceived anonymity of this venue is also changing the landscape of how teens learn to engage in conflict and use aggression to solve problems.

Significant administrative and teacher management issues are presented as schools grapple with assisting young people with the tasks of learning how to effectively use aggression within socially acceptable boundaries; skills essential to the healthy growth of boys and girls as part of ongoing emotional development required to be a balanced and independent adult.

This workshop will provide an overview of discipline research, conceptual frameworks for aggressive nurturance and relational aggression, and issues presented with the ever increasing use of technology, including challenges of how to support such growth in the age of Zero Tolerance.

Dr. Amaya is an Associate Professor of Education at the Universidad de Monterrey. His areas of specialty are: reading process, brainbased learning and gender education, bilingual education and ESL, and family and marriage education.

He is the author of nine books published in Spanish, including “Gifts 1, 2 and 3. Reading and Writing Difference Program for Boys and Girls.”

Why do girls get better grades than boys? Why do female valedictorians outnumber male valedictorians?

Why do self-disciplined adolescents outperform their more impulsive peers in academic achievement? Because they are better able to deal with their self-discipline and emotions.

The main purpose of this session is to describe the gender differences in self-discipline and emotional management and its effect on academic achievement. Also, this session will provide you with some practical instructional strategies to use in your classroom.

Assessing Classroom Implementation
with Dakota Hoyt, certified trainer of the Gurian Institute

Using exciting new assessment tools developed by Dakota for Gurian Institute pilot projects, this session will help administrators and classroom teachers assess how well gender-friendly strategies are actually being implemented in their classrooms, and help schools determine how to move from low knowledge—low implementation to high knowledge—high implementation!

Copies of the tools will be distributed to all session participants for implementation back at their schools along with practical application techniques to make them immediately useful.

Dr. Kastelic is a professional educator. She has been a teacher, a department head, and an Assistant Principal of one of the largest high schools in Colorado. Diana has a PhD in Education Administration, from the University of Denver.

In 2006, Dr. Kastelic spent nearly a month interviewing and shadowing four female students in a suburban high school in metropolitan Denver, Colorado. She spent three days with each student, living their school life and found this shadowing experience, which she named “Days in the Lives” of these young people, to be one of the most enlightening experiences of her career. She repeated the experience with male high school students.

Since her shadowing experience, she has asked several long time educators (many of them high school or district level administrators) if they have ever taken the time to fully understand the student experience, and short of one person’s brief experience, they had not.

Students have great insights into and understanding of their experiences in school. Successful students are mindful of their own intentions, embracing of the intentions of authentic leaders and quick to recognize when they are being patronized. When we truly understand the student experience, we may be surprised by what we learn.

This presentation will compare the differences between girls and boys’ high school experiences, their intentions for their educational experiences and the school culture which supports student success.

It's a Boy! It's a Girl! Now What??
with Adie Goldberg, certified trainer of the Gurian Institute

In utero babies are already becoming boys and girls. This session will provide scientific information that validates what your grandmother already knew, “boys and girls really are different.”

Participants will discuss and practice activities which can enhance how parents and childhood educators approach boys and girls during this critical developmental phase of life.

Developing Sustainable Professional Development
with Kathy Stevens, executive director of the Gurian Institute

This session will show participants how to develop a sustainable professional development plan to create a school-wide culture of addressing the educational needs of both boys and girls, whether they are returning to a school that is entirely coed, implementing some single-sex classes or in a single-sex environment. Developing a self-sustaining professional development model will improve individual student performance and overall school performance.

The sessions are all-day, age-level specific and will give participants a tool box full of practical strategies that can be used in any classroom to increase teacher effectiveness and make sure the needs of both boys and girls are being met.

(SELECT ONE AGE LEVEL)

Birth-K with Dakota Hoyt, Betsy Hoke and Adie Goldberg, certified trainers of the Gurian Institute
Elementary School with Kelley King, associate director of the Gurian Institute, and Doug MacIsaac, certified trainer
Middle School with Peggy Daniels and Rick Price, certified trainers
High School with Kathy Stevens, executive director of the Gurian Institute, and Claudia Sherry, certified trainer

Down From the Mountaintop!
I Learned It...I Love It...Now What Do I Do??
with Fran Spielhagen, PhD

One of the challenges facing Gurian Institute participants is how to process the volume of information that they have gained over their week’s experience. Particularly challenging is returning to their school environments and trying to translate what they have learned to their daily practice.

In many ways, the Gurian Summer Institute is a “mountaintop” experience, in which important ideas are examined in a supportive environment among people who share the same basic interests. Returning down from the mountain, figuratively and literally, requires some tools that will allow participants to develop practical ways to make the ideas they have discussed an integral part of their own lives.

Participants will discuss the challenges they face when they return to their home schools. They will learn how to address those challenges, whether they are institutional or interpersonal, in ways that allow them to preserve their enthusiasm and see results from their good intentions.

The presenter is an experienced teacher-educator, who also has 34 years experience in the K-12 arena. She will provide specific tools for addressing re-entry into one’s real life and how to make the valuable suggestions learned on top of the mountain part of daily routines.

Now What? Developing An Action Plan — Come together as a school team or form a team with your new Summer Institute friends! The goal of our action-planning session is to bring together what you've learned throughout the week AND to figure out how it all applies back where you work.

This FUN (and funny!) and practical session will provide you with an effective action-planning tool that you can take back to your organization to get everyone working together and celebrating common goals.