Neurodevelopmental Differentiation: Optimizing Brain Systems To Maximise Learning

As classroom teachers know firsthand, it is critical for K–12 students to be able to extend their learning. But expecting all students to attain the same performance via generalised instruction is unrealistic. Educators must honour and leverage students’ unique learning strengths to support students and expand their possibilities for success.

In Neurodevelopmental Differentiation: Optimizing Brain Systems to Maximize Learning, authors Andrew Fuller and Lucy Fuller explain that by understanding the brain’s eight information-processing systems:

1. spatial reasoning,
2. perceptual and motor skills,
3. concentration and memory,
4. planning and sequencing,
5. thinking and logic,
6. people smarts,
7. language and word smarts, and
8. number smarts;

educators can help students apply their processing strengths to areas that challenge them using individualised learning plans. With this approach, learners’ growth is limitless.

Readers will:

• Study the eight brain information-processing systems and understand how developing strengths in these areas increases academic success
• Discover how to identify students’ learning strengths and blockages
• Learn how to develop individualised learning plans to fit the needs of all students
• Review templates for recording and tracking student progress
• Contemplate reflective questions on the eight brain areas to determine next steps in their classrooms

Table of Contents

About the authors

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1 Spatial Reasoning

Chapter 2 Perceptual and Motor Skills

Chapter 3 Concentration and Memory

Chapter 4 Planning and Sequencing

Chapter 5 Thinking and Logic

Chapter 6 People Smarts

Chapter 7 Language and Word Smarts

Chapter 8 Number Smarts

Chapter 9 Implementing Neurodevelopmental Differentiation

References

Index