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How to Stimulate Learning by Incorporating the 5 Senses

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How do you learn?

As an educator, you are likely familiar with the VARK model and how that influences learning approaches and outcomes. However, how do you go beyond that to stimulate learning in a way that helps your students absorb and retain information? 

One way you can do this is by using the five senses. If you want to learn how to stimulate learning through the five senses, keep reading.

What Are the Five Senses?

When discussing the five senses of human beings, we are discussing touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing. These five senses are well-known to most. 

While we are not limited to just these five senses as humans, these are the ones we will focus on today

Why Is Stimulating Learning Through the Five Senses Effective?

When you learn something by utilizing the five senses, neural pathways are created in the correlating area of your brain. When these pathways are created, through the use of the five senses, it helps your brain reactivate the connections and recall the information when you need it again. 

When you use more than one sensory channel in the learning process, there are more connections, and that makes it even easier to retrieve the memory from the recesses of your brain at another time and repeatedly.

 

Touch

Touch is one of the earliest ways humans learn. Through touch, we can explore the world around us and discover our environments. 

Stimulating learning through touch is especially great for children who are kinesthetic learners. However, touch is an excellent way for any child to learn. 

There are many activities you can incorporate into your classroom to help your students learn through touch.

How to Stimulate Learning Through Touch

When you touch something, what does it teach you? Well, it depends. 

If you are touching a stove that is hot, it can teach you cause and effect. Touch also teaches through natural consequences. Obviously, you do not want students in your classroom to learn through dangerous actions such as touching something hot. 

So how do you take this concept and transport it to the classroom while providing a safe learning environment? The answer to this question will vary depending on the age of the children and the concept you are teaching. 

Infancy to Two Years Old 

Touch is a very important learning tool for children in this age range. Touch not only teaches about objects and textures but also about how things work. Touch enhances necessary motor skills. 

Allowing young children to manipulate different materials helps with coordination, hand strength, and manual dexterity. Activities such as fingerprinting encourage pre-literacy skills and expression of feelings, as well as learning colors. 

Exploring textures allows younger kids to develop their sense of touch. In addition, you can practice identification through touch. Touching items in a box without looking will help to learn how different objects feel. This activity calls on critical thinking skills at an age-appropriate level. 

School Age 

As children get older, what they learn through touch will shift and evolve. However, there are simple ways to enable your students to learn through touch. 

Are you teaching children in your classroom about weight and measurements? Have your students lift items and feel the different weights. Ask them to identify what objects are heavier and which are lighter. 

What about temperature? You can have your students touch different items to identify temperature. If you’re trying to give lessons in texture, you can have students touch and describe different objects. 

You can also have students collect items from the natural world by taking them to various outdoor settings to collect and categorize items by their sense of touch. These collections can then be expressed through the feelings they invoke.

Beyond Lesson Time

Beyond lesson time, you can continue to stimulate learning through the temperature of the classroom. Students learn better at around 72 degrees Fahrenheit. 

There have been various studies that have shown that the temperature of the classroom directly impacts learning. For optimal learning outcomes, you do not want your students to be too hot or too cold.

Taste

Does taste sound a little confusing? How in the world do children learn through taste? You can go with the easy method of learning the difference between sour, sweet, salty, and savory. 

However, you can stimulate learning on a much deeper level. Beyond what is commonly understood. 

How to Stimulate Learning Through Taste

You can help students learn through taste in science, geography, languages, and more. If you are teaching students Spanish or another language, utilize food in your lessons that teach about cultural foods that rise from the terrain, weather, and access to agricultural products. 

If you are teaching geography, cook with your students and incorporate recipes from different geographical regions. Take time to taste the foods and describe their flavors and the feeling each student experienced. . If you’re teaching science, make rock candy or bake with your students to teach them how different chemicals interact with each other and create varying flavors. 

In math, you can teach your students about measurements by teaching them how to follow a recipe and layout ingredients. They can double or cut recipes in half. They can also add and remove ingredients to understand the impact each has on taste. Students can be taught, through these activities to collect data and demonstrate their actions through graphing. In English, you can teach descriptive writing by having students create stories and poems about what emotions and feelings are brought up by taste.

Beyond Lesson Time

Did you know that students who eat peppermint during a test score better? Studies test scores rise by ten percent as compared to students who did not eat a peppermint. 

Smell

The smell is our strongest sense. It has the ability to influence brain activity directly. 

The sense of smell is tied to our limbic system. This system connects to the parts of your brain that are responsible for processing learning and emotions.

How to Stimulate Learning Through Smell

Have you ever seen the Disney movie, Anastasia? When she goes to Paris to meet her grandmother, her memories, which have been long locked away, are triggered by the smell of peppermint. 

Different smells become associated with memories and people. You can utilize this in the classroom to help your students learn. 

For example, if you are teaching your students about plants and flowers in a science section, grab some strong-smelling flowers and have your students smell them. Linking this smell to the lesson will create a neural pathway that can later be recalled. As with our sense

Beyond Lesson Time

Over recent years, aromatherapy has become more popular. People are realizing the power of smell and how it can impact the brain and body. 

There are certain scents you can utilize in your classroom to help your students. Lavender will help with calming your students. It relaxes and helps students pay better attention. 

Rosemary helps ensure that your students do not struggle with mental fatigue. It also helps students improve memory attention and fight exhaustion. 

Peppermint helps to increase your student’s energy levels. If your students tend to hit a midday slump, peppermint may be your solution. It also helps to improve concentration and helps students think clearly.

Sight

When it comes to sight, this is one of the most overlooked senses. When we are engaging in activities, sight is automatically incorporated.

The Anastasia reference from above talks about how Anastasia’s memory was triggered by scent. However, if you recall, immediately after, her memory was triggered even further by the sight of a music box. 

Certain items and colors can help to create memories and stimulate learning. 

How do you utilize sight in the classroom in a way that really helps to encourage learning and helps create neural pathways?

How to Stimulate Learning Through Sight

Do you tend to simply write on the chalkboard or give out black and white handouts to incorporate sight into your student’s learning? While this certainly doesn’t hurt, there are ways you can create your materials to allow them to be even more beneficial to your students. 

When you are incorporating sight into learning, the most important thing you can do is add color. Black and white are not motivating or stimulating. Various colors can activate different responses. 

In addition, color can help prevent boredom. Here is the caution that comes along with that; there is a balance that is needed. It is possible to overstimulate children and distract them from the task at hand if the visual cues become too much.

