The Skinny on Learning
How Students Learn and How Teachers Should Teach
The Skinny on Learning program helps educators identify and remediate learning problems by bringing increasingly intense instructional and behavioral interventions to struggling students.
In this evidence-based, neuroscience approach to differentiating instruction, educators gain knowledge on the technical and practical aspects of the learning process and an array of skills, strategies, and tactics to diagnose and respond to multiple learning profiles, factors and situations. These strategies and tactics can be directly applied to the Response to Intervention (RtI) model, as well as to special education.
The goal of The Skinny on Learning program is to increase the achievement of all students through effective and thorough interactive knowledge sessions.
Who is This Program For?
The Skinny on Learning program provides targeted instruction to K-12 classroom teachers, special education teachers, principals, reading and math coaches, reading interventionists, paraprofessionals, social workers and members of a school’s assessment/RtI team.
What are The Program Objectives?
The Skinny on Learning program is intended to increase educators’ capacity to analyze classroom task demands and individual student learning profiles. Through the program’s interactive sessions, educators will develop an array of skills to diagnose and respond to multiple learning profiles, factors, and situations. They will learn skills on how to build learner centered classrooms and be able to account for the needs of all students.
After completion of this program, educators can see increased student achievement, a reduced number of students referred to special education, and will have gained an increased response to each student’s cognitive and emotional profile.
What Does The Program Address?
This program addresses the professional skills and tools for teachers to deconstruct the cognitive components of the learning process – attention, memory, language, higher level thinking, graphomotor (handwriting) and organization (organizing and processing). The program also helps develop over 150 strategies and tactics that can be used in the classroom to meet the needs of individual learners.
Educators can also learn how to use an informal assessment tool to identify and analyze individual students’ areas of strengths and concerns, and to thoughtfully select strategies and tactics appropriate to each student’s learning profile.
What is Our Process?
The Skinny on Learning Program is implemented by learning and intervention specialists, including CDL staff.
Program participants should plan on going through the full program over a 12 month period. Educators will participate in a 4-day interactive summer institute, and/or participate in multiple interactive knowledge-building sessions at the school site.
Application of new knowledge and skill development is supported by monthly technical assistance, including:
- Facilitating large and small group problem-solving sessions
- Coaching and mentoring
- Conducting classroom observations with constructive feedback
- Facilitating review sessions on Learning 4.0 topics at the school site
- E-mentoring and teleconferencing
- Facilitating study groups
- Consulting with individual teachers to identify key strengths and challenges for a specific student, and to match that student’s profile to specific strategies and tactics
- Participating in school assistance team meetings
- Facilitating conversations with parents on Learning 4.0 topics