Abstract
Academie Da Vinci Charter School for the Arts (ADV), the first charter school in Pinellas County, Florida, uncovered a revelation about the lowest quartile of academic performers on standardized testing that has led to a commitment to training innovations designed to transform teaching methods and shift educational paradigms of stakeholders. Although ADV is currently a High Performing Charter School, the discovery occurred during tutoring of the lowest performers, part of ADV’s continuous school improvement efforts. The Instructional Leadership Team (ILT) of practitioner scholars, including ADV’s principal, two professors, and an ADV teacher, found that these lowest performing students, who continually struggled to make gains, exhibited characteristics common in visual-spatial learners (VSLs) (Silverman, 2002). Traditional instruction (sequential, detailed, rational, linear, and analytical) was synonymous with torture for these VSLs (simultaneous, big picture, non-linear, instinctive) who frequently disengaged from step-wise instruction (Pink, 2006). This chapter addresses scholarly treatment of the latest neuroscience research and best practice instructional methodology, while using ADV as an example of how student needs can be approached differently in an environment that respects their neurodiversity.
Date Created
January 2013
STARS Citation
Eadens, Daniel; Ray, Susan; Eadens, Danielle; and Shirer, Katherine, "21st century learning: Educating the whole brain." (2013). EGS Content. 212.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/egs_content/212
https://works.bepress.com/daniel-eadens/28/download/
Included in
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