You can also add visual aids to your teaching in order to stimulate learning in that method. This is especially helpful for children who are visual learners.

Beyond Lesson Time

Did you know that you can stimulate learning through your classroom decorations? Motivational and inspirational quotes can inspire your students to work harder. 

However, it goes even further; the colors you choose for your classroom can play a role in learning. For example, the color orange can help boost memory and critical thinking skills. Green can help with your student’s concentration by calming them. 

While the color red can act as an energizer and promote creativity. There are various colors you can utilize in your classroom; however, red, orange, green, blue, and yellow are all colors that will help stimulate learning in various ways.

Hearing

Last but not least, you can stimulate learning through hearing. This last one may seem a little obvious; you stand in front of your students and talk and teach; stimulating learning through hearing is a no-brainer. 

However, taking this a step further is easy and essential in the classroom.

How to Stimulate Learning Through Hearing

Stimulating learning through hearing can be done easily; however, it does require you to think about it. Going back to the example of Anastasia, when she is opening the music box, she begins to hum a song. 

When that song begins playing from the music box, she is able to remember more. Sound can help trigger memories that are saved in various neural pathways as much as sight or smell can. 

You can incorporate hearing into many subjects. For example, if you are working on reading with your students, give them a set of headphones and an audiobook and paper book. Have them follow along in the book as they listen to the story being read. 

For younger children, play tapes of animal noises for your students to help them identify the animal and make new connections between sight and sound.

Do you remember making a rainstorm as a child with claps and friction on pant legs or by rubbing your hands together? This is another way to incorporate sound into your lesson time. You make a storm, and you learn about weather and science at the same time. 

As you consider hearing, don’t forget to consider your tone and the words you use. 

If your tone is harsh and strict, students are more likely to tune out. However, if you use a tone that is happy and excited, it will help your students to be excited about learning and participating. 

In addition, allowing children to hear praise will build their self-confidence and self-esteem. This will ultimately help them feel more confident in their ability to learn.

Beyond Lesson Time

Beyond lesson time, there are various ways you can incorporate sound to help stimulate learning. However, there are two big ones we want to address here. 

The first is to reduce background noise. Background noise can distract students and actually deter the learning process. By reducing them, you give your students the best chance at success. 

The second is to utilize music in the classroom. Music is great to help students with learning. 

Classical music is an excellent choice to put on while your students study. Music not only enhances learning but also memory, language, and attention. 

Improve Learning Through the Five Senses

Now that you know how to stimulate learning through the five senses, there’s no better time to start than now. 

Karen Guiffre is dedicated to creating healthy learning environments that foster the spirit of education. Keep reading to learn how you can make learning real for the students in your classroom.

Masks On or Off?

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Educators First and Foremost — With Masks On or Off

I remember, just three short months ago, my colleague, Dr. Maribeth Edmunds and I, were brainstorming all that could be done with the abundance of cloth masks worn to school day after day during the COVID pandemic. We imagined a quilt much like The NAMES Project AIDS Memoria†rl Quilt made so many years ago. We were almost giddy as we were lulled into thinking masks were a thing of the past. 

Today, face mask wars are in full force as departments of education and legislative branches from state to state decide, with great urgency, whether to mandate masks in school, as the new COVID Delta variant attacks our children in record numbers. 

The divide among legislators, public health officials, educators, and parents are being seen in courtrooms, town halls, classrooms, and school buildings. There has been little as polarizing in recent months. In The Atlantic, Kelly Carothers, mother of twin 5-year olds in Florida, worries, “The kids are sitting ducks,” while irate parents in Franklin, Tennessee, shout “We will not comply” to a mask mandate. 

While contention and disruption brews, “I am an educator,” rings in my ears and causes me to stand tall, with pride. I, and my fellow educators, make a profound difference in children’s lives. We are essential to their upbringing, their development as whole people, and their sense of responsibility as citizens of this great nation. Children need us now, more than ever, to be their champions, their mentors, their arbiters of data and facts as they grapple with fear, anxiety, and loss.  

The new variant of the COVID virus, and the looming danger surrounding children can be overwhelming. Add to this the tension among adults debating masks and vaccines. Children are being asked to live beyond their years. They are losing so much more than adults, as they lose their childhood. We can, as educators, return to them opportunities to wonder, play, make friends, and learn. Isn’t this the promise we made when we accepted the monumental responsibility of teaching children?

Look beyond the rancorous noise and capture the hearts and minds of your students. Smile and they will smile back. Wearing a mask? Do this with your eyes, your voice, and your body. Do it with what you offer in the classroom. Speaking of classrooms, remember the term does not dictate four walls and a door. Take children outside in the fresh air where they can remove their masks, breathe deeply, and take in the wonders of nature while they read, write, calculate, and express their wonderings and knowledge. Be creative in your development of curriculum, imagine ways to teach history, science, and math using wide-open spaces and found materials. 

Worried about managing children outdoors? Spend less money on the purchase of standardized tests and study materials and reallocate the funds. Hire aides, nature guides, and Paraprofessionals. Join forces with your colleagues and teach in mixed-aged groups where older children help those younger than them. Expand your ability to manage children with a co-teacher at your shoulder. Team-teach with a respect for your colleague’s schema and approach to educating. You may find this refreshing and inspiring. 

If not now then when? When will we, educators, remind the world of our importance, impact, and contribution to society? When will we stand up for the children we know to be powerful, resourceful, and competent? When will we stand for their right to evolve through all of childhood’s milestones and luscious moments? Now is the time to embrace children, to offer them our very best selves. We are first and foremost, EDUCATORS regardless of if we have masks on or off.

6 Ways Teachers Can Integrate Social-Emotional Learning

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Social-emotional learning is vital; it gives students an essential life skill. These skills include building confidence, making decisions, connecting in social situations, working with others, understanding their own abilities, and improving relationships.

Social-emotional learning is important to help boost emotional intelligence. Unfortunately, this aspect of learning is often neglected in favor of academic subjects.

There are ways to embed these skills into your existing teaching so they’re not forgotten. These six methods work in the classroom but you can also use them with distance learning.

Read on to learn how to use social-emotional learning in your teaching.

1. Let Students Practice Problem Solving

When students have problems, it can be tempting to try and solve them straight away. Teachers often jump in to give children the answer so they don’t get frustrated and give up.

Yet encountering problems provides an opportunity to put social-emotional learning into practice. Let the students figure out how to find an answer before you step in.

