Improving student learning with the tools of neuroscience and mindfulness. How is expanding students’ strengths more effective than improving their weaknesses? Why is creating a school where staff and students feel safe necessary for learning? How can anchoring with simple mindfulness practices prevent classroom behavioral problems? There is more to a classroom than just a teacher and a group of students. All classroom interactions have “invisible” neurobiological, emotional, and social aspects—the emotional histories of students, the teacher’s own background and biography. In this book, Kirke Olson takes lessons from brain science, mindfulness, and positive psychology to help teachers understand the full range of their students’ school experiences. Using its classroom-ready resources, teachers, administrators, parents, and policy makers can make the invisible visible, turning human investment in their students into the best possible learning outcomes.

Improving student learning with the tools of neuroscience and mindfulness. How is expanding students’ strengths more effective than improving their weaknesses? Why is creating a school where staff and students feel safe necessary for learning? How can anchoring with simple mindfulness practices prevent classroom behavioral problems? There is more to a classroom than just a teacher and a group of students. All classroom interactions have “invisible” neurobiological, emotional, and social aspects—the emotional histories of students, the teacher’s own background and biography. In this book, Kirke Olson takes lessons from brain science, mindfulness, and positive psychology to help teachers understand the full range of their students’ school experiences. Using its classroom-ready resources, teachers, administrators, parents, and policy makers can make the invisible visible, turning human investment in their students into the best possible learning outcomes.

Creating a healthy, social classroom environment.

An orientation to affective neuroscience as it relates to educators. In this ground-breaking collection, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang—an affective neuroscientist, human development psychologist, and former public school teacher—presents a decade of work with the potential to revolutionize educational theory and practice by deeply enriching our understanding of the complex connection between emotion and learning. With her signature talent for explaining and interpreting neuroscientific findings in practical, teacher-relevant terms, Immordino-Yang offers two simple but profound ideas: first, that emotions are such powerful motivators of learning because they activate brain mechanisms that originally evolved to manage our basic survival; and second, that meaningful thinking and learning are inherently emotional, because we only think deeply about things we care about. Together, these insights suggest that in order to motivate students for academic learning, produce deep understanding, and ensure the transfer of educational experiences into real-world skills and careers, educators must find ways to leverage the emotional aspects of learning. Immordino-Yang has both the gift for captivating readers with her research and the ability to connect this research to everyday learning and teaching. She examines true stories of learning success with relentless curiosity and an illuminating mixture of the scientific and the human. What are feelings, and how does the brain support them? What role do feelings play in the brain's learning process? This book unpacks these crucial questions and many more, including the neurobiological, developmental, and evolutionary origins of creativity, facts and myths about mirror neurons, and how the perspective of social and affective neuroscience can inform the design of learning technologies.

One of the five books in the Mental Health and Wellbeing Teacher Toolkit, this practical resource focuses on developing the skills necessary to build and maintain successful relationships. The book offers research-driven, practical strategies, resources and lesson plans to support educators and health professionals. Chapters span key topics including Communication, Respecting Yourself and Others, Resolving Conflict and Team Building. A complete toolkit for teachers and counsellors, this book offers: • Easy-to-follow and flexible lesson plans that can be adapted and personalised for use in lessons, smaller groups or 1:1 work. • Resources that are linked to the PSHE and Wellbeing curriculum for KS1, KS2 and KS3. • New research, ‘Circles for Learning’, where the introduction of baby observation into the classroom by a teacher is used to understand and develop self-awareness, skills for learning, relationships, neuroscience and awareness of others. • Sections on the development of key skills in communication, skills for learning, collaboration, empathy and self-confidence. • Learning links, learning objectives and reflection questions. Offering research-driven, practical strategies and lesson plans, Positive Relationships in School is an essential resource book for practitioners looking to have a positive impact on the mental health and wellbeing of the children and young people in their care: both now and in the future.

Creating a healthy, social classroom environment. This book explains how the brain, as a social organism, learns best throughout the lifespan, from our early schooling through late life. Positioning the brain as distinctly social, Louis Cozolino helps teachers make connections to neurobiological principles, with the goal of creating classrooms that nurture healthy attachment patterns and resilient psyches. Cozolino investigates what good teachers do to stimulate minds and brains to learn, especially when they succeed with difficult or “unteachable” students. He explores classroom teaching from the perspectives of social neuroscience and interpersonal neurobiology, showing how we can use the findings from these fields to maximize learning and stimulate the brain to grow. The book will have relevance to anyone concerned with twenty-first century learners and the social and emotional development of children.

Teaching teachers the importance of social connection in the classroom. Human brains are social, and a student's ability to learn is deeply influenced by the quality of his or her attachment to teachers and peers. Secure attachment relationships not only ensure our overall well-being, but also optimize learning by enhancing motivation, regulating anxiety, and triggering neuroplasticity. This book presents a classroom model of secure attachment, exploring how teacher-student rapport is central to creating supportive, "tribal" classrooms and school communities.