If coaching executive skills were a football game, this would be the playbook

The most informative, practical guide available on the topic

Invaluable to teachers, counselors and school psychologists who work with students with executive skills deficits

Translates cutting-edge research into meaningful, practical, well-organized and easy-to-implement strategies

Smart but Scattered co-author, Peg Dawson, is coming to VT-HEC on February 2 & 3 to share her celebrated program on coaching for improvement of Executive Skills.  With co-author, Richard Guare, their books have covered the critical importance of Executive Skills for success in the 21^st Century for kids, tweens, teens and adults. They cover how to assess those skills and how to develop programs to improve them. Peg will be here for a two day workshop on how to coach improvement in executive skills with a follow-up course option where you can be coached on implementing their program by the author who wrote the books on coaching and executive skills.

What other have said of this work:

A unique and marvelous book that presents a coaching model for students with executive skills deficits including those that have ADHD. It is the most informative, practical guide available on the topic –  filled with strategies that can be readily implemented.  Russell A. Barkley, PhD, ABPP, Dept. of Psychiatry, Medical University of So. Carolina

If coaching kids with executive skills deficits were a football game, this would be the playbook.  It provides both theory and the details on how to implement a coaching program… synthesizes cutting-edge research on learning and the brain into an accessible approach. As a student of child development and the brain I strongly recommend it  Thomas (Lee) Reynolds MD,  psychatrist, North Canton

invaluable to teachers, counselors and school psychologists who work with students with executive skills deficits… provides constructive, step-by-step guidance on what it means to  have an executive skills deficit and how to implement an effective coaching program.  Peter Farrel, PhD CPsychol, FBPsS, University of Manchester, United Kingdom

for more information –  vthec.org

While the emphasis on school transformation focuses on standards, cognitive skills, and teaching strategies, research is mounting that character, culture and social/emotional development may be just as important.

The programs described below may emphasize different qualities and have somewhat different strategies but they have strong common themes and have all been associated with increases in student progress and/or improved student behavior, perseverence, etc.

• Character education focuses on a curriculum teaching students qualities like honesty, kindness, perseverence and responsibility.
• Social/emotional development programs key on relationships, problem solving and caring.
• Some efforts put the focus on increasing positive feelings and interactions.
• Other efforts  put the focus on school culture and look to apply similar qualities into the whole school environment. (more…)

Teachers as Persuaders, Problem-Finding vs Problem-Solving and Learning Goals vs Performance Goals

One of our favorite authors, Daniel Pink (Drive), has a new book and was recently interviewed by Larry Ferlazzo for Education Week.  Pink’s new book is titled: To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth about Moving Others.  In this conversation with Ferlazzo, Pink talks about how teachers can “sell” more to students to help them to become self-directed lifelong learners and how current education practices, assessments, etc. help or hinder us in this goal. (more…)

Is High Quality Early Education a Good Investment?

We have often heard educators say that it pays to invest in early childhood development, but what would an economist say about  early childhood education as a public investment? In his article, “The Economics of Inequality”, economist James Heckman explores that question, not just from the moral equal opportunity viewpoint, but also from the perspective of investment return and the factors that will be most effective in increasing the productivity of the American economy. (more…)