A great piece of teaching advice is to introduce the Brain, Book, Buddy, and Boss system. This is a simple approach that also teaches students to be independent learners.

Brain

First, the student should think about the problem. What solutions come to mind? They might use mind maps at this stage. This also helps them to process any frustration so they can manage their emotions.

Book

Does the student need to look up the answer? They might access books or digital sources at this point to solve the problem.

Buddy

Can they solve the problem with the help of a friend or classmate? This is an excellent chance for them to practice working with others.

Boss

Finally, if they haven’t solved it by now, they can come to you. Often, students will solve their problems during the first three stages. If they come to you ask, “Have you looked, asked, and then tried with a friend?”

This approach is a great way to build motivation in your students. It goes beyond their grades and addresses how they tackle their learning.

2. Use Journal Writing Every Day

Various studies have shown the health benefits of daily journaling. This practice is also a great alternative teaching method for social-emotional learning.

Choose a point in the day for independent writing, and either offer or ask students for a journal prompt. Use a separate social-emotional learning notebook if you can.

You can tie this activity to what they’re recent studies or projects. Before you move onto a new subject, ask them, “What was your biggest challenge for this task? How might you overcome that?” “When did you feel accomplished and why?”

Other prompts might help them explore what they learned and how they approached their work. This gives them the chance to review their learning but also practice their SEL skills.

Let the children discuss these prompts with their classmates. Their classmates can offer new perspectives or insights.

Your students can practice their writing skills while sharing sentiments with others. With practice, children become more willing to reveal their emotions and show their vulnerability. They also celebrate their achievements.

Use Journals to highlight the emotions expressed by others

As an extra activity, pose questions during specific subjects. If you’re reading a book, start discussions about how characters might feel. Prompt students to examine possible thoughts the characters might have and the actions feelings might prompt.

You can also use this when considering historical figures. It’s an excellent way to promote SEL awareness and empathy. This also helps children understand the feelings and thoughts of others.

You can add other forms of journaling into your teaching day. These approaches are great at helping students sharpen their awareness skills, get their thoughts in order, and label their emotions.

3. Use Group Work

Group work gets students to practice their social-emotional learning. It teaches them that they don’t need to be able to do everything on their own and that two or more heads are often better than one.

Using group tasks also teaches children how to work with others. Appoint leaders in each group who must further delegate tasks to others. This helps students pinpoint their ability to bring out the best in others. Can they inspire and be inspired by others?.

It’s a great way to teach students to take personal and collective responsibility. Also, group work lets you embed multisensory teaching into your approach.

4. Hold Class Meetings

Building a community in your classroom is a vital way to use SEL strategies on a regular basis. Holding meetings with the students is a simple way to do this.

You might have a short meeting every morning as a warm-up for the day. Or you may hold them once a week. You might break in the middle of the day and ask students to think about how things are going and what interactions lead to a feeling of accomplishment. 

Use these meetings to highlight progress, solve problems, or plan activities. Introduce various processes so children begin to differentiate their approach to learning.

It’s also an opportunity for you. Becoming a better teacher means knowing you don’t need to have all the answers. Let your students take the lead; let them crowdsource answers from each other.

Begin tomorrow by greeting your students at the classroom door and say goodbye to each at the end of the day. Ask them how their day is going/has gone. This is important,  it’s a human need to feel seen and acknowledged.

5. Model and Use Positive Self-Talk

Students are used to hearing a lot of negative self-talk. This is often present in their favorite video games and films, or even in their homes.

Negative self-talk can lead children to set low expectations or get frustrated with themselves. One way to combat this is to purposefully use positive self-talk.

Doing so provides a form of reassurance and self-soothing. This helps children manage their emotions and compose themselves in all situations.

Encourage your students to use positive self-talk when engaged in tasks. Model positive self-talk by speaking your thoughts and identifying your options out loud when dealing with the challenge.

6. Focus on a Growth Mindset

Teach your students the difference between a fixed and a growth mindset. Focus on the aspects of developing a growth mindset, and encourage students to adopt one.

This will make children more resilient and better able to cope with frustration. It can also help them to study harder, meet challenges, and achieve their goals.

One way to inspire a growth mindset is to ask your students to reflect on the work they’ve done. They can identify what they did well, but also what they would improve next time. This teaches them there is always space to grow and helps them to evaluate their own work. It often helps them overcome the need for perfection.

Embed Social-Emotional Learning in All Classroom Tasks

There are endless ways to embed social-emotional learning skills within your lessons. These six methods are easy to add to what you’re already doing.

They also layer well, so you can mix and match methods depending on your students. Adding these alternative teaching methods is as important as Math or English skills.

Karen is dedicated to building better learning environments that equip students with both education and life skills. For tips and mentorships, get in touch today.

Inspiring Students: 9 Ways to Support Your Student’s Creativity

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Are you an educator who struggles with your creative students?

While some students are well-suited to the world of academia, others struggle. Their creativity is a gift, but it may cause them to feel under-stimulated and unfulfilled in a conventional classroom environment. 

Inspiring students to express themselves and learn in their own ways is part of your job. Are you up to the challenge?

If you’re ready to commit to improving your classroom, keep reading to learn all about how you can make your classroom friendlier to unconventional thinkers and encourage creativity.

1. Allow "Outside of the Box" Thinking

Depending on the age of the students you’re teaching, you may feel inclined to encourage only one way of thinking. The delivery of facts and figures is difficult and daunting. As a teacher, you know that students will have to think inside of the box most of the time. 

That said, by discouraging “outside of the box” thinking, you’re not doing your students any favors. 

Consider the following example. You’ve taught your students how to attack a math problem in a specific way. You’ve shown them step-by-step directions that should lead them to the correct answer.

One of your students finds the correct answer through a different method. Do you take points off?

If your answer is yes, you’re discouraging creativity. Part of inspiring students is showing them that their methods are valid, even if they’re unique or unconventional. 

Creativity is expected in the world of explorative ventures like writing or drawing. By allowing it in more “strict” fields, like math and science, you’re creating unique thinkers.

2. Encourage Independent Problem-Solving

Some children never develop good problem-solving skills because they have answers fed to them by teachers or other students.

It’s important to encourage students to collaborate (more on that later), but one of the best teaching strategies to encourage creativity is to incorporate independent problem-solving. 

Most children are blessed with some form of creativity. Their minds are still elastic and they tend to see things from unique perspectives. They can solve problems on their own if you give them the resources instead of the answers.

