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ENVIRONMENT
Physical environment
affects mood and productivity. Make sure that wherever possible,
your student is in an open, spacious, clean and well lit
environment. Such spaces promote creativity and allow enough
room for students of various learning styles to get comfortable.
Be sure to find/create spaces with an abundance of natural
light.
 Remember the concept of Prospect and Refuge.
As humans, as mammals, our basic animal instinct makes us most
comfortable in two types of environments. Prospect spaces allow
us to "hunt", to take in the big picture and survey our options.
Refuge spaces are our retreats...places of solitude, comfort and
safety.
ATMOSPHERE
Focus on supporting risk-taking, inclusion
and providing appropriate levels of challenge.
Learning requires energy
and risk. Surround your child with positive energy and be sure
to celebrate mistakes. Risk-taking must be encouraged as it will
accelerate the learning process. Open dialogues will help to
extract learning from mistakes so that your child can make quick
adjustments and get better results. Find ways to acknowledge
their positive behaviors rather than focusing on their
unproductive ones.
RESOURCES
Educational resources are
getting more abundant and more skilled everyday. Research has
greatly supported the need for Social and Emotional development
as part of the learning process. Physical activity has been
directly linked to the healthy development of a learning brain.
Assemble resources that supplement your child's traditional
education.
Technology - One great way
to create change with resources is to make the use of technology
variable. Challenge students (once in a while) to not use it
where they normally would, and to use it in situations when the
typically would not.
Parents - Can they be enrolled to deliver, support or
create learning experiences?
Teachers - How are we teaming to create better results
for students? Where can we collaborate? How can we support each
other?
NEED
Be sure that your child has
a clear short-term goal and sees the need for improvement and
continuous effort. If they feel a need to change or learn, their
intrinsic motivation will rise and their pro-active engagement
in the learning process will sky rocket.
WIIFM - Every human being
tunes in to the same radio station...it stands for What's In It
For Me. Make sure that you are prepared to convey why this
particular piece of learning is relevant to the learner.
Tap into the 3 key motivators that we learned on the Maze
activity: clear short-term goals, specific support and mistakes
= learning.
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