HOPE Online Academy Compiling Data

Posted On: July 6, 2015

Dr. Susan McAlonan, HOPE Academy’s Director of Student Services, was the catalyst behind arranging a BrainWise training for 130 faculty and staff members at the school in November, 2014. Dr. McAlonan’s experience with BrainWise came from her previous job as Director of Student Services for Aurora Public Schools, where she saw how the program would benefit the students at HOPE. She is excited by the feedback from the faculty, and reports that the next school year will be even better. She said that HOPE’s research team adapted the BrainWise Knowledge Survey for their students and found high validity among the measures. These results are forthcoming. However, they discovered that the translated version confused Spanish speaking students, and will resolve this issue for the upcoming school year. In-house collection of data was necessary because they were unable to partner with our academic partner, Dr. Welsh and the University of Northern Colorado, to measure executive functions. Strict data gathering regulations require that parent permission be obtained for students to participate in university-conducted research, and getting more than 2900 HOPE students’ parents/guardians to sign release forms was too difficult for them to do.

Please follow and like us:

Teaching BrainWise Since 2010 at the St. Louis Special School District

Prior to the enactment of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, later renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), many states maintained laws that permitted public schools to deny enrollment to children who were deaf, blind, identified as emotionally disturbed, or had intellectual disabilities. In 1970, only one in five children […]

BrainWise-Savvy Teens Analyze Toy Story 5’s Characters

For more than 15 years, high school students involved in Young Rotary community service projects have successfully taught and reinforced BrainWise lessons to elementary school students as well as their peers. The teens’ reach has been extended with communication platforms such as Zoom. BrainWise-trained teens teach and reinforce the 10 Wise Ways to children and […]

BrainWise Problem Solving Worksheet Helps Students Practice Executive Functions

Difficult school experiences can quickly erode students’ curiosity and interest in learning. When they fear failure, their Lizard Brain takes over—triggering anxiety, confusion, shame, and discouragement. Students rarely say, “I’m afraid I’ll fail.” Instead, they send red flags: avoiding contact, acting out, skipping classes, or eventually dropping out. Across decades of research addressing this problem, […]