By expecting children to figure things out without too much help, you’re encouraging them to discover creative solutions and use their brains. You’ll be shocked by what these young thinkers come up with on their own!

3. Don't Discourage Doodles

Many teachers get frustrated when they notice a child who is doodling or writing non-academic things in the margins of their schoolwork. 

While it’s important that your students do all of their work, a student who is doodling while listening, thinking, or after their work is done should be encouraged, not discouraged. Doodling is often the first step on a child’s path toward being an artist. It’s often what leads to powerful stories, movies, and comics.

Even if the child never becomes a full-fledged artist, doodling can be a sign that this child processes information in a different way. Some children doodle while they think.

Some children doodle when they’re trying to stay focused, not because they’re distracted. Consider giving the child a separate sheet of paper for doodling and a place to save, maybe even display, their work. Let them know that their creativity alongside their schoolwork is important. 

4. Focus on Strengths

Speaking of allowing doodles, make sure that you teach to each student’s strengths.

This is difficult when you have many students. It requires flexibility and unique lesson plans. The extra effort will make a huge difference in each child’s life. 

There’s a saying that goes “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” While this quote is often misattributed to Einstein, it has some truth behind it. 

While all children are capable and you should encourage them to do things outside of their comfort zones, you also have to remember that some children have strengths that lie outside of traditional schoolwork.

When you notice that a child isn’t responding to the way that you’re teaching them, why not try something new? 

For example, let’s talk about book reports.

Some children love to write book reports. They’re good at analyzing texts and writing about their thoughts. Other children struggle with this, but this doesn’t mean they haven’t read the book or don’t have anything to say.

When you do a final project on a book, why not allow alternative methods? 

Students can make picture book summaries, short videos, powerpoints, and more. Each of these approaches can allow the child to show their understanding of the book. It enables them to work to their best ability. Grading students based on the expectations of conventional education instead of their strengths isn’t helpful. Here’s where you get to think outside the box.

5. Set Up a Flexible Classroom

What does your classroom layout look like? 

If you’re like many teachers, children are either in pods or individual desks. You may rearrange seats every so often, but overall, students remain in their own spots.

There are benefits to this. If you know that some students can’t work together or can’t stop talking to each other, it’s helpful to keep them apart. That said, is it really the best option?

Consider allowing a flexible seating plan when students are working together. 

By allowing flexibility, you’re encouraging students to collaborate and work together on tasks. They learn to get along and talk to each other (which is crucial for their social development). 

Encourage children to work with people with whom they’ve never worked before. This makes children think and interact in new ways.

Inspiring creativity by encouraging collaboration and communication is a wonderful way to incorporate unique thinking and problem-solving into the classroom. It also gives your students a level of independence that they wouldn’t otherwise have.

6. Hands-On Learning Matters

How many opportunities do your students have to engage in hands-on learning? 

Many children learn by doing or by engaging in unique experiences. While reading a book is good enough for some students, others will flex their creativity muscles when they have the opportunity to be more interactive with their lessons. 

Hands-on learning activities are often enriching, fun, and creative. You might have, readily available, manipulative, art supplies, or recycled materials. Consider a cadre of dress-up clothing, masks, and beads and baubles to embellish these items. Imagine the re-enactments and storytelling that might come alive. 

7. Create Unconventional Lesson Plans

Speaking of hands-on learning, it’s your job as an educator to create unique and unconventional lesson plans to support and encourage creative students. 

Lecturing or reading to students is easy. For new teachers, this is often the most obvious way to adapt to a teaching environment. That said, these approaches aren’t simulating for creative children. 

Consider adding unique activities when you’re trying to spark creativity in your classroom. Put yourself in the mind of a student: What would you like to do if you were them? 

Sometimes the best lesson plans involve field trips, even if they’re small. You don’t need an expensive or well-planned trip to stretch a student’s mind in new ways.

Can’t take them out of the classroom? Bring the field trip to them by inviting local community members, experts, and hobbyists to visit your classroom and share their knowledge. You might even encourage a joint project with a school around the world or in a neighboring town. 

If you’re teaching a science lesson, why not make it into a scavenger hunt? Take children on a nature walk and have them locate local flora and fauna.

You can also create a classroom garden. Have children decorate their own pots and give them seeds to nurture and take care of. This shows them the life cycles of plants in real-time. 

When it comes to teaching literature, consider using short plays or others engaging multi-sensory activities to teach the children and encourage their creativity. Let them make small costume accessories and work together to put on brief “shows” for the rest of the class. 

By teaching in unconventional ways, you’re making students think in unconventional ways. 

8. Use Visual Aids

If you want your children to feel confident when they’re expressing their creativity, consider using more visual aids in the classroom.

Most assignments in conventional classrooms aren’t stimulating. They may cause students to feel bored and uninspired. By adding examples and items to handle, manipulate, and examine more closely you may spark some creative responses.

Better yet, allow your students to help create these visual aids. Let them consider the topic you are introducing, do some research prior to your delivery, and create the materials that you’ll use while delivering your lesson plan. 

This gives children more autonomy and responsibility and lets them flex their creativity muscles. 

9. Follow Your Students' Lead

When you’re not sure how to support students who need more creative education strategies, try to follow their lead.

You can’t put children in charge of their education, but you can watch them learn what they need. A lot of the teaching process is trial and error, so test out new strategies with your creative students and see what works best for them. 

While it may seem silly, consider asking your students what they would like to see in your classroom. It’s possible that students will write down silly things, like extra recess or pizza parties, but many will share ideas that are useful to you. Ask them how they best learn.

Inspiring Students: It Starts With You

Inspiring students is one of the best and most fulfilling aspects of being an educator. You’re molding and shaping young minds and preparing these children for the real world.

While academic education is important, supporting creative students and encouraging their creativity (instead of trying to tame it) will change their lives and outlooks. You might be helping a future creator. 

Are you ready to make some much-needed changes to your teaching strategies and educational style? Why not pursue new and unconventional possibilities? 

Karen Guiffre is committed to fostering positive learning environments for all students. For tips and mentorships, get in touch today.

What is a Multisensory Teaching Technique?

Posted on by Karen Giuffre

Applying a multisensory learning technique can be as simple as following along in a book as a student reads aloud. It can be as complex as using percussion instruments to demonstrate a mathematical principle. There is no template for student-centered learning. 

