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My work as an educational therapist is student-centered and focuses on mediating, collaborating and coaching students to understand how they think and learn. The intellectual underpinnings of this process draws on research from a variety of disciplines— psychology, education, neurobiology, sports and art—all disciplines that seek to explore how we perceive, learn, think and express ourselves. This sets a student up with the skills they need for school, lifelong learning and success
In this role, I focus on:
• Cognition—understanding how we think and perceive
• Meta-cognition—understanding how we strategize and plan
• Memory—understanding how we retain information as we build our knowledge base
• Pragmatics—understanding how to be more efficient and implementing effective strategies to manage time and effort.
My results are based on mediating the learning experience. As a Feuerstein practitioner, I believe in the effectiveness of the mediated learning theory. I often use the Instrumental Enrichment instruments to explore abstract problem solving and bridging newly acquired awareness and skills to content. For example, working systematically on the Organization of Dots instrument provides an opportunity to understand impulsive behaviors, such as spontaneously jumping to the wrong conclusion, or answering a question before it’s asked. The communication involved with students mediates their experience of their perception, allowing them to develop alternative ways to think and behave. They achieve sustainable improvement How extensively the IE instruments are used is student and situation dependant.
My training as an Educational Therapist and Feuerstein practitioner conveniently coincide with my personal experience of learning difference, and allow me to understand the effects of learning differences on performance from an insider’s perspective. Hence, my goal is to help students avoid the pain and suffering learning differences can impose on us in so many complex ways. I try and move beyond the labels attached to learning disability by the medical establishment, at the same time acknowledging their veracity, hence mediating a fresh new perspective of self. This more effective self carries on with life.
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