It can be overwhelming for teachers who are getting started with this whole-brain and whole-body approach to education. I’ve found it helpful to break it down into modalities. Keep in mind that multisensory teaching, by definition, involves using two or more modalities to reach learners.

What Is a Multisensory Learning Technique?

New teachers have told me, “I use multisensory techniques in my classroom! I have an essential oil diffuser! Sometimes I play music during the writer’s workshop!” 

These are wonderful ways to create a pleasant, home-like environment for your students. They are also great examples of what multisensory learning is not. 

Teachers who utilize multisensory learning techniques utilize multiple modalities to reach their students. We can shorten the list of modalities to VAKT – visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile. Strong multisensory activities utilize two or more senses at once. 

Like all solid pedagogy, a multisensory teaching technique must be intentional. Teachers employing this technique are not sending unconscious sensory cues to their students. They are very deliberately teaching students to take in new learning through their senses across content areas. 

This is especially important for budding children but ultimately serves every individual we teach. When I think of some of my most memorable former students, my mind goes to their particular strengths and worldviews. The first step toward teaching through all of the senses is to identify and embrace the diverse ways your unique students experience the world. 

Teachers who employ multisensory teaching techniques effectively provide various sensory-driven entry points to any area of learning. I’ll be honest; it requires a lot of empathic perspective-taking! You must help students use their own prior knowledge to make meaningful sensorial connections. 

How can you help your students touch reading? How can you guide them to hear math? Do they have the opportunity to embody the history and see science?

Why Use Multisensory Techniques?

Teaching students through the senses is a way of teaching children how to imagine the world complexly. You are allowing students to practice using their whole brains to process their unique human experience.

Neuroscience and Connections

While children’s brains are developing, they are creating synapses all of the time. The more synapses they have, the easier they can make connections and recall information. If they don’t make certain connections, they will lose them, sometimes for life. 

Engaging the senses helps students create and hold onto information by activating the areas of the brain tied to memory. 

While Howard Gardner’s theories surrounding the multiple intelligences and learning styles may be less concise than initially thought, they still inform educational practice. The research shows us that students learn best when they engage in both novel and meaningful ways! 

As classroom educators, we know that we are not the students’ only teachers. Their families and environments have taught them first. It is our job to harness that context to support them as learners. 

We help build bridges and form connections when we honor the ways that students learn best. Offering multiple entry points to learning is a way of recognizing where children come from and helping them get where they want to be. In that regard, multisensory learning is all about connections.

Engagement

Multisensory learning has the added benefit of being highly engaging. What student doesn’t rise to the occasion when the material is presented in a way that addresses their individual strengths as a learner? Multisensory learning involves learning. 

I am always amazed by the wealth of lessons and experiences that I can recall from my time as a student. It should not be surprising that each of those experiences was active! I was busy reading, making, talking, and moving! 

Once I began implementing more intentional multisensory techniques in my classrooms, I found I was equally involved as a co-learner. I also benefited from receiving new learning through my senses! I have many fond memories of exploring beside my students, and all are tied to knowledge. 

The most engaged students are using their senses constantly. Project-based learning (in which the student is the researcher) can teach you the many ways students gravitate toward sensory experiences. When given agency, students will show you what they understand using the sensorial languages in which they are fluent!

Service

For a full-body experience to sink in, it must be meaningful. Often, this means that students are reading aloud to other students or using oral language to present findings. The auditory element of multisensory learning means both hearing and making audible. 

When my peer is my teacher, I can both hear and see. When my peer is my collaborator, I can speak and create. When my peer is my student, I can guide them toward understanding in the way that best reaches them. 

As a result, multisensory learning is inherently a social process! I would go as far as to say that, in a classroom that embraces multisensory learning, engaging fully in one’s education can be an act of service. Students are constantly serving one another in these small but important ways.

What Does Multisensory Learning Look Like?

If you haven’t been lucky enough to see the multisensory approach to learning in action, you may be stumped when it comes to how to apply these engaging techniques. I have found it helpful to break them down into individual sensory modalities.

Remember that multisensory learning involves teaching and learning through more than one modality at a time. The key is combining the modalities in exciting and dynamic ways.

Make Learning Visual

Visual learning seems to be one of the easiest modalities for teachers to implement. This can be as simple as “including visuals” – a PowerPoint presentation, a poster, a picture. Seeing the thing you are talking about can be enough to make ideas click, especially for younger learners. 

This can also mean utilizing color in a meaningful way. Students may highlight, organize information, or create some sort of visual sort. This can easily be made tactile or kinesthetic! 

It is also meaningful for students to craft their own visuals, which are active and tactile. Students who are drawing, sketching from life, or creating from imagination are all deeply engaged.

Make Learning Auditory

A multisensory classroom is not always a quiet classroom. After all, what does learning sound like? Students who are explaining, reading aloud, composing, and listening are all teaching and learning. 

Curate podcasts or audiobooks! Use period music and place your students in context to teach history! Allow students to present to peers and explain what they understand in their own words!

Make Learning Tactile

Even the most traditional pedagogy involves the use of tactile sensory techniques to teach symbols such as letters and numbers. How can students touch the alphabet? How can they use materials to build models that confirm what they understand about the ways numbers work?

Students love to make. Research on young learners has shown that they are less intimidated when asked to make a book than writing one. Providing opportunities for students to become makers is a great way to implement tactile experiences across the content areas.

Make Learning Kinesthetic

Kinesthetic learning has the added benefit of supporting the young child’s developmental needs. Fine and gross motor development is essential for engagement in more complex academic tasks. Kinesthetic learning supports a learner’s need to build muscles and proprioceptive skills. 

Most of the time, kinesthetic learning means incorporating games into the classroom. These games don’t need to be competitive, but they should be engaging! How can you incorporate materials like tweezers, beanbags, or skipping rope? 

Better yet, have the students develop their own games to teach, review, or reinforce learning.

Multisensory Teaching and Learning for a Harmonious, Engaged Environment

By now, creative teachers will be making their own connections and finding ways to mix and match these sensory modalities to create high-engagement experiences for their students! What are you doing in your classroom to implement this multisensory learning technique? What new ideas might you try to encourage students to participate in their education with their whole-brain and whole-body? 

I would love to hear from you and learn more about your experiences! Visit my website to contact me and tell me what you’ve tried. While you’re there, feel free to read some of the other helpful posts intended to support teachers.

Is Data King: What really matters?

Posted on by Karen Giuffre

Lately, there has a lot of talk about data being king. When I explore what data constitutes parents most strongly consider prior to enrolling their children in our school, they most often refer to college acceptance as a significant demonstration of success among our students. We are happy to report 100% acceptance at 4-year colleges with impressive academic scholarships.

However, lately I have found myself taking a broader look at the measure of success, particularly as alumni return to me bemoaning the straight path from college and internship to career, financial security, and happiness. What exactly constitutes success in the minds and heart of Voyagers’ alumni?

According to Madeline Levine in The Atlantic Magazine, “Financial independence is one way to measure success, a sense of doing meaningful and fulfilling work is another, and raising a healthy family and contributing to one’s community yet another.” (February 2020) The question is in the order of importance and the significance of each factor on the whole person.

When I consider the Voyagers’ students who have moved on to college, I find most have managed the academics admirably, completed interesting and challenging internships, and graduated. Many have traveled and studied abroad and some have moved on to graduate school. There are others who chose a different path. They opened businesses, moved on to earn a certificate in a trade, served communities overseas, and established nonprofit organizations and small businesses. Many, whether in or outside of college, have taken meandering paths that have revealed opportunities to be flexible, try new things, turn passions into profit, and hold onto happiness.

Often, Voyagers’ graduates consider themselves successful because they are passionate about the work they do and find that this passion drives them to work harder than others, handle mistakes effectively, and learn from failures. They feel what they do has an impact and this is the indicator of success, and where satisfaction and happiness is rooted. While money must be earned for most, real success has many other characteristics for these adults.

While the tale of success for our high school students often, like so many others when moving on, involves a seemingly straight line, from grades and SAT scores, to admittance to colleges and the completion of an internship and graduation, our data tells us they are meandering within and outside of tradition, having graduated, taken sabbaticals, transferred, changed majors, initiated startups, toured with a band, and opened small businesses.

Our graduates continue to prove that anything is possible and that many are following circuitous trajectories that are of their own making and driven by a desire to be contributing members of society with financial stability, personal satisfaction, and happiness. They continue, after Voyagers’, on a path that leads to success as defined by them. They live the Voyagers’ Vision as they grow and learn as a whole person; develop thinking and working attitudes that empower them to take over their own growth; reflect their vision, tenacity, initiative, imagination, generosity, and exploration ; approach life with a bounding level of excitement, enthusiasm, creativity, ingenuity, inquisitiveness and individual satisfaction; invoke vibrancy and trust in themselves; find their voice and participate in a democratic community; and where their learning and life is defined by no one and by everyone.

About the Author: Karen Giuffre’, M.Ed is the Founding Director of Voyagers’ Community School, soon celebrating its 15th year. She is staunchly dedicated to constructing joyful learning spaces with children from 12 months through 12th Grade. She finds kindred spirits among other innovative educators who are dedicated and work every day to ignite students’ curiosity. In the coming months, she will introduce Journal readers to Innovation In Education.

To Grade or Not To Grade: Sparking intrinsic motivation

Posted on by Karen Giuffre

Leaders in the field of education have spent lots of time addressing the question of assessment, standardized testing, and reporting grades. Why? Because they believe grades motivate. Many educators are rethinking this theory and consider it shortsighted. Teachers and even whole schools are dedicating time to discussing intrinsic motivation. What makes students want to do their very best? Are there ways in which we stifle this? Inevitably, grades and rankings weave their way into conversations.

In most schools across America, a student’s work boils down to one thing, a grade, which represents everything about the child’s progress in a class and, collectively, during a school year. Most people say, “So what, shouldn’t the best student be rewarded?” “How else are we going to know how a student is performing and what they learned?” More often, educators are realizing grades are subjective, arbitrary and, often, demoralizing. Whether an “A” or a “D”, grades serve to squelch motivation, limit possibilities, and ignore a student’s learning path. Grades either open or close doors, as they become gatekeepers to colleges and careers.

Progressive schools around the world and in our very communities are built on ideas, challenges, and reflective engagement. Among these ideas is the abandonment of grades wholly or partially. Instead, educators in these schools compose narrative reports and often, with older students’ self-reflection in mind, provide an individualized and comprehensive evaluation. They rarely assign grades and always provide a lengthy look at the whole person in the context of academic, social, and emotional learning.

There is no limit to what can be learned when the race to the best grades is removed from the equation. When students can dig in without fear of failing or slipping in class rank anxiousness disappears and the floodgates open. Teachers are assured learning happens because interest builds and risks are taken. Students are not hampered by an impending grade. Even when grades are a part of a student’s life, as is the case at Voyagers’ Community School’s (VCS) High School in Eatontown, grading becomes a group project. Students create rubrics, grade themselves and others, and defend their position regarding grades. High schoolers are encouraged to debate assigned grades.

So, what about teaching at a progressive school where content and student engagement rather than grades prove a teacher’s worth? This is a challenging job. Faculty members are asked to keep students’ interests at the fore and to incorporate the skills they need to learn. The conversations that are typical among teachers include constant questions, recap, and “what ifs”. Teams of teachers talk about what they heard; how they, compared to their colleagues, interpret what they heard; what it means; and where to go next. Designing and delivering a class that is flexible yet structured, deep without preconceived notions, and student-directed is not for the faint-hearted. As a humanities teacher entering a two-hour class without a sure plan, I often feel like I do when I fly a stunt kite. “Where in the world is it going and how do I keep it in flight?” It’s exhausting, energizing, and always interesting. No class is like another. Some are stupendous. This is not because I was on my game, it’s because together we, the students, and teachers, connected well beyond that which is typically evaluative.

At VCS we invest an inordinate number of hours in narrative documentation for all of our students and students demonstrate learning through the use of digital portfolios. We skip grading for all students through eighth-grade; translate work to grades for 7th and 8th graders applying to local schools and academies; and grade high school students over stretches of time, with their help. In an hour or two, a parent can see and, in conversation with a student, understand what has been learned. This is far more informative than any single grade or collection of grades. It is far more reflective of a teacher’s ability to engage, motivate, and inspire students. Narrative reporting can be implemented in any classroom, or school-wide, with a shift of perspective. In this way, teachers and students are rewarded.

In this environment, grades become one piece of a larger narrative, as teachers keep detailed notes and students and teachers populate individual digital portfolios that show and tell the topics and ideas being explored and the work being done. Of greater importance, students and teachers openly question each other’s thinking, work, and contribution to the learning environment. This goes well beyond the competition that comes with grades. Students are motivated because they see themselves in a broader world outside of themselves and they want to be a part of the conversation. Through this interplay students become passionate learners, who know themselves deeply, direct themselves, take criticism, and push to improve. This can’t be graded and shouldn’t be undervalued.

Karen Giuffre’, M.Ed is the Founding Director of Voyagers’ Community School, soon celebrating its 15th year. She is staunchly dedicated to constructing joyful learning spaces with children from 12 months through 12th Grade. She finds kindred spirits among other innovative educators who are dedicated and work every day to ignite students’ curiosity. In the coming months, she will introduce Journal readers to Innovation In Education.

Let’s Talk About “Back To School”

Posted on by Karen Giuffre

As parents, grandparents, students, teachers, and community leaders ready ourselves for another school year for our children, we should ask of our test and standards-driven schools around the country, “Is that all there is?” We all have the responsibility of assuring today’s children that we are providing them with the very best conditions for the ultimate outcome.

Yes, children should learn and even master reading, writing, and thinking mathematically. They should also have a good sense of US and world history, geography, and science. Hopefully, there is time for art, music, technology, and physical education. The day should be balanced out with sufficient time for lunch and recess too.

The three R’s are “must-haves” but it is everyday experiences that grow our children’s sense of place, identity, and talent. Will they be outgoing, gregarious, curious, generous, intuitive, studious, ingenious, and worldly or the opposite? Will school, where children spend the majority of their waking hours, bolster or squelch the greatest possibilities in each child?

The best in children arises from a school environment that creates and fosters hope, acceptance, compassion, love, curiosity, strength, connectivity, empathy, unity, and intelligence. In these environments, children create defining images of themselves individually and in community with others. You might ask, “How does a school provide the optimal experience for each child?”

It begins with thoughtfully designed and appointed spaces, not just because it looks good, but because it says to a child, “You are important.” “You deserve beautiful spaces.” Children will feel nurtured when beauty and care is expressed through the design and decor of classrooms, play yards, the school building, and common areas. Turn on the TV or search for a podcast or webinar, and you will find a home decor show every day of the week, without fail. We think about and strive to achieve warmth and aesthetically pleasing spaces at home because it expresses us and wraps us in comfort. It brings out our best selves. This is true in schools as well.

Creating the optimal school environment requires unconstrained time for thinking, doing, and exploring all ideas, even those that seem outlandish. When this happens in a classroom or a whole school, it tells children, “What you think matters.” “Your curiosity piques my interest.” “Your contribution is significant and beneficial to our learning community.” Creating this condition leads to the expansion of ideas, the avoidance of judgment, and broader thinking for all. It results in a try, try, and try again growth-mindset.

Schools should provide experiences such as tinkering, exploring the outdoors, solving community problems, working unconstrained by time, developing passions and talents, and building relationships with people and ideas. This can all be done through thoughtfully crafted schedules, curriculum, and lesson plans. This can be accomplished with an eye toward cross-curricula design and differentiation in instruction, in lively classrooms. When this approach is offered in sincerity and with the thought that, “anything is possible,” the possibilities are endless, and the learning is lifelong.

Letting children rule their environment, with adults providing facilitation rather than management, is also imperative. Yes, rules of safety must be handed down to children. However, the everyday code of conduct and expectations in a classroom or school can be designed and reinforced by the children. This opportunity should not be limited to a few students who serve in student government but rather to the whole community of children, so all parties have a voice for the benefit of all. Every young person is empowered and involved and called to solve scuffles and disagreements. When children are “solutionaries” they become emotionally aware of themselves and others and grow to be good problem-solvers, friends, mentors, collaborators, and leaders.

Educators, through their words and actions, must create an environment that exudes love, respect, engagement, and acceptance. This exists when children are recognized beyond their names and viewed as whole and ever-changing beings. Often children are assigned preconceived identities that place them in categories or groups based on mannerisms, habits, accents, appearances, prior academic performance, et al. Teachers and administrators contribute to each child’s sense of identity, which they carry into adulthood. When children are valued, heard, and honored by educators they make their way in the world with confidence, joy, and love for their surroundings and people. They become empowered to manage their own future and our shared future.

School is an essential part of each child’s life; it is, in a sense, an organism, a system, a being. How it contributes to each of its parts, particularly children, is important to all of us. We must be proactive in asking schools to love, nurture, and educate every child fully and with great thought and care. We must identify and choose schools that are best for our children now.

Karen Giuffre’, M.Ed is the Founding Director of Voyagers’ Community School, soon celebrating its 15th year. She is staunchly dedicated to constructing joyful learning spaces with children from 12 months through 12th Grade. She finds kindred spirits among other innovative educators who are dedicated and work every day to ignite students’ curiosity. In the coming months, she will introduce Journal readers to Innovation In Education.

The Progressive School

Posted on by Karen Giuffre

In today’s digitally infused society, most parents of high school aged students would agree that this generation faces increasingly complex challenges that can greatly impact their adulthood. Educators also face the increasingly difficult task of preparing students for jobs that likely do not exist as of today. With these thoughts in mind, how do parents find the “perfect fit” for the unique learning needs of their child? Many parents may not realize there are varied educational options for today’s high school students, beyond the typical traditional educational approach of the past.

Most high schools today operate from a long-standing traditional format that was successful for students of years past. In these types of instructional settings, students are placed in overcrowded classrooms where they move through a rapidly paced curriculum and only experience surface level understanding of concepts. Teachers are forced to deliver subject matter that is based solely on content standards with little to no regard for students’ interests, motivations, academic abilities, or unique current day needs.

But what if we could rethink the educational process and design a program that is tailored to the 21st century needs of adolescents? What if we could create a learning environment that engages students in meaningful learning experiences where we ignite a spark for learning, foster individual creativity, and instill a deep, intrinsic desire to be change makers, innovators, and confident visionaries? Progressive schools may be the answer to these tough questions facing parents, as they pave the way for this type of educational reform and transforming how students are now learning.

In our area, Voyagers’ Community School in Eatontown, the first in New Jersey to offer Socratic Seminar and experiential, project-driven learning at the high school level, provides a solid intellectual foundation for adolescents. This approach allows high school students not only to ask what to do but moreover to think on their own and ask why. Progressive schools are dedicated to the idea that children have to take an active role in their intellectual and social learning. They also believe, from day-to-day children should be given intellectual freedom, agency, and a say in their education. This is founded in the belief that teenagers are capable and trustworthy. Progressive high schools typically do teach traditional academics but in non-traditional ways.

Common among almost all progressive high schools is an interwoven approach to studying classic subjects including literature, history, science, math, world languages, an unusual variety of electives, guided independent studies and opportunities for student leadership. Progressive education at any age promotes personal initiative and adaptability, engaging all parts of a student’s development, not just the academic aspects. Progressive education culture embodies respect for the individual and the rewards of participation in a community. This approach set the stage for collaboration, inspiration, and forward-thinking intelligence.

Schools with a progressive education philosophy allow for the social construction of ideas and values the individual. The establishment of schools steeped in this progressive education theory date back to the mid 1800’s when John Dewey, a professor of philosophy and the head of the Chicago University’s Teacher College, expressed his belief that children should be encouraged to develop “free personalities” and that they should be taught how to think and to make judgments rather than to simply have their heads filled with knowledge. He also believed that schools were places where children should learn to work cooperatively.

By creating opportunities for intellectual development, Voyagers’ Community School high school and others like it enable students to become discerning. These adolescents learn to discover and examine an extensive body of information, evaluate evidence, consider all perspectives, and only then form their own conclusions. Higher-order thinking is crucial for college and life success, where knowledge, skills, and perspectives must continuously adapt to our rapidly changing world. Progressive schools, teach that questions matter as much as answers and thinking, solving, and doing are pillars of a meaningful education.

Common among almost all progressive high schools is an interwoven approach to studying classic subjects including literature, history, science, math, world languages, an unusual variety of electives, guided independent studies and opportunities for student leadership. Progressive education at any age promotes personal initiative and adaptability, engaging all parts of a student’s development, not just the academic aspects. Progressive education culture embodies respect for the individual and the rewards of participation in a community. This approach set the stage for collaboration, inspiration, and forward-thinking intelligence.

Students come to realize discovery and adventure, in the form of experimenting and creating in a STEM/STEAM Lab, Artist’s’ Studio, Writer’s Center, or Field Laboratory, complement robust academic and social pursuits. The caveat is proven success; adolescents attending progressive schools go on to reputable colleges and universities, into 21st-century professions like eGaming and social media marketing, and join traditional trades. More significantly, they lead lives with confidence, curiosity, and a sense of social justice and citizenship. These young adults possess worldly panache.

Karen Giuffre’, M.Ed is the Founding Director of Voyagers’ Community School, soon celebrating its 15th year. She is staunchly dedicated to constructing joyful learning spaces with children from 12 months through 12th Grade. She finds kindred spirits among other innovative educators who are dedicated and work every day to ignite students’ curiosity. In the coming months, she will introduce Journal readers to Innovation In Education.

Let’s Pursue New and Broad Possibilities

Posted on by Karen Giuffre

Columnist Andreas Schleicher, in TeacherMagazine.com, frets, “It’s so much easier to educate students for our past, than for their future. The biggest risk to schooling today isn’t its inefficiency; our way of schooling is losing its purpose and relevance.”

These days, people, cities, countries, and continents are connecting digitally in ways that vastly increase human potential. Any one person can shift the trajectory of most anything for better or worse. Collectively, people can address big problems and find ample solutions. The speed and power of digital technology, with all its complexity, introduces once unthinkable and still unfathomable possibilities.

Today, success comes to those who have ideas long before they have the financing. Ideas are not rooted in textbook knowledge. Recognizing a problem and conceiving of a solution involves the ability to see beyond what is obvious, formulate questions, conceive of concepts, apply practical skills and intuitions, and integrate what one comes to think and know. Through trial and error, flexibility, ingenuity, and perseverance people find an answer to a big problem or simple nuisance.

In a structurally imbalanced world, the imperative of reconciling diverse ideas and interests requires people to become adept in handling tensions and dilemmas. Progress requires people to strike a balance between competing needs for equity and freedom, autonomy and community, and innovation and continuity. Can this be taught in an education system that is inherently resistant and reluctant to change?

Undeniably, schools teach important and necessary skills. Society greatly benefits from a citizenry that can read, write, manipulate numbers, understand various fields of science, possess knowledge of global, social and political issues, and articulate thoughts, beliefs, and facts. However, this alone is quickly becoming woefully and obviously inadequate. Why are we complacent and complicit? What holds us back from expecting more for our students?

Some point their fingers at teachers who are comfortable in the status quo, teaching as they were taught. Others blame parents, who are resistant to their children learning skills they don’t know and studying subjects and concepts they were never taught. But at the heart of the problem is a large and cumbersome ecosystem called public schooling, that is driven by political and economic interests, antiquated beliefs, corporate motivations, and fear of failure. It’s a system that requires compliance and blind commitment to a teach-and-test approach.

Today, people are no longer celebrated for what they know, unless they appear on Jeopardy; Google seems to know everything. We marvel at people who have the capacity to theorize, search and sort through information, and deeply understand and make sense of content. Those who think, work collaboratively, develop new ideas, and contribute to society are leagues ahead of others. Knowledge is only as valuable as our capacity to act on it.

For education to be of service to its students and society it needs to emphasize the integration of subjects, of students and of learning conditions, be connected with real-world contexts, and cognizant of the resources in the community. Instruction needs to be project-based and co-created by students and teachers. This requires adults to see their students as resourceful and competent with ideas of value and worth.

Educators need to model characteristics of collaboration and mentorship and tap into their own passions and those held by their students in order to create curricula that are responsive and innovative. The future is also about creating partnerships that unlock limitless potential. Schools should provide for, and educators should welcome, synergies that find new ways to enhance professional, social and cultural capital with others.

In the face of fast and furious advancement will our children be offered an education that inspires them to be nimble and curious inventors and social and cultural contributors? We can allow technology and globalization to lead or we can realize these are the tools to a new cultural, social, and economic landscape where original ideas grow and our children emerge as vital participants and contributors. Let’s imagine and pursue new and broad possibilities. Let’s demand and help create schools where children and teachers collectively and vibrantly play with words and numbers, explore ideas and inventions, experiment and innovate, and step into the realm of risk, failure and success.

Karen Giuffre’, M.Ed is the Founding Director of Voyagers’ Community School, soon celebrating its 15th year. She is staunchly dedicated to constructing joyful learning spaces with children from 12 months through 12th Grade. She finds kindred spirits among other innovative educators who are dedicated and work every day to ignite students’ curiosity. In the coming months, she will introduce Journal readers to Innovation In Education.

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